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ProDOS-Utils/README-veserver.md

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VEServer - Virtual Ethernet Drive Server for Apple II

Purpose

VEServer is a very simple virtual disk server for an Apple II equipped with a compatible ethernet card (such as the Uthernet II.) VEServer can run on Linux, Mac or Windows, provided Python v3 is installed. It is intended to be used with the Apple II client program VEDRIVE.SYSTEM which is included as part of the ADTPro disk imaging program.

ADTPro's VEDRIVE.SYSTEM program is designed to communicate with the ADTPro server, which is a multi-platform Java program. VEServer can be used in place of the ADTPro server for this purpose. VEServer is a much smaller and simpler program, so it is easier to modify and better suited to being run as a system service.

Principle of Operation

VEServer uses IPv6 and listens on UDP port 6502 for incoming datagrams from VEDRIVE.SYSTEM. There are two types of supported request:

  • Read disk block and obtain updated system date and time
  • Write disk block

Two simulated drives are supported, backed up by disk files in .po "ProDOS Order". These may be 143K or 800K floppy disk images or any volume up to the ProDOS limit of 32MB.

VEServer can provide system date and time in a similar manner to an Apple II clock such as Thunderclock or No Slot Clock. Because the legacy ProDOS date and time format will run out in a few years time, ProDOS 2.5 introduces a new date and time format. VEServer uses the legacy format by default. If using ProDOS 2.5 please specify the --prodos25 flag to use the new format.

Command Line Options

There are only a few options:

  • -h, --help - Display brief usage information.
  • -p, --prodos25 - Use new ProDOS 2.5 date/time format (see above.)
  • -1 FNAME, --disk1=FNAME - Specify filename for disk 1 image.
  • -2 FNAME, --disk2=FNAME - Specify filename for disk 1 image.

Running in a Shell

You can just run veserver.py directly, for example ./veserver.py --prodos25 -1 /home/woz/hd32_1.po -2 /home/woz/hd32_2.po.

When run in a shell, each block number read or written is logged, and vt100 escape codes are used to colourize the output. Reads are shown in green and writes in red. If a block number is prefixed by a + symbol this indicates that VEServer believes this is a duplicate request, which is usually caused by UDP packet loss. If a block number is shown prefixed by X, this indicates a checksum failure (not seen in normal operation.)

Running as a System Service using Systemd

A sample Systemd unit file veserver.service is provided. This has been tested on Raspbian (Raspberry Pi) but may need modifications for other distributions of Linux. On most systems you just need to edit the veserver.service file to reflect the path where veserver.py is installed and copy it to /lib/systemd/system.

Once the service file has been installed, you can control the veserver service as follows:

  • systemctl start veserver
  • systemctl status veserver

The reads and writes are logged to the system log and may be seen using the following command:

  • systemctl stop veserver

Rather than using colour to indicate reads and writes the letter 'R' or 'W' is shown before the block number in the log.