Help Centre Installing BasiliskII Setting up BasiliskII Networking Using BasiliskII The configuration file
The preferences file is a text file editable with any text editor. Each line in this file has the format “keyword value” and describes one preferences item. For each keyword, the meaning of the “value” string may vary across platforms. The following keywords exist:
disk <volume description>
This item describes one MacOS volume to be mounted by Basilisk II.
There can be multiple "disk" lines in the preferences file. Basilisk II
can handle hardfiles (byte-per-byte images of HFS volumes in a file on
the host system), HFS partitions on hard disks etc., and MacOS-partitioned
disks (it can only access the first partition, though). The "volume
description" is either the pathname of a hardfile or a platform-dependant
description of an HFS partition or drive. If the volume description is
prefixed by an asterisk ("*"), the volume is write protected for MacOS.
Basilisk II can also handle some types of Mac "disk image" files directly, as long as they are uncompressed and unencoded.
BeOS: To specify an HFS partition, simply specify its path (e.g. "/dev/disk/scsi/0/1/0/0_3"). If you don't specify any volumes, Basilisk II will search for and use all available HFS partitions.
Unix: To specify an HFS partition, simply specify its path (e.g. "/dev/sda5"). If you want to access a MacOS-partitioned hard disk or removable volume (Jaz, Zip etc.) and your operating system doesn't understand MacOS partition tables, you can specify the block device name (e.g. "/dev/sda") to access the first HFS partition on the device. Under Linux, if you don't specify any volumes, Basilisk II will search /etc/fstab for unmounted HFS partitions and use these.
AmigaOS:
Partitions/drives are specified in the following format:
/dev/<device name>/<unit>/<open flags>/<start block>/<size>/<block size>
"start block" and "size" are given in blocks, "block size" is given in
bytes.
Windows: To define a logical volume (Windows NT only), specify its path (e.g. "c:\"). To define a physical volume (NT and 9x), additionally give the "physical" keyword (E.g. "physical c:\"). For safety reasons, volumes are mounted as read-only. This is due to the bugs in PC Exchange. If you don't specify any volume, the files *.hfv and *.dsk are searched from the current directory. Note that in this case, Basilisk II tries to boot from the first volume file found, which is random and may not be what you want.
floppy <floppy drive description>
This item describes one floppy drive to be used by Basilisk II. There can be multiple "floppy" lines in the preferences file. If no "floppy" line is given, Basilisk II will try to automatically detect and use installed floppy drives. The format of the "floppy drive description" is the same as that of "disk" lines.
cdrom <CD-ROM drive description>
This item describes one CD-ROM drive to be used by Basilisk II. There can be multiple "cdrom" lines in the preferences file. If no "cdrom" line is given, Basilisk II will try to automatically detect and use installed CD-ROM drives. The format of the "CD-ROM drive description" is the same as that of "disk" lines.
extfs <direcory path>
This item specifies the root directory for the "Host Directory Tree" file system (the "Unix/BeOS/Amiga/..." icon on the Finder desktop). All objects contained in that directory are accessible by Mac applications.
This feature is only available when File System Manager V1.2 or later is installed on the Mac side. FSM 1.2 is built-in beginning with MacOS 7.6 and can be installed as a system extension (downloadable from Apple, look for the FSM SDK in the developer section) for earlier MacOS versions.
scsi0 <SCSI target> … scsi6 <SCSI target>
These items describe the SCSI target to be used for a given Mac SCSI ID by Basilisk II. Basilisk II emulates the old SCSI Manager and allows to assign a different SCSI target (they don't even have to be on the same SCSI bus) for each SCSI ID (0..6) as seen by the MacOS. "scsi0" describes the target for ID 0, "scsi1" the target for ID 1 etc. The format of the "SCSI target" is platform specific.
BeOS: The "SCSI target" has the format "<bus>/<unit>" (e.g. "0/2"). Due to a bug in BeOS, using SCSI with Basilisk II may cause the SCSI bus to hang. Use with caution.
Linux: The "SCSI target" has to be the name of a device that complies to the Generic SCSI driver API. On a standard Linux installation, these devices are "/dev/sg0", "/dev/sg1" etc. Note that you must have appropriate access rights to these devices and that Generic SCSI support has to be compiled into the kernel.
FreeBSD: The "SCSI target" has the format "<id>/<lun>" (e.g. "2/0").
AmigaOS: The "SCSI target" has the format "<device name>/<unit>" (e.g. "scsi.device/2").
Windows: The "SCSI target" has the format <"Vendor"> <"Model"> (e.g. scsi0 "HP" "CD-Writer+ 7100"). Note the use of quotes.
screen <video mode>
This item describes the type of video display to be used by default for Basilisk II. If you are using a Mac Classic ROM, the display is always 1-bit 512x342 and this item is ignored. The format of the "video mode" is platform specific.
BeOS:
The "video mode" is one of the following:
win/<width>/<height>
8-bit color display in a window of the given size. This is the
default.
scr/<mode>
Full-screen display in BWindowScreen. <mode> is the bit number of
the video mode to use (see headers/be/interface/GraphicsDefs.h).
E.g. 0 = 640x480x8, 1 = 800x600x8 etc., 10 = 640x480x24,
11 = 800x600x24 etc., 18 = 640x480x15, 19 = 800x600x15 etc.
15 bit modes are preferable to 16 bit modes (which may show false
colors on PowerPC machines).
When you run in full-screen mode and switch to another Workspace,
Basilisk II is put in "suspend" mode (i.e. MacOS will be frozen).
Unix:
The "video mode" is one of the following:
win/<width>/<height>
Color display in an X11 window of the given size. There are several
resolutions and color depths available. The set of color depths
depends on the capabilities of the X11 server, the operating system,
and Basilisk II compile-time options, but 1 bit and the default depth
of the X11 screen should always be available.
dga/<width>/<height>
[if Basilisk II was configured with --enable-xf86-dga]
Full-screen display using the XFree86 DGA extension. The color depth
(8/15/24 bit) depends on the depth of the underlying X11 screen.
"width" and "height" specify the maximum width/height to use.
Saying "dga/0/0" means "complete screen".
dga/<frame buffer name>
[if Basilisk II was configured with --enable-fbdev-dga]
Full-screen display using the frame buffer device /dev/fb. The color
depth (8/15/24 bit) depends on the depth of the underlying X11 screen.
The "frame buffer name" is looked up in the "fbdevices" file (whose
path can be specified with the "fbdevicefile" prefs item) to determine
certain characteristics of the device (doing a "ls -l /dev/fb" should
tell you what your frame buffer name is).
AmigaOS:
The "video mode" is one of the following:
win/<width>/<height>
Black-and-white display in a window of the given size on the
Workbench screen. This is the default and will also be used when
one of the other options (PIP/screen) fails to open.
pip/<width>/<height>
15-bit truecolor display in a Picasso96 PIP. This requires
Picasso96 as well as a PIP-capable graphics card (e.g. Picasso IV).
scr/<hexadecimal mode ID>
8/15/24-bit fullscreen display on a Picasso96/CyberGraphX screen with
the given mode ID. This requires Picasso96 or CyberGraphX. For 15 and
24 bit, the frame buffer format must be QuickDraw-compatible
(big-endian, xRGB 1:5:5:5 or xRGB 8:8:8:8). The screen size will be
the default size for that mode ID.
Windows:
The "video mode" is one of the following:
win/<width>/<height>/<bits per pixel>
A refreshed screen mode that uses Windows GDI calls to write to the
screen. You may have other windows on top of Basilisk II.
dx/<width>/<height>/<bits per pixel>
A refreshed DirectX mode (minimum version 5.0). There are ways to
install DirectX 5 on NT 4. Some new display adapters work fine even
with DirectX 3.
fb/<width>/<height>/<bits per pixel>
A non-refreshed video mode that works only on NT. It accesses the
linear frame buffer directly (best performance of all three modes).
Use the hotkey Control-Shift-F12 to switch between Windows and Mac
displays. Fast task switch (Alt-Tab) and Explorer start menu
(Control-Esc) are disabled, Control-Alt-Del is enabled.
<width> and <height> can be either zeroes (uses current screen values),
or something else. "win" mode can use almost anything, for other modes
there must be a corresponding DirectX mode.
<bits> is ignored for mode "win" (uses current screen values).
If the mode is "win" and the dimensions are different than the desktop
dimensions, windowed mode is used. The window can be moved around by
dragging with the right mouse button. This mode remembers window positions
separately for different dimensions.
The supported values are 8,15,16,24,32. It is possible that some of them
do not work for you. In particular, it may be that only one of the
two modes, 15 and 16, is suitable for your card. You need to find out
the best solution by experimenting.
Basilisk II checks what display mode you are currently running and uses
that mode. The screen is always full screen. When you switch to another
application via Alt-Tab, Basilisk II is put in "snooze" mode (i.e. MacOS
is frozen).
Mac OS X:
The "video mode" is one of the following:
win/<width>/<height>
win/<width>/<height>/<bits per pixel>
A refreshed (and buffered) Quartz window.
full/<width>/<height>
full/<width>/<height>/<bits per pixel>
A CGDirectDisplay full screen mode. <bits> can currently be 8, 16 or 32.
If not specified, the default is 32. There is currently no way to switch
between the Mac OS X and Basilisk II display, but Apple-Option-Escape
instantly and safely terminates the Basilisk II program.
seriala <serial port description>
This item describes the serial port to be used as Port A (Modem Port) by Basilisk II. If no "seriala" line is given, Basilisk II will try to automatically detect and use installed serial ports. The "serial port description" is a platform-dependant description of a serial port.
BeOS: Either specify the name of a serial port (e.g. "serial1") or one of "parallel1", "parallel2" or "parallel3". See below for more information about parallel ports.
Unix: Specify the device name of a serial port (e.g. "/dev/ttyS0") or a parallel "lp" port (e.g. "/dev/lp1"; this only works under Linux and FreeBSD). See below for more information about parallel ports.
AmigaOS: You have to specify the name of the serial device and the device unit as "<device name>/<unit>" (e.g. "serial.device/0"). If the given device is not compatible to serial.device, Basilisk II will crash. If the device name starts with an asterisk (e.g. "*parallel.device/0"), the device is treated as a parallel.device compatible device. See below for more information about parallel ports.
Windows: Specify "COM1" or "COM2" for com port 1 or 2, respectively.
Parallel ports: If you select a parallel port it will look like a serial port to MacOS but Basilisk II will only allow data output and ignore baud rate settings etc. You should be able to get some printers to work with this method (provided that you have the right printer driver, like "Power Print" (see www.gdt.com)).
serialb <serial port description>
This item describes the serial port to be used as Port B (Printer Port) by Basilisk II. If no "serialb" line is given, Basilisk II will try to automatically detect and use installed serial ports. The format of the "serial port description" is the same as that of the "seriala" option.
ether <ethernet card description>
This item describes the Ethernet card to be used for Ethernet networking by Basilisk II. If no "ether" line is given, Ethernet networking is disabled (although the Ethernet driver of Basilisk II will behave like a "dummy" Ethernet card in this case). If you are using a Mac Classic ROM, Ethernet is not available and this setting is ignored. The "ethernet card description" is a platform-dependant description of an ethernet card.
General note: To use TCP/IP from MacOS, you should assign a different IP address to the MacOS (entered into the MacOS TCP/IP (or MacTCP) control panel). Otherwise there will be confusion about which operating system will handle incoming packets.
BeOS: It doesn't matter what you give as "ethernet card description", Basilisk II will always use the first Ethernet card it finds as long an an "ether" line exists (e.g. say "ether yes"). Using Ethernet requires the "sheep_net" Net Server add-on to be installed. The first time you start Basilisk II with Ethernet enabled you will be asked whether it's OK to make the necessary changes to your BeOS network configuration to enable sheep_net.
Linux: The "ethernet card description" is the name of an Ethernet interface. There are four approaches to networking with Basilisk II:
1. Direct access to an Ethernet card via the "sheep_net" kernel module.
The "ethernet card description" must be the name of a real Ethernet
card, e.g. "eth0".
The sheep_net module is included in the Basilisk II source
distribution in the directory "src/Unix/Linux/NetDriver". You have
to compile and install the module yourself:
$ su
[enter root password]
# make
# make dev
[this will create a /dev/sheep_net device node; you should give
appropriate access rights to the user(s) running Basilisk II]
# insmod sheep_net.o
If you copy the sheep_net.o module to a place where it can be found
by the kernel module loader ("/lib/modules/<version>/kernel/drivers/net"
for 2.4 kernels) and add the line
alias char-major-10-198 sheep_net
to "/etc/modules.conf", the kernel should be able to load the module
automatically when Basilisk II is started.
The sheep_net module will allow you to run all networking protocols
under MacOS (TCP/IP, AppleTalk, IPX etc.) but there is no connection
between Linux networking and MacOS networking. MacOS will only be
able to talk to other machines on the Ethernet, but not to other
networks that your Linux box routes (e.g. a second Ethernet or a PPP
connection to the Internet).
2. Putting Basilisk II on a virtual Ethernet via the "ethertap" device.
In this case, the "ethernet card description" must be the name
of an ethertap interface, e.g. "tap0". It also requires that you
configure your kernel to enable routing and ethertap support:
under "Networking options", enable "Kernel/User netlink socket" and
"Netlink device emulation", under "Network device support", activate
"Ethertap network tap". You also have to modify drivers/net/ethertap.c
a bit before compiling the new kernel:
#include lines)
Next, see /usr/src/linux/Documentation/networking/ethertap.txt for
information on how to set up /dev/tap* device nodes and activate the
ethertap interface. Under MacOS, select an IP address that is on the
virtual network and set the default gateway to the IP address of the
ethertap interface. This approach will let you access all networks
that your Linux box has access to (especially, if your Linux box has
a dial-up Internet connection and is configured for IP masquerading,
you can access the Internet from MacOS). The drawback is that you
can only use network protocols that Linux can route, so you have to
install and configure netatalk if you want to use AppleTalk. Here is
an example /etc/atalk/atalkd.conf for a LAN:
eth0 -seed -phase 2 -net 1 -addr 1.47 -zone "Ethernet"
tap0 -seed -phase 2 -net 2 -addr 2.47 -zone "Basilisknet"
(the "47" is an arbitrary node number). This will set up a zone
"Ethernet" (net 1) for the Ethernet and a zone "Basilisknet" (net 2)
for the internal network connection of the ethertap interface.
MacOS should automatically recognize the nets and zones upon startup.
If you are in an existing AppleTalk network, you should contact
your network administrator about the nets and zones you can use
(instead of the ones given in the example above).
3. Access the network through a "tuntap" interface.
The "ethernet card description" must be set to "tun".
TUN/TAP provides packet reception and transmission for user
space programs. It can be viewed as a simple Point-to-Point
or Ethernet device, which instead of receiving packets from a
physical media, receives them from user space program and
instead of sending packets via physical media writes them to
the user space program.
Prerequesties:
- Make sure the "tun" kernel module is loaded
# modprobe tun
- Make sure IP Fordwarding is enabled on your system
# echo 1 >/proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward
A virtual network configuration script is required and the
default is /usr/local/BasiliskII/tunconfig unless you specify
a different file with the "etherconfig" item.
This script requires you that "sudo" is properly configured
so that "/sbin/ifconfig" and "/sbin/iptables" can be executed
as root. Otherwise, you can still write a helper script which
invokes your favorite program to enhance a user priviledges.
e.g. in a KDE environment, kdesu can be used as follows:
#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/bin/kdesu -c /path/to/tunconfig $1 $2
4. Access the network through the user mode network stack.
(the code and this documentation come from QEMU)
By setting the "ethernet card description" to "slirp",
Basilisk II uses a completely user mode network stack (you
don't need root priviledges to use the virtual network). The
virtual network configuration is the following:
Basilisk II <------> Firewall/DHCP server <-----> Internet
(10.0.2.x) | (10.0.2.2)
|
----> DNS server (10.0.2.3)
|
----> SMB server (10.0.2.4)
Basilisk II behaves as if it was behind a firewall which
blocks all incoming connections. You can use a DHCP client to
automatically configure the network in Basilisk II.
In order to check that the user mode network is working, you
can ping the address 10.0.2.2 and verify that you got an
address in the range 10.0.2.x from the Basilisk II virtual
DHCP server.
Note that ping is not supported reliably to the internet as
it would require root priviledges. It means you can only ping
the local router (10.0.2.2).
When using the built-in TFTP server, the router is also the
TFTP server.
FreeBSD: The "ethertap" method described above also works under FreeBSD, but since no-one has found the time to write a section for this manual, you're on your own here...
AmigaOS: You have to specify the name of the SANA-II Ethernet device and the device unit as "<device name>/<unit>" (e.g. "ariadne.device/0"). If the given device is not a SANA-II device, Basilisk II will crash. If the device is not an Ethernet device, Basilisk II will display a warning message and disable Ethernet networking.
Mac OS X: The "slirp" method described above nearly works.
See the next item for an alternative way to do networking with Basilisk II.
udptunnel <“true” or “false”>
Setting this to "true" enables a special network mode in which all network packets sent by MacOS are tunnelled over UDP using the host operating system's native TCP/IP stack. This can only be used to connect computers running Basilisk II (and not, for example, for connecting to the Internet or an AppleShare server running on a real Mac), but it is probably the easiest way to set up a network between two instances of Basilisk II because the UDP tunnelling doesn't require any special kernel modules or network add-ons. It relies on IP broadcasting, however, so its range is limited. It should be fine though for doing a little file sharing or playing Spectre.
udpport <IP port number>
This item specifies the IP port number to use for the "UDP Tunnel" mode. The default is 6066.
rom <ROM file path>
This item specifies the file name of the Mac ROM file to be used by Basilisk II. If no "rom" line is given, the ROM file has to be named "ROM" and put in the same directory as the Basilisk II executable.
bootdrive <drive number>
Specify MacOS drive number of boot volume. "0" (the default) means "boot from first bootable volume".
bootdriver <driver number>
Specify MacOS driver number of boot volume. "0" (the default) means "boot from first bootable volume". Use "-62" to boot from CD-ROM.
ramsize <bytes>
Allocate "bytes" bytes of RAM for MacOS system and application memory. The value given will be rounded down to the nearest multiple of 1MB. If you are using a Mac Classic ROM, the maximum available value is 4MB and higher values will be ignored. The default is 8MB.
frameskip <frames to skip>
For refreshed graphics modes (usually window modes), this specifies how many frames to skip after drawing one frame. Higher values make the video display more responsive but require more processing power. The default is "8". Under Unix/X11, a value of "0" selects a "dynamic" update mode that cuts the display into rectangles and updates each rectangle individually, depending on display changes.
modelid <MacOS model ID>
Specifies the Macintosh model ID that Basilisk II should report to MacOS. The default is "5" which corresponds to a Mac IIci. If you want to run MacOS 8, you have to set this to "14" (Quadra 900). Other values are not officially supported and may result in crashes. MacOS versions earlier than 7.5 may only run with the Model ID set to "5". If you are using a Mac Classic ROM, the model is always "Mac Classic" and this setting is ignored.
nosound <“true” or “false”>
Set this to "true" to disable all sound output. This is useful if the sound takes too much CPU time on your machine or to get rid of warning messages if Basilisk II can't use your audio hardware.
nocdrom <“true” or “false”>
Set this to "true" to disable Basilisk's built-in CD-ROM driver. The only reason to do this is if you want to use a third-party CD-ROM driver that uses the SCSI Manager. The default is "false".
nogui <“true” or “false”>
Set this to "true" to disable the GUI preferences editor and GUI error alerts. All errors will then be reported to stdout. The default is "false".
keyboardtype <keyboard-id>
Specifies the keyboard type that BasiliskII should report to the MacOS.
The default is "5" which is a "Apple Extended Keyboard II (ISO)",
but many other numbers are understood by most versions of the MacOS
(e.g. 11 is a "Macintosh Plus Keyboard with keypad",
13 is a "Apple PowerBook Keyboard (ISO)" )
For additional information, consult the source.
System-specific configuration
Unix:
keycodes <"true" or "false"> keycodefile <keycodes file path>
By default, the X11 event handler in Basilisk II uses KeySyms to translate keyboard event to Mac keycodes. While this method is very compatible and ought to work with all X servers, it only works well if your keyboard has a US layout. If you set "keycodes" to "true", Basilisk II will use raw keycodes instead of KeySyms. The keycode depends only on the physical location of a key on the keyboard and not on the selected keymap. Unfortunately it depends on the X server being used and possibly also on the type of keyboard attached. So Basilisk II needs a table to translate X keycodes to Mac keycodes. This table is read by default from /usr/local/share/BasiliskII/keycodes unless you specify a different file with the "keycodefile" item. A sample keycode file is included with Basilisk II.
fbdevicefile <fbdevices file path>
This option specifies the file that contains frame buffer device specifications for the fbdev-DGA video mode (when Basilisk II was configured with --enable-fbdev-dga). The default location of the file is /usr/local/share/BasiliskII/fbdevices. A sample file is included with Basilisk II.
mousewheelmode <mode>
If you have a mouse with a wheel, this option specifies whether moving the wheel will be reported to the MacOS as "Page up/down" (mode 0) or "Cursor up/down" (mode 1) keys.
mousewheellines <number of lines>
If "mousewheelmode" is set to mode 1 (Cursor up/down), this option sets the number of key events sent to MacOS for each wheel movement (the number of lines to scroll).
ignoresegv <"true" or "false">
Set this to "true" to ignore illegal memory accesses. The default is "false". This feature is only implemented on the following platforms: Linux/x86, Linux/ppc, Darwin/ppc.
dsp <device name> mixer <device name>
Under Linux and FreeBSD, this specifies the devices to be used for sound output and volume control, respectively. The defaults are "/dev/dsp" and "/dev/mixer".
AmigaOS:
sound <sound output description>
This item specifies what method to use for sound output. The only choice is currently AHI, but you can specify the AHI mode ID to be used. The "sound output description" looks like this:
ahi/<hexadecimal mode ID>
scsimemtype <type>
This item controls the type of memory to use for SCSI buffers. Possible
values are:
0 Chip memory
1 24-bit DMA capable memory
2 Any memory
Be warned that many SCSI host adapters will not work with the "Any memory" setting. Basilisk II has no way of knowing which memory type is supported by the host adapter and setting an unsupported type will result in data corruption.
Windows:
noscsi <"true" or "false">
Completely disables SCSI Manager support when set to "true". Note that currently all SCSI operations are executed synchronously, even if Mac application has requested asynchronous operation. What this means is that the control is not returned to the application until the command is completely finished. Normally this is not an issue, but when a CDR/CDRW is closed or erased the burner program typically wants to wait in some progress dialog the result may be that the application reports a time-out error, but the operation completes all right anyway.
nofloppyboot <"true" or "false">
Set this to "true" to disable booting from a floppy.
replacescsi <"Vendor1"> <"Model1"> <"Vendor2"> <"Model2">
This command tricks the Mac to believe that you have a SCSI device Model2 from vendor Vendor2, although your real hardware is Model1 from Vendor1. This is very useful since many devices have almost identical ATAPI and SCSI versions of their hardware, and MacOS applications usually support the SCSI version only. The example below is typical:
replacescsi "HP" "CD-Writer+ 7100" "PHILIPS" "CDD3600"
Note the use of quotes.
rightmouse <0/1>
Defines what the right mouse button is used for. The default values of 0 means that it is used to move windowed mode BasiliskII screen. Value 1 sends a combination Control and mouse click to the MacOS. This may be useful under OS versions 8 and above.
keyboardfile <path>
Defines the path of the customized keyboard code file.
pollmedia <"true" or "false">
If true (default), tries to automatically detect new media. Applies to all "floppy", "cd" or "disk" removable media except 1.44 MB floppies. May cause modest slow down. If unchecked, use Ctrl-Shift-F11 to manually mount new media. If you have auto-insert notification (AIN) enabled, you may turn this option off. Note that some CD related software require AIN, and some other need it to be turned off. Consult the documentation of your CD software to learn which one is optimal for you.
framesleepticks <milliseconds>
The amount of time between video frames.
showfps <true/false>
If true, the real frame rate is displayed.
stickymenu <true/false>
If true, the main menu bar is kept open even after the mouse button is released, under all OS versions (OS 8 has this feature already). There are extensions to do the same thing, but it's faster to handle this in native code. Default is "true".
ntdx5hack <"true" or "false">
You may need this on NT if your display adapter driver has a bug in DirectX palette support. Black and white are reversed. It fixes the palette issue by using GDI palette instead of D3D palette. Default is false.