Novell Netware FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for NOVELL@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU Mailing List

# Version number 19950918

This FAQ file is maintained by Floyd Maxwell

The FAQ is organised into fairly distinct sections. Questions are numbered
relative to the section and new sections may appear, depending on what
other material comes the way of the editor.

Material for the FAQ is always welcome. One good way to immortalize
yourself is to submit a question (and ideally an answer) for the FAQ to
the FAQ maintainer (Floyd Maxwell ). If you spot any
omissions or errors in the FAQ, please contact the FAQ maintainer.

The FAQ attempts to cover Netware 2.x, 3.x and 4.x with increasing coverage
of NetWare 4.x in general.

Items added or changed since the last issue are marked with a * in the
table of contents.

The FAQ can be identified by a "serial number". This is the date that the
file was last edited. The serial number appears (as can be seen above)
like this: Version number yyyymmdd, where yyyy is the year, mm is the
month and dd is the day of the month.

CONTENTS

A. INTRODUCTION
A.1 What is this "FAQ" file?
A.2 How can I get the FAQ?
A.3 How are questions added to the FAQ?
A.4 Things that should be in the FAQ but currently aren't

B. THE MAILING LIST
B.1 LISTSERV -- what is it?
B.2 Commands to LISTSERV
B.3 Posting a message to the list
B.4 List sysops
B.5 Guidelines to network etiquette
B.6 Other useful mailing lists/newsgroups
B.7 Archived messages from the mailing list

C. ARCHIVES OF USEFUL FILES
C.1 How do I get to the archives?
C.2 Official FTP sites for Novell files
C.3 Other useful FTP sites
C.4 Current NetWare program version numbers/dates
C.4.1 Current NetWare program version numbers/dates in SYS:PUBLIC
C.4.2 Current NetWare program version numbers/dates in SYS:LOGIN
C.4.3 Current NetWare program version numbers/dates in SYS:SYSTEM
C.4.4 Current NetWare NLM version numbers/dates in SYS:SYSTEM
C.4.4.1 WWW Site maintaining a list of most current NLMs:
C.4.5 Current VLM Client Kit program version numbers/dates
C.5 Current Personal NetWare program version numbers/dates
C.6 NetWare Patches and Updates FAQ location
C.7 NetWare Free, Patching, Patches and Version FAQs locations
C.8 Off-line alternatives
C.9 Joe D.'s .NCF files
C.9.1 Joe D.'s Startup.NCF
C.9.2 Joe D.'s Autoexec.NCF
C.9.3 Joe D.'s Patch.NCF
C.9.4 Joe D.'s Selected update/patch files for NW 3.12

D. NOVELL'S PHONE NUMBERS
D.1 Contacting other software and hardware companies on the net

E. TCP/IP AND NETWARE
E.1 What is TCP/IP
E.2 Why you might want TCP/IP and Netware to co-exist
*E.3 Packet drivers/ODI drivers/NDIS drivers
E.3.1 LAN WorkPlace (and other) documents available from Novell via WWW
E.4 Why can't multiple TCP/IP applications run on a workstation?
E.5 Routing TCP/IP through a file server
E.5.1 Why TCP/IP Routing Doesn't Always Work As Expected
E.5.2 Security considerations of allowing IP Source Routing
E.6 Setting up a Netware server as an FTP server
E.7 BOOTP and RARP
E.8 Further reading

F. ELECTRONIC MAIL
*F.1 Pegasus Mail
F.2 Setting up an Internet gateway for Pegasus Mail -- Charon
F.3 Another Internet gateway for Pegasus Mail -- Mercury
F.3.1 Pegasus/Mercury plus NetWare 4.1 considerations
F.4 Other electronic mail packages
F.5 Eudora

G. PRINTING
G.1 Printing to/from Unix systems
G.2 Sharing PC and Macintosh printers
G.3 Getting garbage in printouts
G.4 Alternatives to PCONSOLE & PSTAT for monitoring printer queues
*G.5 Relocating print queues
G.6 Do postscript printer viruses exist?
G.7 Printing to the right queue without running Win / Print / Setup
*G.8 Alternatives to PSERVER for more than 16 printers, etc.
*G.9 Print Server auditing programs
*G.10 Running NPrinter or RPrinter without being logged in

H. OTHER MATERIAL
H.1 Booting a server without running STARTUP.NCF/AUTOEXEC.NCF
*H.2 How to login without running the system/user login script
H.3 Remotely controlling a PC with a telnet compatible program
H.4 Getting userIDs and other information into programs
H.4.1 Environment variables
H.4.2 Piping in information from WHOAMI
H.4.3 Novell APIs
*H.4.4 Third Party Utilities
H.5 What do all those columns in STAT.NLM v2.0 mean?
H.6 Changing the number of licenced users on a Netware server
*H.7 Register memory ("Cache memory alloc. out of avail. memory" msg)
H.8 Where to get the Windows NT requester
H.9 Why can't I format a floppy under Windows when using boot ROM?
H.10 Getting a list of usernames on a server to an ASCII file
H.10.1 Creating users from an ASCII file
H.10.1.1 Mass User Management
H.10.1.2 UIMPORT
*H.11 Remote access to a LAN
H.12 Short Term Memory -- how much does your server need?
H.13 BTRIEVE -- what do I need?
*H.14 What to do if you've lost your SUPERVISOR password
H.15 Synchronising workstation time with server time
H.16 Problems with disks and tape drives on Adaptec SCSI controllers
H.17 FTP address/contact info for various NIC MLID drivers
*H.17.1 Suitable NICs for the NetWare server itself
H.18 Fax products for NetWare
*H.19.1 Backup software products for NetWare
H.19.2 Backup hardware products for NetWare
*H.19.3 Backup methodologies
*H.19.4 Disaster Recovery methodologies
H.20 Resetting Intruder Detection for Supervisor ID
H.21 Testing that the Login process was successful
H.22 Cron-like programs
H.23 Anti-Virus programs
*H.24 How can I keep my server on time?
H.24.1 What is my TIMEZONE?
H.25.1 NetWare Memory Requirements -- Time To Worry?
*H.25.2 NetWare Memory Requirements -- How Much Is Enough?
H.26 How to wire 10base-T cable using RJ-45 jacks
*H.27 Advantages of purging files
H.28 Moving user rights/passwords from server to server
*H.29 Spanning a volume across multiple hard drives
H.30 Load Balancing NLMs
H.31 Should I use SCSI or IDE hard drives on the file server
H.32 Expected bandwidth from "10 Mbit" ethernet
H.33 Performance considerations of Bridges versus Routers
*H.34 Data Transfer by Bus type
*H.35 Maximum wiring lengths
H.36 AC Power and its effect on file servers
H.37 Negative numbers from CHKVOL -- yup, time to worry
H.38 Running Netscape across NetWare (vs dial-up)
H.39 Help Desk software for NetWare
H.40 Deleting very large "sparse" files
H.41 Slow mount of 50 GB drive array
*H.42 Clearing "Not-Logged-In" license robbers
H.43 Running alternatives to MONITOR on the server console
*H.44 NLMs allowing access to NetWare Server C drive
*H.45 NLM to delay loading of AUTOEXEC.NCF NLMs
*H.46 Checksum errors showing up on MONITOR.NLM screen
*H.47 Using EMM386 with Boot ROM (ie. diskless) workstations
*H.48 Fixing NetWare partition problems when Mac support NLMs are used
*H.49 BSOD (Black Screen of Death) fix

I. SAMPLE CONFIGURATIONS
*I.1 Comparison between NETX and VLM NetWare Client Software
*I.2 Sample NET.CFG for conventional NETX shells
*I.3 Sample NET.CFG for VLM redirectors
I.4 Tuning the performance of the NetWare DOS Requester
*I.4.1 General Information
I.4.2 Memory handling
I.4.3 Module loading tuning / general tips
*I.4.4 Packet tuning
I.5 An Example STARTNET.BAT for use with the VLM Redirector
I.6 Sample Appletalk entries in AUTOEXEC.NCF

J. NETWARE 4.X MATERIAL
J.1 Installing Netware 3.12 or 4.0x without a CD-ROM drive (sort of)
J.2 Dumping your configuration to an ASCII file
J.3 To Upgrade or Migrate to NetWare 4.1
J.3.1 Upgrading to NetWare 3.12 instead of NetWare 4.1
J.3.2 Upgrading from NetWare 3.11 to NetWare 3.12
J.4 Disable Login Banner
J.5 Restoring NDS
J.6 Handling NetWare 4.x Page Faults
*J.7 NetWare 4.x block size, compression and sub-allocation
J.7.1 Alternative compression products

K. SOME USEFUL TEXTS & SOFTWARE
K.1 The Novell Companion
K.2 LAN Connectivity from New Rider Publishing
K.3 Using NetWare 4
K.4 Novell's guide to NetWare LAN analysis
K.5 Novell's SDK CD-ROM
K.6 EMS Professional Shareware NetWare CD-ROM
K.7 Shareware NetWare API Library
K.8 Quickpath to NetWare 4.1 Networks
K.9 Novell Application Notes
*K.10 The NSE Pro CD
*K.11 Netware 4 Administration

L. ETHERNET FRAME TYPES: DON PROVAN'S DEFINITIVE ANSWER
L.1 Introduction
L.2 The Physical Structure of the Four Ethernet Frame Types
L.3 The Political Origin of the Four Ethernet Frame Types
L.3.1 Where did Ethernet_II come from?
L.3.2 Where did Ethernet_802.2 come from?
L.3.3 Where did Ethernet_802.3 come from?
L.3.4 Where did Ethernet_SNAP come from?
L.3.5 Why does IPX run on all four frame types?
L.4 Should You Use Ethernet_802.3?
L.4.1 What frame type Joe D. uses
L.5 Which Ethernet frame type should I use for IPX?

M. OBTAINING CNE QUALIFICATION
M.1 What is a CNE
M.2 How to get CNE qualification
*M.3 Useful reading for CNE studies
M.4 CNE-related documents from Novell FAXBACK Service

N. CD-ROM MATERIAL
N.1 How do I get to see a CD drive on my Netware v3.12 server?
*N.2 100% CPU utilization when mounting a CD-ROM
N.3.1 CD-ROM software products for NetWare
N.3.2 CD-ROM hardware products for NetWare
N.4 CD-ROM resources via the WWW
N.5 Mounting an IDE CD-ROM on a NetWare server
*N.6 Mapping CD-ROM drives

O. NETWARE and VISUAL BASIC
O.1 Obtaining files demonstrating Visual Basic with Netware
O.2 Visual Basic and Netware AppNotes
O.3 Visual Basic and Netware Books
O.4 Apiary's Developer Suite for NetWare - VB 4.0 Edition

P. SELECTED ERROR MESSAGES -- WHAT THEY MEAN
P.1 "Lan receive buffer limit reached"
*P.2 "Primary Interrupt Controller Detected A Lost Hardware Interrupt"
P.3 "Loader cannot find public symbol..."

Q. NOVELL AND WINDOWS 95
Q.1 Booting Windows 95 from NetWare on a disk-less workstation
Q.2 Upgrading to Windows 95
*Q.3 Status of the NetWare Requestor for Windows 95
Q.4 Server install note
Q.5 Long filename install workarounds
Q.6 Crippled MS NetWare Requestor stack
Q.7 NetWare 4.x NDS and Windows 95
*Q.8 Windows 95 WWW links
Q.9 Telling Windows 95 to back-off!
Q.10 Let's be clear...this is a _NOVELL_ list
*Q.11 The best version of the Windows 95 Help File is...
*Q.12 Integrating the Netware Client 4 DOS/Windows (VLMs) with Windows 95
*Q.12.1 Installation Overview
*Q.12.2 Some FAQs on integrating NetWare Client kit (VLMs) with Windows 95
*Q.12.3 Detailed Step-by-Step Installation/Configuration Instructions
*Q.13 Windows 95 + SAPs .NE. NetWare file server !!!

R. TEXT EDITORS -- "If a tree falls in a forest..."
R.0 [Being FAQ editor has its advantages :)] Word 5/DOS from Microsoft
R.1 QEdit from SemWare
R.2 Multi-Edit from American Cybernetics
R.3 Brief from Borland
R.4 Edlin from Microsoft
R.5 Copy con filename from Microsoft
R.6 DOS 5.x/6.x (QBasic) Edit from Microsoft
R.7 WinEdit from Wilson WindowWare
R.8 MegaEdit from WinNET Communications, Inc.
*R.9 Epsilon from Lugaru Software
R.99 VEdit, KEdit, HEdit, PE, awk, grep, hack, belch & others

----------------------------------------------------------------------

A. INTRODUCTION

A.1 What is this "FAQ" file?

This FAQ file is a list of Frequently Asked Questions, both administrative
(how do I use this list?) and informational (where do I find this, how can
I use this correctly?), that are asked often enough that it would be of
general interest to post the answers to them periodically.

A.2 How can I get the FAQ?

This FAQ file is mailed every other Monday and is also available at:

North America:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/misc/faq.txt
*129.123.1.44*
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/misc/faq.txt

Europe:

ftp://ftp.salford.ac.uk/network/misc/novell.faq
*146.87.255.21*

If you do not have ftp access, contact the FAQ maintainer, Floyd Maxwell
, to receive a copy directly via eMail.

It is also available in HTML form at:

http://www.salford.ac.uk/ais/Network/Novell-Faq.html

Here it has been split into separate chunks for each section, which can be
referenced using the index page above. Any questions about the HTML
version of the FAQ should go to R.J.L. .

A.3 How are questions added to the FAQ?

This FAQ is maintained as a service to the group. Most editorial opinions
are those of the FAQ maintainer; if you disagree or spot an inaccuracy, or
have a new question *with* answer that you would like included in the FAQ
file, please email me directly and I will attempt to
include it in the next edition. I will edit answers to make the style
consistent, but I cannot research answers.

A.4 Things that should be in the FAQ but currently aren't

Many items could be included in the FAQ, if people wish to contribute in
any of the following areas (or create a new area):
Bridges/BRouters/Routers
-- I currently have several substantial contributions
on this but I have not yet fully read and organized
and edited it (email me at floyd@direct.ca if you
would like what I have so far). Ask for ROUTERS.DOC
Subnetting
-- same story... floyd@direct.ca Ask for SUBNETS.DOC

B. THE MAILING LIST

B.1 LISTSERV -- what is it?

LISTSERV is an automatic mailing list manager program. Each mailing list
has a e-mail address which LISTSERV controls. For example the Novell
mailing list has as its e-mail address NOVELL@listserv.syr.edu. LISTSERV
forwards any mail sent to the list to all the people on the mailing list
(in fact not all mail messages are forwarded: LISTSERV tries to catch
spurious or faulty messages before they are forwarded). LISTSERV has its
own e-mail address as well: the LISTSERV responsible for the Novell list
can be found at LISTSERV@listserv.syr.edu.

B.2 Commands to LISTSERV

Any commands concerning the list (such as signing on or off the list)
must be sent to LISTSERV and not to the list. Sending mail to the mailing
list address, as opposed to the LISTSERV address will not only NOT get you
subscribed, it will annoy over 1000 people world-wide, and use inordinate
amounts of computer time around the world for no reason.

To subscribe to the list, send the following mail to the above address (pick
either internet or bitnet as appropriate--if you are not sure, consult the
computer support staff at your site):

To: LISTSERV@listserv.syr.edu
Subject: Doesn't matter

subscribe NOVELL Your Full Name

If you have problems subscribing to the list, contact Scott Campbell
(NOVELADM@suvm.acs.syr.edu), one of the list sysops.

You may find it necessary to sign off the list (if you change e-mail
address or job or find that there's too much mail to deal with). To get
yourself removed from the list, send the following mail to the LISTSERV:

To: LISTSERV@listserv.syr.edu
Subject: Doesn't matter

unsubscribe NOVELL

If you have problems unsubscribing from the list, contact Bruce Riddle
(NOVELADM@suvm.acs.syr.edu), one of the list sysops.

By default, LISTSERV does not send you a copy of mail you post to the
list. If you want to see mail you send to the list, send the following
mail to the LISTSERV:

To: LISTSERV@listserv.acs.syr.edu
Subject: Doesn't matter

set novell repro

To receiving mail in undigested format, send the following mail to the
LISTSERV:

To: LISTSERV@listserv.acs.syr.edu
Subject: Doesn't matter

set novell mail

The NOVELL list now defaults to a digestified form, so that you get a
day's worth of list traffic in one message. This change was done in 1994
to ease the mainframe's task of managing this list. To change to receiving
list mail in a digest format, send the following mail to the LISTSERV:

To: LISTSERV@listserv.acs.syr.edu
Subject: Doesn't matter

set novell digest

Additional LISTSERV commands, related to dealing with list archives,
appear in B.7 below.

B.3 Posting a message to the list

The address of this list is:

NOVELL@listserv.syr.edu

To post a message, all you need to do is send it as a mail note to the
above address.

Please see the etiquette rules (Question B.5) before you post a message.

B.4 List sysops

The sysops of the NOVELL@listserv.syr.edu mailing list include:

Larry Bradley larry.bradley@nrc.ca
Scott Campbell noveladm@suvm.acs.syr.edu
Joe Doupnik jrd@cc.usu.edu
Glenn Fund fund@relay.proteon.com
David Harris david@pmail.gen.nz
Dave Molta djmolta@sunrise.syr.edu
Janet Perry janetp@novell.com
Art Whittman wittman@engr.wisc.edu

[Thx Joe D.]

B.5 Guidelines to network etiquette

Remember, about a thousand people around the world read this list, and
all of us think our time is valuable, as do you. Also, every message
posted uses a great deal of computer and transmission time, because it
is propagating around the world. Therefore, the polite user of this list
will try to follow these guidelines:

* Do not post subscribe/unsubscribe requests to the list. See how to do
these tasks above, question B.2.

* Do not post test messages to the list. The first time you have a
substantial post, let that be your test. If you keep the file, you
won't have to retype it in the event that for some reason it doesn't
go through the first time.

* Do not post "Is this list working?" messages to the list. E-mail links
between computers may go down for some reason and it is much more
likely that a link between you and the Internet has gone down than the
list itself has gone down. If you ask, you should ask one of the list's
sysops. See question B.4 for a list of the sysops.

* Consult Novell, system, and application documentation before you
post a question. Also, if your site has a computer support staff that
deals with Novell issues (many universities do), consult with them
before posting a question.

* When you post to the list, please include an informative and
accurate Subject: line. The traffic on this list is very high; this
helps those people who have time only to read posts they may be able
to help with, or that apply to their networks. Additionally, in your
post, make sure to include all of the information people will need to
respond.

* If you post a question, and receive no response, please don't
repost it. The people who read this list are very helpful--someone will
answer the question if they can. If you don't receive an answer, you
need to find professional consultants for your specific problem.
Reposting will not get an answer, and will only waste the time and
bandwidth mentioned above.

* The purpose of this mailing list is to serve as a resource from
which all participants can learn. Therefore, if you think an answer
to a question will be of wider interest than the just the asker, please
post it to the list (the default reply-to address) and/or the FAQ
maintainer, Floyd Maxwell .

* Don't flame people. If some information is presented that is
incorrect or incomplete, please do post a message offering the
correction. But don't make personal attacks on the list members.
That has no place on this list.

* Include your email address at the bottom of your postings. This will
allow people to correspond directly with you, since most mail systems, by
default, normally default your reply to the entire list.

* If you use a signature, please make it no longer than four lines, and
don't include "graphics" composed of ASCII characters. Remember,
everyone's time is valuable, and some people read this mailing list at a
very slow baud rate and/or pay for their connection "by the pound". Long
signatures, and frivolous graphics just frustrate them; they may take to
deleting your messages unread.

* When you reply to a message, include just enough of the previous
message for readers to remember what the issues were. It is not
necessary to include the whole message again and is expensive for those
mentioned above.

* When you post a message, use proper upper *and* lower case. In the
eWorld, all uppercase text is considered SHOUTING and uppercase messages
are much harder to read. People may just delete or skip your messages
without even giving them a chance.

* Please post to the list *only* in English. If you are posting in any
other language, obviously you did not intend to communicate with the
entire list, as this is an English language list. Therefore, private
email would be more appropriate.

* Do not post lines longer than 77 characters. Some mailers do not
handle long lines well. When quoted, these lines grow, compounding the
problem. Failing to head this advice could cause you to receive, from
S.M.D., your very own copy of the following very humorous note:

Please use your Return or Enter key _before_ you reach 80 chara
cters. Otherwise,
your article becomes very difficult to read. If it is very diffic
ult to read,
then people are less likely to read it. If less people read it, y
ou are not
as likely to get the responses you desire.

* If you reply to a message on the list, consider if you should reply to
the entire list or to the sender (a private reply). It's a good idea to
reply privately if you ask a question of the sender, or if you are
thanking someone or if the sender asks for a private reply. You should
consider replying to the list if the reply is of general interest or if
you are contributing to an ongoing discussion.

B.6 Other useful mailing lists/newsgroups

Other mailing lists you may want to try are include:

* BANYAN-L@akronvm (internet BANYAN@vm1.cc.uakron.edu), send
subscriptions to LISTSERV@akronvm (internet LISTSERV@vm1.cc.uakron.edu).
This is for discussion of Banyan networks.

* BIG-LAN@suvm (internet BIG-LAN@suvm.acs.syr.edu), send
subscriptions to the LISTSERV@suvm (internet LISTSERV@suvm.acs.syr.edu).

* CICA-L@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu for announcements of Windows uploads to CICA.
To subscribe, send mail to LISTSERV@ubvm.cc.buffalo.edu with the message
SUBSCRIBE CICA-L Firstname Lastname.

* CUTCP-L@nstn.ns.ca for a discussion of Charon and CUTCP
Telnet issues. Send subscription requests to LISTSERV@nstn.ns.ca.

* Garbo-Ann@Garbo.uwasa.fi for announcements of Garbo uploads.
To subscribe, send mail to Majordomo@Garbo.uwasa.fi with the message
SUBSCRIBE GARBO-ANN Firstname Lastname.

* NGW@tribble.uvsc.edu for discussion on Novell's GroupWise. To subscribe,
send mail to listproc@tribble.uvsc.edu.

* IBMPC-L@vm.POLY.edu or IBMPC-L@TAMVM1.tamu.edu or IBMPC-L@uga.cc.uga.edu
for technical discussions of the IBM Personal Computer and compatible
micro-computers. To subscribe send SUB IBMPC-L FirstName LastName to
LISTSERV@vm.POLY.edu or LISTSERV@TAMVM1.tamu.edu or LISTSERV@uga.cc.uga.edu

* MSDOS-ANN@@SimTel.Coast.NET for announcements of SimTel uploads. To
subscribe, send mail to LISTSERV@SimTel.Coast.NET with the message
SUBSCRIBE MSDOS-ANN.

* NWP@UEL.AC.UK for programming under Netware. Send subscription
requests to LISTPROC@UEL.AC.UK.

* PMAIL@ua1vm.ua.edu for discussion of Pegasus Mail. The author,
David Harris, is active on this list. Send subscription and other
administrative requests to LISTSERV@ua1vm.ua.edu.

* WFW-L@umdd.umd.edu for Windows For Workgroups. Send subscription and other
administrative requests to LISTSERV@umdd.umd.edu.

* Win95-L@eva.dc.LSOFT.COM for Windows '95. Send subscription and other
administrative requests to LISTSERV@eva.dc.LSOFT.COM.

* Win95-net@ntb9.cdc.gov or @win95.dc.lsoft.com or @eva.dc.lsoft.com for
Windows '95 networking issues. Send subscription and other admin requests
to LISTSERV@ntb9.cdc.gov, @win95.dc.lsoft.com or @eva.dc.lsoft.com.

* Windows-nt@mailbase.ac.uk. Send the command JOIN Windows-nt firstname
lastname to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk. I also recommend you issue the command
SEND mailbase user-guide to mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk if you do join up.

Additionally, if you have access to usenet news, you may want to subscribe
to the newsgroup comp.os.netware.misc, which has essentially the same
purpose as this mailing list but you may receive a fair amount of traffic
that is sent to this list and comp.os.netware.misc. There are also

comp.os.netware.announce (moderated announcements)
comp.os.netware.security (security issues)
comp.os.netware.connectivity (connect. issues incl. LAN Workplace)

[Thanks to John Bazeley and Bengt Bolinder for this info]

For more comprehensive sources of mailing lists on all subjects, on
info.umd.edu (128.8.10.29) you can find a list of listserv bitnet lists
under /inforM/inforM/CompRes/NetInfo/Listserv/listserv-lists and the
complete List of Lists is available as
/inforM/inforM/CompRes/NetInfo/Internet/interest-groups.

[Thanks to Chaisiri Wongkham for updating this info]

Also, sending any listserv the command "list global" will get you a
large (750k to 1MB) file of all public listserv lists.

There is also a database of 12,850 listserv, majordomo and listprocessor
mailing lists at 298 sites that is maintained by the Indiana University
Support Center for the UCS Knowledge Base. It can be accessed at:

http://scwww.ucs.indiana.edu/mlarchive/

B.7 Archived messages from the mailing list

Since the LISTSERV move to listserv@listserv.syr.edu (early 1995), NOVELL
list archives have been unavailable with the new listserv software.

The following is a direct quote from Eric Thomas, a LISTSERV "architect":

---------
The current VMS/unix/NT version has limited file server functions
and no database functions. L-Soft's target is to have across the
board functionality by 3Q95, and of course major new function will
be released as it becomes available. The original plan was to do
the file server functions first. We have people lobbying for the
database functions, but then we have people lobbying for the file
server functions as well. We're definitely going to do AFD and FUI
first and that should be available around the end of January/96.
---------

And another quote from Eric Thomas:

---------
We are working on a state of the art WWW interface for LISTSERV:
[...]
The interface will provide the following functionality:

1. Access to list archives: an interface in the style of the
VM gopher interface at SEARN, with a search function
(system dependent).
[...]
I am not in a position to give a release date either because we
have not explored all the question marks. But we are definitely
working on WWW support.
---------

[Thx Joe D.]

Another list archive is accessible via Gopher, WAIS and WWW, maintained
by Reece Joiner (rjoyner@ece.uiuc.edu). Gopher and WAIS clients should be
pointed to gopher.ece.uiuc.edu and wais.ece.uiuc.edu respectively. A WWW
interface to the WAIS archive is available at:

http://server.wais.com/directory-of-servers.html

C. ARCHIVES OF USEFUL FILES

C.1 How do I get to the archives?

All the archives mentioned in this FAQ list are accessible by using FTP
(File Transfer Protocol). Your network must be connected to the Internet
to reach these archive servers. Contact your local computer centre if
you are not sure if you are connected to the Internet. Not all
organisations offer unrestricted access to the Internet, so you may need
to use a specific computer in your organisation to reach the FTP servers.
Your local computer centre should be able to advise you of any restrictions.

To access an FTP server, issue the following command:

ftp servername

where servername is the name of your target FTP server (eg risc.ua.edu).
You may need to use the IP number of the server instead (eg 130.60.4.7).
Once you have connected to the server, you will be asked for your login
name -- use anonymous. In many cases you will then be asked for a
password. You should use your e-mail address for this. Different
versions of FTP have different commands, so it is advisable to contact
your local support staff for detailed information on how your FTP
software operates.

Novell has also established a World Wide Web server at:

http://www.novell.com

As of March 31, 1995 Novell has made available manuals for NetWare,
UnixWare, and the NetWare SDK via this site. The manuals include the
complete text of some 110,000 pages of Novell technical documentation
in five languages plus more than 14,000 illustrations.

C.2 Official FTP sites for Novell files

Novell has designated several FTP sites around the world as "official"
mirrors of the Novell FTP server. These sites are updated at least once
a week from the server in Utah. The mirrored FTP sites are available
through the Internet as well as through other mechanisms like JANET in
the UK and BBS systems in the Netherlands. In addition to the files from
ftp.novell.com these servers may contain other useful information for
managers of Novell networks. This is a list of the mirrors, their URLs,
IP addresses and directories.

BNUG FTP server
ftp://bnug.harvard.edu
*128.103.85.201*

University of Groningen
ftp://ftp.rug.nl/networks/novell
*129.125.4.15*
This server is updated daily. It is also available via BITNET and
BBS (indirect)

University of Salford
ftp://ftp.salford.ac.uk/novell
*146.87.255.21*
Also available via JANET IP

Utah State University
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu
*129.123.1.44*
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp
Dir: /sys/anonftp subdirectories follow novell FTP. Index is the top
level directory in each. Also available via BITNET, SPAN, Gopher
(gopher.usu.edu)

Lincoln University
ftp://tui.lincoln.ac.nz/novell/novlib
*138.75.90.4*

University of Alabama
ftp://risc.ua.edu/pub/network/novlib
*130.160.4.7*
Also available via BITNET

National Research Council (Canada)
ftp://novell.nrc.ca/netwire
*132.246.160.4*
(Actually mirrors nightly from Joe D.'s netlab2.usu.edu,
thus Joe's WHATIS files, for example, are also on this mirror)

So how to find things on Novell's master FTP server (or on Netwire, Novell's
Compuserve forum)? First obtain a copy of FORUM.DOS, packaged as either
forum.zip or forum.exe typically in forum 01. That's a good summary but not
always up to date nor explicit about filenames within archives. The Netwire
archive changes daily.

A full listing of the contents of each archive file, via Pkunzip,is the set
of text files WHATIS.xxx in the Netwire directory on netlab2.usu.edu. "xxx"
is the name of the forum, 01 etc. That suite is regenerated every week or
two. The time/date stamp is shown for each file within a .zip/.exe archive.

The Netwire archive contains over 1000 files totaling 100+MB, most
are .zip/.exe collections. Thus if things were unpacked there would be
tens of thousands of files. The archive is divided into forums with special
purposes. Forum Novfiles contains hot items which will be moved to the
numbered forums in due course. One is very unlikely to find files named
RCONSOLE.NLM or similar in the archive as bare files; instead those will
be within .zip/.exe archives of arbitrary filenames.

Most Netwire files are self-extracting archives, to be found with .EXE
extensions.

For Rconsole, see netwire\novlib\04\rcnsle.exe, where the latest Rconsole
material resides. Here is a cutout from netwire\whatis.04:

Searching ZIP: NOVLIB/04/RCNSLE.EXE

Length Method Size Ratio Date Time Name
------ ------ ----- ----- ---- ---- ----
9147 Implode 3052 67% 04-17-91 10:36 RCONSOLE.HLP
83391 Implode 45356 46% 06-19-91 13:15 RCONSOLE.EXE
3042 Implode 1451 53% 08-26-91 10:00 READ.ME
------ ------ --- -------
95580 49859 48% 3

To be complete, "Netwire" is formally the Novell area of Compuserve.
The Novell owned files are placed on ftp.novell.com for anonymous ftp
access. That is mirrored by a small number of official sites.

At last, many of the user-contributed files to NetWire (Compuserve) are now
available via anonymous ftp from your favorite mirror of Netwire, including
from ftp.novell.com. See directory netwire\novuser which has 12
subdirectories 01..12 (11 and 12 are empty right now).

File netwire\novuser\Index and text files netwire\novuser\whatis.xx
(xx = 01..12) on netlab2 indicate the nature of each directory and the
contents of each zip'd archive, respectively. A variety of archiving methods
have been used by contributors, so don't expect PKUNZIP to work on all.

Here is the big picture of the novuser area (file Index):

User contributed material from Compuserve, Netwire\novuser
NOVUSER Library Sections

1) New Uploads
2) Disk Drivers/Patches
3) LAN Drivers/Patches
4) Comm Drvs/Patches
5) Host/Unix Dvrs/Ptch
6) Printer Utils
7) Network (Sys) Utils
8) Client WS Utils
9) Management Tools
10) Text Files/Help
11) Job Postings
12) Classifieds

The following is a list of indices for novell software on ftp.novell.com
and mirrors:

/netwire/novfiles/novfil.idx
/netwire/novlib/01/forum.* (may be in /02/)
/netwire/novlib/01/novchg.txt (may be in /02/)
/netwire/novuser/01/taplib.exe
/netwire/novuser/01/tapusr.exe
/netwire/novuser/01/titles.exe

On the netlab2.usu.edu only mirror, you can also find the following:

/netwire/novuser/Index
/netwire/novuser/whatis.*
/netwire/versions/novlib04.ver
/netwire/versions/novlib05.ver
/netwire/versions/novlib06.ver

ftp.novell.com is being moved away from the netwire library concept. The
managers of ftp.novell.com advise that users should familiarise themselves
with the pub2 directory tree. Information for the pub2 tree can be found
in /pub2/00DIR. Each subdirectory in /pub2 also has a 00DIR index file.

C.3 Other useful FTP sites

Useful ftp sites, along with their Novell related directories include:

ftp://splicer2.cba.hawaii.edu/files/novell
ftp://splicer2.cba.hawaii.edu/files/pegasus
*128.171.17.2*

ftp://cc.usu.edu/slip
ftp://cc.usu.edu/tcp-ip
*129.123.1.1*

ftp://risc.ua.edu/pub/network/novlib
ftp://risc.ua.edu/pub/network/pegasus
ftp://risc.ua.edu/pub/network/misc
ftp://risc.ua.edu/pub/network/tcpip
*130.160.4.7*

ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/etc/system/novell
*128.252.135.4*

ftp://ftp.uni-kl.de/pub/novell
*131.246.9.95*

ftp://netlab.usu.edu/novell
ftp://netlab.usu.edu/netwatch
*129.123.1.11*

ftp://chaos.cc.ncsu.edu/pc/novell
ftp://chaos.cc.ncsu.edu/pc/utils
ftp://chaos.cc.ncsu.edu/pc/email
ftp://chaos.cc.ncsu.edu/pc/net
ftp://chaos.cc.ncsu.edu/pc/manage
*152.1.19.23*

ftp://ftp.novell.de/pub/NetWire
ftp://ftp.novell.de/pub/unix
ftp://ftp.novell.de/pub/unixware
ftp://ftp.novell.de/pub/drdos
ftp://ftp.novell.de/pub/sjf-lwp
*193.97.1.1*

[Thanks to Mark Burgess and David Silverstein for this info]

C.4 Current NetWare program version numbers/dates

Information about the Novell NetWare software version numbers.
This file is created with NW311REV version 1.10 at 2-20-1995.

You may also wish to load CONLOG.NLM early in your AUTOEXEC.NCF
(and then unload it near the end of AUTOEXEC.NCF). CONSOLE.NLM
will then capture all console output from the server initialization
process and create a file called CONSOLE.LOG in the sys:\etc directory
that you can print/study to determine the actual version number, etc.
of the NLMs you are currently running. CONLOG can be obtained from
ftp.mechnet.liv.ac.uk

Note: CONLOG auto-loads CLIB.NLM so make sure that you have specified
your timezone stuff and loaded CLIB before loading CONLOG (see Joe
D.'s AUTOEXEC.NCF file in section C.9.2 below).

[Thx Joe D.]

C.4.1 Current NetWare program version numbers/dates in SYS:PUBLIC

Novell software version numbers in SYS:PUBLIC
ACONSOLE.EXE 3.75 8-06-1993 3:13p
ALLOW.EXE 3.75 5-06-1993 5:00p
ATTACH.EXE 3.75 5-11-1993 1:58p
BCONSOLE.EXE ?.?? 2-11-1991 12:00a
BREQUEST.EXE ?.?? 12-09-1993 9:08a
BROLLFWD.EXE ?.?? 10-11-1993 2:08p
CAPTURE.EXE 3.75 5-20-1993 2:59p
CASTOFF.EXE 3.75 4-12-1993 5:05p
CASTON.EXE 3.75 4-12-1993 3:48p
CHKDIR.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 8:24a
CHKVOL.EXE 3.75 5-06-1993 3:45p
COLORPAL.EXE 1.02 10-20-1987 9:33a
DSPACE.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 2:50p
ENDCAP.EXE 1.00 7-19-1989 10:55a
FCONSOLE.EXE 3.76 (940215) PTF 3-24-1994 9:08a
FILER.EXE 3.76 8-11-1993 4:05p
FLAG.EXE 3.75 5-06-1993 3:26p
FLAGDIR.EXE 3.75 4-12-1993 1:52p
GRANT.EXE 3.75 5-06-1993 11:37a
LISTDIR.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 3:51p
LOGIN.EXE 3.75 5-04-1993 3:06p
LOGOUT.EXE 3.75 4-12-1993 9:52a
MAKEUSER.EXE 3.75 4-13-1993 1:57p
MAKLOCAL.EXE ?.?? 2-11-1991 12:00a
MAP.EXE 3.75 5-07-1993 9:07a
NBACKUP.EXE 3.50 1-13-1993 8:48a
NCOPY.EXE 3.75 4-16-1993 8:43a
NDIR.EXE 3.75 4-13-1993 1:24p
NPRINT.EXE 3.75 5-05-1993 9:29a
NVER.EXE 3.75 4-20-1993 11:11a
PCONSOLE.EXE 3.75 5-06-1993 4:26p
PRINTCON.EXE ?.?? 5-24-1993 1:50p
PRINTDEF.EXE 3.75 5-04-1993 2:34p
PSC.EXE 3.75 5-24-1993 3:03p
PSERVER.EXE 3.76 8-11-1993 3:02p
PSTAT.EXE 2.00 2-11-1991 12:00a
PURGE.EXE 3.76 8-04-1993 3:05p
REMOVE.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 9:46a
RENDIR.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 9:16a
REVOKE.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 5:07p
RIGHTS.EXE 3.75 4-12-1993 7:29p
RPRINTER.EXE 3.75 5-04-1993 2:31p
SALVAGE.EXE 3.75 4-13-1993 10:03a
SEND.EXE 3.75 6-01-1993 5:11p
SESSION.EXE 3.76 (940718) PTF 7-19-1994 10:03a
SETPASS.EXE 3.75 4-19-1993 10:55a
SETTTS.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 4:55p
SLIST.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 5:05p
SMODE.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 12:35a
SYSCON.EXE 3.75 5-10-1993 12:27a
SYSTIME.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 5:16p
TLIST.EXE 3.75 4-12-1993 1:43p
USERDEF.EXE 3.75 5-05-1993 7:58a
USERLIST.EXE 3.75 5-06-1993 10:59a
VERSION.EXE 3.75 5-06-1993 9:15a
VOLINFO.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 3:16p
WANGTEK.EXE 3.50 2-11-1991 12:00a
WHOAMI.EXE 3.75 4-13-1993 12:22a

[Thx H.K.]

C.4.2 Current NetWare program version numbers/dates in SYS:LOGIN

Novell software version numbers in SYS:LOGIN
LOGIN.EXE 3.75 5-04-1993 3:06p
SLIST.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 5:05p

[Thx H.K.]

C.4.3 Current NetWare program version numbers/dates in SYS:SYSTEM

Novell software version numbers in SYS:SYSTEM
ACONSOLE.EXE 3.75 8-06-1993 3:13p
ATOTAL.EXE 3.75 5-10-1993 4:34p
BINDFIX.EXE 3.75 4-27-1993 9:37a
BINDREST.EXE 3.75 4-16-1993 3:15p
BROLLFWD.EXE ?.?? 6-24-1991 3:36p
DOSGEN.EXE 1.20 (930419) 4-19-1993 6:37p
PAUDIT.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 4:36p
RCONSOLE.EXE 3.75 8-06-1993 3:13p
RSETUP.EXE ?.?? 9-05-1990 4:00p
SECURITY.EXE 3.75 4-14-1993 10:23a
WANGTEK.EXE 3.50 11-12-1990 9:54a
WSUPDATE.EXE 3.75 4-27-1993 3:29p

[Thx H.K.]

C.4.4 Current NetWare NLM version numbers/dates in SYS:SYSTEM

NLM version numbers in SYS:SYSTEM
2XUPGRDE.NLM 1.10 6-01-1993 1:44p
3CBOOT.NLM 1.03 9-30-1991 2:32p
A3112.NLM 4.10 3-29-1994 1:49p
ADAPTEC.NLM ?.?? 2-13-1991 5:07p
AFTER311.NLM 4.10 3-29-1994 1:48p
AIO.NLM 5.00 6-11-1993 2:00p
AIOACI.NLM 1.00 12-17-1992 12:14a
AIOCOMX.NLM 2.00 12-17-1992 12:09a
AIOCXCFG.NLM 1.01 12-15-1992 8:08a
AIODGCX.NLM 1.01 12-15-1992 8:09a
AIODGMEM.NLM 1.00 12-15-1992 8:07a
AIODGXI.NLM 1.03 12-14-1992 2:13p
AIOESP.NLM 1.00 1-28-1993 6:45p
AIOWNIM.NLM 1.00 1-28-1993 7:56p
BCONSOLE.NLM ?.?? 6-27-1991 2:20p
BDIRECT.NLM 6.10 1-26-1993 3:00p
BDROUTER.NLM 6.10 5-17-1993 3:48p
BREBUILD.NLM 1.10 8-26-1993 1:32p
BROUTER.NLM 6.10 8-27-1993 10:24a
BSETUP.NLM 6.10 1-07-1993 11:04a
BSPXCOM.NLM 6.10 11-24-1993 10:40a
BSPXSTUB.NLM 6.10 5-20-1993 3:51p
BTRIEVE.NLM 6.10 11-19-1993 9:48a
BTRMON.NLM 6.10 1-28-1993 2:25p
BTRVSTUB.NLM 6.10 8-27-1993 10:32a
BURGLAR.NLM ?.?? 3-02-1992 11:30a
BUTIL.NLM 6.10 10-25-1993 5:16p
CDROM.NLM 3.12 6-09-1993 4:22p
CLIB.NLM 3.12 5-19-1994 10:27a
CONLOG.NLM 1.00 4-05-1993 4:06p
DIBIDAI.NLM 3.12 6-11-1993 4:12p
DIRECTFS.NLM 1.08 7-14-1993 3:46p
DISKSET.NLM 3.11 2-14-1991 9:02a
DPTSIM.NLM 0.00 6-09-1993 2:23p
EDIT.NLM ?.?? 8-29-1990 1:25p
ETHERRPL.NLM 1.02 1-21-1991 11:12a
ETHERTSM.NLM 2.20 9-28-1993 2:41p
FDDITSM.NLM 2.13 7-07-1993 5:07p
INSTALL.NLM 1.57 8-17-1993 10:23a
IPCONFIG.NLM 2.02 2-22-1993 12:35a
IPXS.NLM 3.12 4-19-1993 8:35a
KEYB.NLM 1.00 7-15-1993 10:15a
LLC8022.NLM 4.50 12-13-1992 2:06p
MATHLIB.NLM 3.12 5-19-1994 9:12a
MATHLIBC.NLM 3.12 5-19-1994 9:11a
MONITOR.NLM 1.75 10-26-1992 9:21a
MSM31X.NLM 2.20 10-04-1993 1:04p
NFSFIX.NLM 2.00 3-04-1993 4:37p
NFSSHIM.NLM 2.00 4-19-1993 4:05p
NLICLEAR.NLM 1.04 5-24-1991 12:17a
NMAGENT.NLM 1.11 8-12-1991 11:12a
NOVADIBI.NLM 0.00 3-31-1992 12:08a
NUT.NLM 1.13 12-20-1990 8:18a
NWSNUT.NLM 4.10 6-02-1994 4:48p
PCN2LTSM.NLM 2.08 1-30-1993 11:32a
PFIXUP.NLM 1.01 4-30-1993 5:19p
PING.NLM 1.00 1-29-1993 1:13p
PINSTALL.NLM 2.01 5-07-1993 6:07p
PM312.NLM 1.21 3-24-1994 11:06a
PROTO.NLM ?.?? 2-09-1991 8:36a
PSERVER.NLM 3.76 8-11-1993 3:19p
REMFILFX.NLM 2.00 4-19-1993 4:19p
REMOTE.NLM 3.12 5-13-1993 3:13p
ROUTE.NLM 3.12 5-01-1991 8:14a
RPL.NLM 4.05 4-09-1993 9:37a
RS232.NLM 1.30 2-09-1991 7:02a
RSPX.NLM 3.12 3-29-1993 5:04p
RSPXSTUB.NLM 6.10 5-20-1993 3:51p
RXNETTSM.NLM 2.05 1-06-1993 10:04a
SBACKUP.NLM 3.12 5-18-1993 8:02a
SMDR31X.NLM 4.00 6-15-1993 10:23a
SNMP.NLM 2.08 4-06-1993 3:44p
SNMPLOG.NLM 2.00 4-05-1993 3:45p
SPXCONFG.NLM 1.00 2-12-1991 10:35a
SPXS.NLM 3.12 4-19-1993 8:26a
STREAMS.NLM 3.12 4-19-1993 8:32a
TAPEDC00.NLM ?.?? 2-13-1991 4:37p
TCPCON.NLM 2.02 1-29-1993 1:12p
TCPIP.NLM 2.02 2-22-1993 12:34a
TLI.NLM 3.12 4-19-1993 8:38a
TOKENRPL.NLM 1.02 1-21-1991 11:29a
TOKENTSM.NLM 2.20 9-30-1993 3:30p
TPING.NLM 1.00 1-29-1993 1:13p
TSA.NLM ?.?? 2-15-1991 5:03p
TSA311.NLM 4.01 6-04-1993 10:59a
TSA312.NLM 4.01 6-04-1993 10:54a
TSA_DOS.NLM 4.01 6-09-1993 4:30p
UINSTALL.NLM 3.11 12-14-1990 2:40p
UPS.NLM 1.11 12-18-1990 7:57a
VREPAIR.NLM 3.12 5-04-1993 12:50a
V_MAC.NLM 1.01 12-10-1990 7:06a
V_OS2.NLM 1.01 12-10-1990 7:10a
WANGTEK.NLM 3.11 7-18-1991 3:37p
WS_MAN.NLM 4.01 6-08-1993 4:04p

[Thx H.K.]

C.4.4.1 WWW Site maintaining a list of most current NLMs:

http://mft.ucs.ed.ac.uk/novell/techsup/nlmver.htm

[Thanks to Garry Scobie for this info]

C.4.5 Current VLM Client Kit program version numbers/dates

VLMs :
------
AUTO.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
BIND.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
CONN.VLM 10837 02-14-95 8:08a
CONN.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
FIO.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
GENERAL.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
IPXNCP.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
TRAN.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
SECURITY.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
PNW.VLM 1.10 9/12/93
MIB2IF.VLM 1.00 17/08/93
MIB2PROT.VLM 1.00 17/08/93
NDS.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
NETX.VLM 4.20 8/11/94
NMR.VLM 1.10 9/12/93
NWP.VLM 6648 02-14-95 8:11a
PNWMIB.VLM 1.10 30/11/93
PNWTRAP.VLM 1.10 30/11/93
PRINT.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
REDIR.VLM 14793 01-17-95 11:51a
REDIR.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
RSA.VLM 1.20 8/11/94
WSASN1.VLM 1.10 17/08/93
WSREG.VLM 1.10 17/08/93
WSSNMP.VLM 1.10 17/08/93
WSTRAP.VLM 1.10 17/08/93

These are the latest, after the Novell Dos upgrades and P10U05 upgrade.

[Thanks to Chris Clemson and Hans Nellissen for this info]

On August 14, 1995, Novell released the full VLM update kit, v1.20a with
TCP/IP stack, as six files at:

ftp://ftp.novell.com/netwire/novfiles/client.kit/doswin
OR
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/netwire/novfiles/client.kit/doswin
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/netwire/novfiles/client.kit/doswin
OR
ftp://...YOUR LOCAL MIRROR.../netwire/novfiles/client.kit/doswin

File detail is as follows:

CLIENT.TXT 5,099 02-07-95 6:07p <-- Obsolete, disregard.
VLMKT1.EXE 864,039 08-07-95 9:35p
VLMKT2.EXE 493,055 08-07-95 9:38p
VLMKT3.EXE 1,062,892 08-07-95 9:44p
VLMKT4.EXE 786,173 08-07-95 9:50p
VLMKT5.EXE 899,874 08-07-95 9:53p
VLMKT6.EXE 541,844 08-07-95 9:57p

[Thx Joe D.]

From the 95 March issue of Novell App Notes says:

"If you are running a version of the DOS Requestor earlier than version
1.20, or if you are running a version of VNETWARE.386 dated earlier than
8-17-94, you will need to set add a TimerCriticalSection=10000 entry to
the [386 Enh] section SYSTEM.INI. The VNETWARE.386 driver for the DOS
Requestor 1.20 defaults to 1000, which better supports mobile products."

[Thanks to George Nesto for this info]

C.5 Current Personal NetWare program version numbers/dates

NET.EXE 1.00 17/08/93
DPMS 1.30 15/11/94
LSL.COM 2.05 10/09/93
IPXODI.COM 2.12 1/10/93
SERVER.EXE 1.23 13/07/94
VLM.EXE 1.20 8/11/94

[Thanks to Chris Clemson for this info]

C.6 NetWare Patches and Updates FAQ location

This FAQ lists the locations of patches and updates to Netware related
applications. It can be downloaded at:

ftp://ftp.nsm.smcm.edu/pub/novell/patchfaq.zip

[Thanks to Stan Toney for this info]

C.7 NetWare Free, Patching, Patches and Version FAQs locations

A list of freeware NLMs is located at:

http://mft.ucs.ed.ac.uk/novell/techsup/freenlms.htm

A FAQ on patching a Netware server is located at:

http://mft.ucs.ed.ac.uk/novell/techsup/patchfaq.htm

A FAQ on NLM patches is located at:

http://mft.ucs.ed.ac.uk/novell/techsup/nlmpatch.htm

And an NLM version FAQ is located at:

http://mft.ucs.ed.ac.uk/novell/techsup/nlmver.htm

[Thanks to Garry Scobie for this info]

C.8 Off-line alternatives

There is a NetWare CD-ROM containing 2,141 Public Domain/Free/Shareware
programs and a database of 450 commercial add-ons available from EMS
Professional Shareware, 4505 Buckhurst Ct., Olney MD 20832-1830,
(301) 924-3594, Fax (301) 963-2708, ems@wdn.com,
http://www.xmission.com/~wwwads/ems

C.9 Joe D.'s .NCF Files

C.9.1 Joe D.'s Startup.NCF

This is a NW 3.12 startup file. Your server is probably in c:\server.312.
Aic7770 is for an Adaptec 2742AT SCSI controller. Tapedai.dsk is for tape
backups, and so is the reserved buffers item. This is an EISA bus server.
If yours is too then please pay attention to how I handle the 64 MB in this
server. 5 GB disk farm on three spindles.

set maximum alloc short term memory=32000000
set Minimum Packet Receive Buffers=100
set reserved buffers below 16 meg=200
set auto tts backout flag=on
set ncp packet signature option=1
set replace console prompt with server name=OFF
rem PATCH MANAGER AND PATCHES TO BE LOADED IN STARTUP.NCF
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\PM312
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\BCKTTSFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\BHANDFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\CTRSTKFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\DHANDFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\DIRSPCFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\EAACCFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\EADATFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\EAFLTFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\EAREPLFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\EASUBFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\EAWRITFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\EAWRNFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\ELEVFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\GNSFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\GTALLYFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\HFFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\IOHANDFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\IPXRCVFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\LSLUNBFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\LSTECBFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\MMACCFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\PBWANFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\READQFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\REGOBJFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\RKIELFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\SIGLOGFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\SYNCMFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\TRBUFFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\RKIELFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\SIGLOGFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\SYNCMFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\TRBUFFIX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\UNLDIRFX
LOAD C:\NW312\PATCHES\WRLENFIX
REM
load aic7770 slot=3 verbose=y max_tags=10 max_nontags=2
load mac.nam
load nfs.nam
load tapedai

[Thx Joe D.]

C.9.2 Joe D.'s Autoexec.NCF

Notes: uses NFS for NetWare, APC's Powerchute, Arcada Backup Exec,
Pegasus Mail. MAC namespace on vol sysmac:, NFS namespace on vol sys:,
NetWare Unix Client support (for my UnixWare netlab1 machine).

file server name EDU-USU-NETLAB2
ipx internal net 817b012c
set allow unencrypted passwords=on
set reply to get nearest server=on
set maximum directory cache buffers=300
set minimum directory cache buffers=275
set maximum outstanding NCP searches=1000
set maximum packet receive buffers=250
set timezone=MST7MDT
load clib /L1 tz=MST7MDT /pb
load conlog
load nfsfix
load mathlib
rem load nmagent
load tli
load ipxs
load spxs
load ne3200 slot=1 frame=Ethernet_II name=bbone
rem
load ipxstack
load ipxrtr routing=nlsp mcast=yes
bind ipx bbone net=817b0100 nlsp=yes
load remote password
load rspx
load pserver edu-usu-netlab2
load snmp ControlCommunity=password TrapCommunity=password
load tcpip rip=no forward=no
# [Floyd: See note below for bind statements in general & the following]
bind ip bbone ad=129.123.1.44 ma=255.255.255.0 ga=129.123.1.254
load rdate /p 60 /v 10 129.123.1.9 129.123.1.2 129.123.1.7
rem Appletalk v3.12, learn routes
load ne3200 slot=1 frame=Ethernet_snap name=atbone
load appletlk net=50006 zone={"CASS"}
bind appletlk to atbone net=0-0
load afp
rem
search add sys:system\mercury
load mercury
load mercurys
load mercuryc
search delete 2
rem
SEARCH ADD SYS:PWRCHUTE
LOAD AIO
LOAD AIOCOMX port=2f8 int=3
LOAD PWRCHUTE SYS:PWRCHUTE
patch
# Command to start LAN WorkGroup, NFS, and other products.
load REMFILFX
unistart
mount all
bestart
unload conlog
load monitor

Joe's tips for bind statements, to save line length & in general:

Use abbreviations for keywords and omit the optional keywords. Please see
the manual for this, but ma= works for mask, no "to" is needed, and so on.
DEF is not needed if GA= is used (gateway= static route to the "real
router" and is the default route). Do NOT turn on RIP, please oh please.
Omit ARP= too. Don't play around with your broadcast setting. As a live
example, see below. It's much less than 80 columns. It's in the FAQ.
[Floyd: above].

load snmp ControlCommunity=password TrapCommunity=password
load tcpip rip=no forward=no
bind ip bbone ad=129.123.1.44 ma=255.255.255.0 ga=129.123.1.254

[Thx Joe D.]

Another tip to save extra bytes on the bind line is to use hexadecimal
instead of decimal numbers in the ad= ma= and ga= options.

[Thanks to Joao Carlos Mendes Luis for this info]

C.9.3 Joe D.'s Patch.NCF

rem Patches from 312pt6.exe. Pm312 etc loaded in startup.ncf
LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\DAICCFIX
LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\DBLDEBFX
LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\GLOCKFIX
LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\REALMFIX
LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\RTCHGFIX
LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\SPXDDFIX
LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\SPXFIX2
LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\SPXNSFIX
LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\UNLOADFX
LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\WSMSGFIX
rem other modules
rem LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\IPXSOCK 101
rem LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\SERVHOPS
rem LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\SYNCTIME
rem LOAD SYS:SYSTEM\PATCHES\RTRTIME

[Thx Joe D.]

C.9.4 Joe D.'s Selected update/patch files for NW 3.12

Selected update/patch files for NW 3.12, all in netwire:

TCP188.EXE 155,161 11-10-94 10:43p
PBURST.EXE 63,237 06-14-94 11:00p
LIBUP5.EXE 657,851 04-24-95 4:30p
LANDR4.EXE 238,838 03-24-95 7:02p
SBACK3.EXE 280,023 04-26-95 3:42p
312PT6.EXE 74,614 04-07-95 4:21p
RCONSL.EXE 68,819 05-26-95 9:09p
STRTL3.EXE 172,277 07-31-94 11:00p
CDROM3.EXE 117,609 07-11-94 11:00p
IPXRT3.EXE 1,207,210 06-16-95 3:53p
312DU1.EXE 188,415 08-29-94 11:00p
MAP312.EXE 48,964 03-13-95 6:57p
AFP11 .EXE 90,487 01-30-95 5:27p
SYS376.EXE 161,608 05-10-95 8:48p
LOG376.EXE 74,768 03-09-95 11:40p
PU3X01.EXE 453,054 11-16-94 4:48p

[Thx Joe D.]

D. NOVELL'S PHONE NUMBERS

The following list of numbers was extracted from a list sent by Sarah
Peterson of Novell to Larry Bradley, which he kindly posted to our mailing
list. I have included in the FAQ because I believe it is of general
interest. These numbers were accurate as of November 18, 1991.

DEPARTMENT/GROUP TOLL-FREE REGULAR

After Market Products (AMP) 800-346-7177 801-568-8856
Anthem/Eagle (Ethernet) 800-733-2453 408-453-1200
API Development/Austin 800-RED-WORD 512-794-1795
Authorized Reseller Information 800-828-3362
Contract Inquires/AMP 800-346-7177 801-568-8856
Corporate Headquarters 800-453-1267 801-429-7000
Customer Success Portfolios 800-UPDATE1 801-429-5155
Developer Assistance 800-729-4357
Reseller Authorization 800-828-3362
LANalyzer Products 800-243-8526 408-473-8324
Literature Orders 800-UPDATE1 801-429-5155
NetWare Users International 800-228-4NUI
Novell Education 800-233-3382
Novell Education FaxBack 801-429-5363
OURS Program 800-237-OURS
Professional Developers Program (PDP) 800-RED-WORD 512-794-1795
Piracy 800-PIRATES 801-429-7600
Product Information 800-NETWARE 801-429-5155
Promotional Products 800-526-4483
RMA 800-NETWARE
Technical Marketing Support 800-733-9673
Technical Support 800-NETWARE 801-429-5588
Technical Support/PDP 800-SAY-HELP 512-794-1795
Upgrades/Updates 800-UPDATE1 801-429-5155
Warranty Registration 800-458-7773

D.1 Contacting other software and hardware companies on the net

An extensive list of ftp and www sites for hardware and software
companies on the net is at the following:

http://www.rsip.lsu.edu/companies.html

[Thanks to David Earle for this info]

E. TCP/IP AND NETWARE

E.1 What is TCP/IP

TCP/IP is another networking protocol (like IPX) widely used in academic
and commercial networks. It is used to allow different types of computers
to communicate over a network.

For further information, check out:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/netwire/novlib/08/nwtcp.txt
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/netwire/novlib/08/nwtcp.txt

Also, check out the TCP/IP Transport Supervisor's Guide.

[Thanks to Hansang Bae for this info]

E.2 Why you might want TCP/IP and Netware to co-exist

Many organisations have different types of computers on their networks.
For example most universities have PCs and Unix or VAX computers on the
network. Most Unix computers (and many others besides) use TCP/IP as a
networking protocol. Also the Internet uses TCP/IP as its networking
protocol. If your Netware PC users want to access Unix computers, they
will most likely use TCP/IP and a package like telnet to do this.

E.3 Packet drivers/ODI drivers/NDIS drivers

Packet Drivers, ODI drivers, and NDIS drivers share a common purpose of
recognizing packets coming in and distributing them to the appropriate
piece of networking software as well as sending pre-built packets. Packet
Drivers were first on the block once FTP Software realized the difficulty
of writing complete drivers for every Ethernet board on the market. It's a
short specification that does little more than hand out packets;
consequently a Packet Driver is very small (about 2.5K in memory) but
highly effective.

3Com/Microsoft came out with the NDIS specification to accomplish the same
goal, but with many enhancements. The specification itself is very large
and difficult to understand, and the code was the same way. NDIS is most
commonly seen on Lan Manager systems (3Com, Microsoft, DEC, AT&T and so on).

And, since Microsoft has of late taken to adding networking stuff in
Windows products, those running Windows for Workgroups, Windows 95 or
Windows NT as a network client will find themselves using NDIS, at least
to some degree.

[Thx S.M.D.]

Then, most recently, Novell decided to tackle the board variety problem,
but by starting from the top and looking down toward the hardware. Their
ODI specification is the largest and most elaborate, and yet in many ways
is the "best" of the bunch.

There is a new version of the documentation describing ODI calls, tables,
and functionality which are expressed in ANSI-C available at:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/odi/update/codidocs.zip
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/odi/update/codidocs.zip

ftp://netlab1.usu.edu/pub/mirror/odi/update/codidocs.zip

Both NDIS and ODI drivers are commercial endeavors, but their specifications
are public. However, neither NDIS or ODI makes any effort to accommodate
alternate ("competing") protocol stacks. This is changing with the appearance
of small software converter "shims" which have a Packet Driver interface as
the common denominator. Novell's Lan WorkPlace for DOS is a shining example
of providing an ODI driver supporting both NetWare and TCP/IP. You can see
the pressures here: software vendors want a cheap way of using many boards
because drivers are expensive to write, and users want everything, including
the ability to run things requiring dual protocol stacks on a single board.

The commercial NDIS and ODI drivers should be more solid than the volunteer
effort Packet Drivers, and correspondingly harder to get changed when bugs
are found. NDIS and ODI drivers need to come from board vendors; Packet
Drivers come, normally, from individuals and are distributed via Columbia
University (you may get them by anonymous ftp from wuarchive.wustl.edu and
many other sites).

ODI is at this stage the driver type with the widest acceptance. It the only
driver that Novell supports (IPX.COM, the monolithic shell or "driver" used
before the introduction of ODI has long since been discontinued).

[Thx Joe D.]

E.3.1 LAN WorkPlace (and other) documents available from Novell via WWW

The LAN WorkPlace 5.0, NetwareIP 2.1, NetWare NFS, Tuxedo RTK & SDK (and
probably other) documents are now available on the Novell Publications
Server at:

http://www.novell.com (click on the "Manuals")

E.4 Why can't multiple TCP/IP applications run on a workstation?

In order to understand this problem, assume that two TCP/IP applications
ARE running on a workstation: when an IP packet arrives at a board with
two or more TCP/IP stacks are active, the packet is delivered to each. Each
stack now has a valid TCP or UDP (and maybe ICMP, ARP, or whatever) packet,
and decodes the protocol type (TCP etc.), the operation kind, sequence
number, and so on to fairly great detail. If the numbers happen to overlap
with what another stack is doing then chaos will probably result--and if not
the stack will likely send an error report back to the host and the
connection will be aborted. The several parallel stacks are uncoordinated
and thus fratricidal.

In order to have multiple applications running in parallel, it is necessary
that they be perfectly coordinated. How to do this? Simple: have one stack
serving many applications. Each application gets a separate session identity
within the stack and no conflicts can occur in properly written code; TCP/IP
is designed for this. [Editor's note: unfortunately, there is no generally
accepted sharable TCP/IP stack for PC workstations.] One well-known
example of such a solution is Novell's LAN Workplace for DOS or Windows,
which has a resident TCP/IP stack. Once you have the TCP/IP driver (and
stack) loaded, you can load other applications (telnet, gopher etc) in
tandem.

This argument applies to every method of delivering packets to stacks: PD,
ODI, NDIS, even carrier pigeon (there's a famous RFC for avian carriers).
For readers with a technical interest in these things there are now three
excellent books on TCP/IP: _Unix Network Programming_ by Stevens, and
_Internetworking with TCP/IP_, volumes I and II, by Comer.

Recently, a program named PKTMUX was written in the UK, which attempts to
follow the detailed conversation between applications and their host; when
multiple TCP programs are run over the same packet driver, it attempts to
renumber the packet internals to avoid the conflicts noted above. It's a
neat effort, but it cannot do the whole job. Under some conditions, it will
work ok; under others we still get the effects described, so use it with
caution.

[Thx Joe D.]

E.5 Routing TCP/IP through a file server

If you use TCP/IP on two or more network adapters in a file server,
chances are you want to route TCP/IP through the server (for example,
you have one network adapter attaching to a room of PCs and the other
attaching to your campus backbone). Each interface to which you bind
TCP/IP has an IP address and a network mask. The combination of network
mask, IP address and the destination field in a received IP packet
determines whether that packet is routed through the server. As an
example, let's assume your server attaches to two IP subnets, one with
the address 137.43.101.0 (IP numbers between 137.43.101.1 and
137.43.101.255) and the other subnet with the address 137.43.102.0. Here
is the IP configuration of the two network interfaces:

IP address Network mask
Driver 1: 137.43.101.1 255.255.255.0
Driver 2: 137.43.102.10 255.255.255.0

In Novell terms the bind configurations look like this:

BIND IP TO DRIVER1 ADDR=137.43.101.1 MASK=255.255.255.0
BIND IP TO DRIVER2 ADDR=137.43.102.10 MASK=255.255.255.0

Note: You must also have

LOAD TCPIP Forward=Yes

in AUTOEXEC.NCF to setup the routing of IP-packages.

This configuration will route packets from machines in 137.43.101.0 to
137.43.102.0 and vice versa. [Editor's note: these IP subnets are for
example only. They actually exist in University College Dublin's IP
network. If your IP network will connect to other networks you should
apply for your own set of IP network addresses] DRIVER1 and DRIVER2 may be
either driver types or aliases specified by the NAME= option when loading
the driver.

Novell's documentation kit includes extensive manuals which cover how to
configure a server to route TCP/IP, as well as the concepts behind subnets.

[Thanks to Amnat (Nat) Choeypatkul for some corrected info]

E.5.1 Why TCP/IP Routing Doesn't Always Work As Expected

The RFCs (Request For Comments, the papers which define Internet
standards) governing IP addressing state that no portion of a node's
address may consist of all zeros or of all ones. You can logically break
down an address into two components where subnetting is not used (the
network portion, defined by the address' class; and the node portion),
and three components where subnetting is used (the network address; the
subnetwork address, which is the difference between the subnetwork mask
and the normal mask used for that address class; and the node address).

Let's look at an example. Let's say we're subnetting a class B address,
166.166.0.0, into a number of class C-sized subnetworks. We would do
this with a subnetwork mask of 255.255.255.0. This yields 254 networks,
166.166.1.0 through 166.166.254.0. We cannot use 166.166.0.0, as the
subnetwork portion (the third octet) is all zeroes; similarly, we cannot
use 166.166.255.0, as the subnetwork portion is all ones.

Some equipment will allow you to use these illegal networks. Such
equipment is providing an extension to the specificationss, and
technically could be considered to be broken in that it does not behave
according to the original specifications. Novell has released a version
of MPR which permits the use of the all-zeroes subnet. Before using any
all-zeroes or all-ones subnet, make sure you understand the applicable
RFCs and are fully aware that you are "Off Spec".

[Thx S.M.D.]

There is a shareware program, SUBNET, that suggests appropriate masks
based on the quantity of subnets and hosts per subnet; creates listings
of subnets, directed broadcasts and host-ranges per the number of bits
you tell it to use for subnetting (it then tells you what the mask should
be). Lists include both binary and decimal displays and can be saved to
disk as ASCII text or can be added to a database file (MS Access). The
shareware version is limited to Class C addresses, the Deluxe version
supports Class A - C addressing, including Variable Length Subnet Masks
and Management tools for IP addresses. It needs VBRUN300.DLL. Author is
Guy Michaud, gmichaud@cisco.com, and it can be downloaded at:

ftp://ftp.coast.net/SimTel/win3/internet/subnet10.zip

E.5.2 Security considerations of allowing IP Source Routing

IP source routing comes in loose and strict flavors...[A] bad guy on a
far-away machine can send IP traffic to your place with a) source AND
destination addresses at your place and b) an IP source route table which
includes his far-away place. Naturally they have just tapped the wire and
typically do not forward traffic back to the fake local destination.

[The net effect is to] penetrate firewalls which are unaware of IP [source
routing]. IP source routing is rarely used and can be turned off forever
with really no loss. So turn it off on your major routers.

[Thx Joe D.]

E.6 Setting up a Netware server as an FTP server

Novell's FTP server is bundled in both their Novell NFS package and in their
NetWare Flex/IP package. According to the May 11, 1992 press release when
Novell announced NetWare Flex/IP, the "high performance FTP server allows
UNIX users to transfer files to and from NetWare v3.11 servers on the
network. It also enables FTP clients to use the NetWare v3.11 server as an
FTP gateway to access any other NetWare server on the network, including
those that do not support TCP/IP. The FTP server provides full support of
both UNIX/NFS and DOS name spaces..."

An alternate, and less expensive, solution is to run NCSA telnet in FTP
server mode on a dedicated workstation--an old 8088 machine is perfectly
suitable. (NCSA is available on many sites. The people ftp'ing into the
workstation will have access to anything the account logged in on the
workstation has access to. You can set up "accounts" and passwords, but the
only thing this controls is who can ftp into the workstation. Additionally,
only one ftp connection at a time is possible. In many cases, however,
these restrictions will not be a problem.

Yet another alternative solution is a third-party FTPD.NLM. Brad
Clements (MurkWorks) has an FTP NLM available: ftp to ftp.msen.com
to pick up a demo copy. This is not shareware: you must pay Brad a license
fee to use the actual software (the demo is free). HELLSOFT in the Czech
Republic also produce an FTPD NLM, available via anonymous ftp from
Michal Meloun's ftp site novell.felk.cvut.cz. Michal Meloun can be
reached at meloun@vision.felk.cvut.cz. Both products work under NetWare
4.x but in Bindery Emulation mode only.

MurkWorks FTPD.NLM demo:
ftp://ftp.msen.com/pub/vendor/murkworks/demos/ftpd/ftpdnlm.zip

HELLSOFT FTPD.NLM:
ftp://novell.felk.cvut.cz:/nw311/ftpd/ftpd19.zip

[Thanks to Steven Nygard for the info on HELLSOFT]

E.7 BOOTP and RARP

Bootp is a method by which a workstation can determine what ip number it
should use and to find out what its nameservers and gateways are. If a
workstation [using NCSA or CUTCP] runs telnet or ftp and has the myip
variable in its config.tel file set to bootp, it will send out a broadcast
on the network. A bootp server somewhere will see this broadcast, and
respond to it with the ip number the workstation should use and what its
nameserver and gateways are. The advantage is that all ip numbers,
nameserver, and gateway information are kept in one file on the bootp
server. You can get LPD.EXE at:

ftp://tacky.cs.olemiss.edu/pub/lpd/ncsa/lpd.exe

This will do bootp as well as lpd. You do not need a state of the art
workstation to run this program. BOOTP is also available on
lancaster.andrew.cmu.edu.

[Thanks to Dan Abts for this info]

Jocelyn Nadeau has informed me that the documentation for lpd doesn't
indicate that it performs BOOTP; however, you can find BOOTP.ZIP and
BOOTPNOS.ZIP as follows:

ftp://ftp.ci.cuslm.ca/public/network/bootp.zip
ftp://ftp.ci.cuslm.ca/public/network/bootpnos.zip
*142.17.2.244*

Another BOOTP server is BOOTPD.NLM from Hellsoft, available as follows:

ftp://novell.felk.cvut.cz/nw311/ftpd/bootpd18.zip
*192.108.160.5*
or
ftp://salford.ac.uk/network/nlms/bootpd18.zip (needs resolv.nlm)
ftp://salford.ac.uk/network/nlms/bootpfwd.nlm (bootp forwarder)

You'll need the Hellsoft name resolver NLM as well, available as follows:

ftp://novell.felk.cvut.cz:/nw311/resolv/resolv13.zip

[Thanks to David Gersic and J.P. for this info]

Rarp is similar in function to bootp, but is less sophisticated. As with
bootp, the workstation sends out a broadcast request for an IP number.
If a rarp server picks up this request it will respond with an IP number
for the requesting workstation. No other information is returned (this
is one major difference between bootp and rarp). If your workstations
use NCSA or Clarkson TCP/IP software, you can get them to use rarp by
specifying the MYIP variable to be RARP. Many Unix machines come
equipped with a rarp server and PC versions are available from ftp
servers.

One drawback with rarp is that it doesn't use IP packets: rarp is an
ethernet protocol all to itself. This means that rarp requests *won't* make
it through a Netware file server routing IP (or indeed through many other IP
routers). Rarp servers are available for Novell servers and for PCs running
LAN Workplace for DOS (and quite possibly for other platforms as well). An
NLM-based rarp server is available as follows:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/misc/rarpserv.nlm
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/misc/rarpserv.nlm

E.8 Further reading

Douglas Comer's "Internetworking with TCP/IP: (in three volumes) is an
excellent and complete guide to TCP/IP.

F. ELECTRONIC MAIL

F.1 Pegasus Mail

Pegasus Mail is a free mail program written by David Harris. It has almost
every feature you could wish for in a mail program, and is well supported.
Pegasus supports MHS and runs on NetWare 4.x in bindery emulation mode
(see F.3.1 for more on NetWare 4.x difficulties). It is available at:

ftp://risc.ua.edu/pub/network/pegasus/pmail322.zip.
OR
http://www.cuslm.ca/pegasus/

If you also need an Internet e-mail gateway get Charon or Mercury (same
directory--see questions F.2 and F.3 for details) you will be able to
setup a Novell/Internet gateway.

There is also a Macintosh version of Pegasus mail, available at:

ftp://risc.ua.edu/pub/network/pegasus/pmmac212.hqx
OR
ftp://ftp.let.rug.nl/pub/pmail/pmmac212.hqx

The Windows version of Pegasus Mail is v1.22, and is available at:

ftp://risc.ua.edu/pub/network/pegasus/winpm210.zip
OR
ftp://ftp.let.rug.nl/pub/pmail/winpm210.zip

Note: risc.ua.edu and ftp.let.rug.nl are the only two *official* sites
for Pegasus Mail and related programs.

F.2 Setting up an Internet gateway for Pegasus Mail -- Charon

Charon is a bi-directional Novell print queue to Unix LPD gateway and
Internet/Novell mail gateway program. The mail gateway section works in
conjunction with Pegasus Mail. Charon is free. It requires a dedicated
workstation to run on; if you use the mail gateway you require an SMTP mail
server as a mailing agent.

Charon is available on many ftp sites, including:

ftp://info.umd.edu/inforM/Computing_Resource/Software/Novell/Email/charon40a.zip
*128.8.10.29*

F.3 Another Internet gateway for Pegasus Mail -- Mercury

Mercury is an Internet/Novell mail gateway program that is designed to work
in conjunction with Pegasus Mail (in fact its also written by David Harris).
A major difference from Charon is that Mercury is a set of 3 NLMs and so
runs on a file server. Mercury requires that your file server handle
TCP/IP and can only serve one file server (whereas Charon can route mail
to up to 8 file servers). Like Charon, Mercury needs an SMTP mail server
(such as a Unix system) to handle outgoing mail. Mercury runs on NetWare
4.x in bindery emulation mode and is available at:

ftp://risc.ua.edu/pub/network/pegasus/merc121.zip
OR
ftp://ftp.let.rug.nl/pub/pmail/merc121.zip

Note: risc.ua.edu and ftp.let.rug.nl are the only two *official* sites
for Pegasus Mail and related programs.

F.3.1 Pegasus/Mercury plus NetWare 4.1 considerations

There are a bunch of Mercury/Pegasus "gotchas" strewn along the path
to v4.1 nirvana. Here are some of them:

With v4.1, Mercury/Pegasus no longer supports the print queue method of
passing email back and forth. Instead, they use only the SPOOL directory
method. However, many installations migrated from CHARON, which supports
only print queues, to Mercury. Since most of us have a bias in favor of
doing what worked in the past, a Mercury/Pegasus reconfiguration is a
common NetWare v3.1x to v4.1 prerequisite.

As noted above, the current versions of Mercury and Pmail require NetWare
4.1 to be run in bindery emulation mode. However, SYS:MAIL\internal_ID#
accounts are not created automatically for NEW users added after the
upgrade to 4.x UNTIL (a) they login to the server while running the
NETX.EXE shell, or (b) they login to the server while running the VLM
redirector with the "/b" switch (ie. bindery emulation mode) on their
login command line.

Keeping in mind that the current versions of Mercury/Pegasus use bindery
emulation, can you guess what happens if you put multiple servers into
the same bindery context? Remember PCONFIG, that allows you as the
administrator to specify a number of things such as the host address?
Well, since Pegasus has only one bindery object to play with, you will
only be able to specify one host address for ALL of the servers in that
bindery context so all of your users in that context will have a From:
address which has the same host (server) name, no matter which server
they are actually using! To work around this you can employ Mercury's
aliasing feature to redirect inbound mail to the correct server.

There are also some non-trivial problems for Mac users.

[Thanks to Donald E. Hanley for this info]

F.4 Other electronic mail packages

There are a variety of commercial e-mail packages on the market,
including Microsoft Mail and CC:Mail. These can be connected to an
Internet gateway (like Pegasus Mail). However, these packages use their
own gateway systems, available from the suppliers of the e-mail packages.

F.5 Eudora

Eudora started as freeware, but now there are freeware and commercial
versions. There are DOS, Windows and Mac versions, with the latest freeware
version (1.5.2) available at:

http://www.qualcomm.com/quest/QuestMain.html

G. PRINTING

G.1 Printing to/from Unix systems

The Novell solution is to purchase the NetWare Flex/IP package which
includes a bi-directional print gateway. According to Novell's press release,
it "allows Unix users to access printers attached to NetWare systems and
NetWare users to access printers that are attached to UNIX systems. The UNIX
printer will appear to the user as a normal NetWare print queue, while the
NetWare queues will appear as UNIX print queues to the UNIX user. In
addition, the UNIX print filter mechanism is supported enabling print jobs
to be preprocessed before submission to the printer device..."

The Netware NFS package which provides Unix file services on a Netware
v3.11 server also includes the Flex/IP printer functions. NetWare NFS
was updated on August 10, 1995, with the update file available at:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/netwire/novlib/01/nfs197.exe
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/netwire/novlib/01/nfs197.exe

A third-party solution is also available. iQueue is a pair of LPD and LPR
NLMs for Netware 3.1x and 4.x. Filters supported are: Text (CR/LF), Text to
Postscript and Fortran. A demo that runs for 1 hour then unloads is
available by:

ftp://ftp.novell.com/pub/netwire/novuser/05/lpdnlm.zip

[Thanks to Quentin Smart for the info on iQueue]

For a free solution, see section F.2 for information on Charon 4.x.

G.2 Sharing PC and Macintosh printers

You can share printers between PCs and Macintoshes using Netware. The
exact mechanism depends on whether you use Netware v2.x or Netware
v3.11. Macintoshes can only print over the network to Appletalk printers
(which are network devices, similar in concept to a Netware print
server). Sharing PC and Mac printers involves setting up a print queue
to appear on the network as an Appletalk printer.

If you use Netware v2.x you can set up an Appletalk printer to be used
by Macintoshes. This printer must be on the Appletalk network and serves
a queue on the file server. This queue appears on the network to be an
Appletalk printer (such as a LaserWriter) and like an ordinary print
queue PC clients can print to it. The important thing to note here is
that the Appletalk printer must be attached to the network and is
visible to Mac clients. Since Appletalk offers limited access controls
the printer is available to any Mac client on your network.

Netware v3.11 offers more options than Netware v.2x. With Netware for
Macintosh v3 you can do the following:
* Advertise any printer queue to appear as an Appletalk printer
* Service a queue with a real Appletalk printer

Effectively a printer queue can be advertised as an Appletalk printer,
regardless of how the printer attaches to the queue. This means printer
queues serviced by a normal Netware print server can also appear to a
Macintosh client as an Appletalk printer. Also, a printer queue can be
serviced by an Appletalk printer without the queue being visible to a
Mac client.

Other options with Netware for Macintosh v3 allow you to hide an
Appletalk printer which is serving a queue. This means that Mac clients
must use the queue instead of the real printer. You can also restrict
Mac-based users of the queue to those connected to the file server. The
combination of these two features allows you to carefully control access
to printers.

These options are controlled by switches in the printer specification in
ATPS.CFG. A complete description of these switches can be found in the
"Netware for Macintosh Installation and Maintenance Guide", pps 213-241.
Some are summarised here:

Option Does this
-------- --------------------------
-o Renames a localtalk Q to a netware print Q
-h Hides a localtalk printer which services the queue
-a Makes a netware Q accessable only when logged in
-y Disables the 'job completed' notification for Mac Users

And some examples:

e.g. 1 Print Q in same zone as server
"localtalk name" -o "netware Q name" -h -a -y

e.g. 2 Print Q in zone other than server
"localtalk name:zone name2" -o "netware Q name:zone name2"

G.3 Getting garbage in printouts

If you occasionally get garbage in the middle of your print jobs, you're
probably running PSERVER V1.21, which ships with NetWare 3.11. There is
a known bug in this version which causes it to sometimes emit spurious
characters when its buffer empties. A temporary solution would be to
increase the size of the buffer in PCONSOLE; this should mask the problem
for typical text jobs (but not for long ones, or for graphics) and is often
not a bad idea as it will slightly improve the efficiency of PSERVER's
operation. The permanent solution is to get a current copy of PSERVER. Look
for the latest copy of PSERVER on Compuserve or your favourite ftp site.

Another possibility is that you are running a serial printer and having
problems with handshaking. In general, a print server can send data faster
than a printer can print it (and in fact, this is the way you want it so
that you are not artificially slowing down your printer). At some point,
the printer has to be able to tell the print server to stop sending until it
can deal with the data that's in its buffer. This can be done using hardware
handshaking (there are several RS-232 pins for this purpose) or software
handshaking (usually using the ASCII XON and XOFF characters). Both the
printer and the print server must be configured to use the same method of
handshaking. You will probably need to look in your printer's manual to find
out what method(s) it supports, and how to enable them. For the print
server, use the Printer Configuration screen in PCONSOLE.

Another factor to bear in mind is whether or not your printer uses binary
codes to position print on the page (such as a HP Laser Jet). You may need
to set the queue to use BYTESTREAM rather than TEXT to allow control codes
with value 13 to be transmitted.

G.4 Alternatives to PCONSOLE & PSTAT for monitoring printer queues

QView v1.5 is a program that will allow you to view several print queues
at once. QView Pro v2.0 is a Pconsole replacement. With QView Pro, an
operator may place jobs on hold, delete jobs, or move jobs between queues
with a click-drag-drop of the mouse. You are welcome to try both if you
would like. Note that these are demo versions of licensed software. Full
details are available form the author (Steven Herzog/Secure Design) at
sdesign@mcimail.com. Both Qview and QView Pro are available from the
FTP site oak.oakland.edu (or any SimTel mirror site) in the
/pub/msdos/novell directory.

Jeff Pilant (pilant@nadc.nadc.navy.mil) wrote QLST [on netlab2.usu.edu]
to show all pending and active jobs on all queues. Source is included.
He also wrote SELECT [also on netlab2.usu.edu] to select a print queue
when you have many to choose from. It also provides for defaulting the
queue based on workstation location and source is included.

[Thx J.P.]

G.5 Relocating print queues

Try the freeware utility CreateQ:

ftp.novell.com /pub/netwire/novuser/06/creatq.zip

[Thanks to Paul Tichy for this info]

The following steps will allow you to move print queues to another NetWare
volume:

- Use jrbutil's creatobj with the following statement :

creatobj /o=3 /d=data:queue temp

- Goto pconsole and select print server, print server configuration,
queues serviced by printer, press insert, choose temp.

- Goto pconsole and select print queues.

- Rename an existing queue (press F3) to something else
- Rename temp to the existing queue name
- This way, users will transparently be printing to the same
print queue but it will be using a different location.

[Thanks to Rajnish Mishra for this info]

NetWare 4.x now allows the administrator to create print queues on volumes
other than SYS:

[Thx S.M.D.]

G.6 Do postscript printer viruses exist?

>Anyone heard of printer viruses? We've been told that some viruses can
>be spread to a printer by downloading a Postscript font. Various
>printer manufacturer's say no way.

Only problem I know of for PS printers is if some PS code resets the
password to "lock you out", requiring you to take the printer apart
and remove the battery backed CMOS chip or battery (if memory serves).

I think that qualifies as a virus...except that it doesn't propagate...
until the person printing tries another printer when the first chokes.

The following code is supposed to protect against this -- it also
provides an alert if someone tries to change the password as well.
Just replace "NAME" and "xxx-xxxx" as appropriate, then using DOS
just copy this code to the printer.

serverdict begin 0 exitserver
statusdict /setpassword
{userdict begin /evilpassword exch def pop
(PASSWORD ALERT - CONTACT NAME at xxx-xxxx)=flush
/Helvetica findfont 24 scalefont setfont
20 50 720 {70 exch moveto
(PASSWORD ALERT - CONTACT NAME at xxx-xxxx)
show} for
showpage stop
} put

[Thanks to Floyd Maxwell for this info]

G.7 Printing to the right queue without running Win / Print / Setup

CAP2 is a Windows shareware that lets you print from lpt1-lpt9 on up to
100 netware queues using only the right printer driver for that printer.
Only allow HP -> HP, Canon -> Canon, etc. Capture in user hold mode. If
a queue is not found, try default server or other servers.

ftp://ftp.coast.net/SimTel/win3/network/cap202.zip

[Thanks to Bengt Bolinder for this info]

G.8 Alternatives to PSERVER for more than 16 printers, etc.

FPserver (Fast Printer Server) by Richard Hartman, rlh@comtch.iea.com.
$95 for a file server license. You can run up to 7 printers off each
computer, 4 serial and 3 lpt, and as many computers as you want to setup
as print servers. Printing is fast, and it uses the same queues as NetWare
so no special configuration is required. A shareware 20 min. time-limited
version is on netlab2.usu.edu [dir??]. We are using 8088 cpus, and it can
service 3 printers as fast as they can go. It also doesn't use interrupts
which is one less worry, and allows monitoring what is printing so you
can delete or rush print jobs.

[Thanks to Michael D. Setzer II for this info]

NetWare 4 relieves this situation by allowing PSERVER to handle 255
printers.

[Thx S.M.D.]

G.9 Print Server auditing programs

AuditTrack v2.0 will audit everything on 3.x and 4.x servers. It is
available for a free 30 day trial at

http:\\www.egsoftware.com

[Thanks to Eli Shapira for this info]

G.10 Running NPrinter or RPrinter without being logged in

It is possible to execute NPrinter without first logging into the network.
Possible with RPrinter too. I use a local directory for the xPrinter files.
You will need the following files:

NPRINTER EXE 350,606 11-15-93 3:39p
TEXTUTIL HEP 11,735 10-26-92 4:06p
NPRINTER HEP 8,205 01-22-93 5:23p
NPRINTER HLP 7,618 06-17-93 11:49a
NPRINTER MSG 9,259 05-18-93 9:49a
TEXTUTIL MSG 29,466 01-27-93 6:56p
437_UNI 001 659 01-26-93 4:57p
850_UNI 001 659 01-26-93 4:57p
UNI_1252 001 2,196 01-26-93 5:10p
UNI_437 001 2,836 01-26-93 4:57p
UNI_850 001 2,708 01-26-93 4:58p
UNI_COL 001 4,500 01-23-93 2:24p
UNI_MON 001 4,244 01-23-93 2:23p
1252_UNI 001 659 01-26-93 5:10p
IBM_RUN OVL 2,815 01-19-93 10:33a
TEXTUTIL IDX 9,170 12-10-90 1:37p

Note: The above files are from a NW 4.01 system upgraded to NW 4.1, your
file dates and sizes may differ.

[Thanks to John Withers for this info]

Further to the above, the way to find exactly which files are required
is to execute NPrinter /v which should show the current versions of all
files required by NPrinter. You can either put these files into the LOGIN
directory, which all users (by default, anyway) have R F Access to or you
can copy them to a local drive. Then all that's needed is to execute:

LSL
DRIVER.COM
IPXODI [Floyd: loading IPXODI /A will save some KB of RAM]
VLM
N{PRINTER ???
etc.

[Thanks to Michael Mollard for this info]

H. OTHER MATERIAL

H.1 Booting a server without running STARTUP.NCF/AUTOEXEC.NCF

There may be times when you want to boot a file server without running
the startup scripts C:\STARTUP.NCF and SYS:SYSTEM/AUTOEXEC.NCF. With
NetWare 3.x, when you issue the SERVER command, include the parameter

-ns To not execute the STARTUP.NCF
-na To not execute the AUTOEXEC.NCF

Note1: These parameters are case sensitive and MUST BE lowercase.

Note2: NEVER load memory management software before running SERVER.EXE!

Under NetWare 2.x all of the configuration information is incorporated
into the NET$OS.EXE file so the question doesn't really apply; you would
have to regenerate the operating system with NETGEN to change it.

[Thanks to Jay Sissom for clarifying the 2.x issues]

H.2 How to login without running the system/user login script

The DEFAULT login script built into LOGIN.EXE executes after the SYSTEM
login script (NET$LOG.DAT) when there are no USER login scripts. The
solution is to either use an EXIT command at the end of the SYSTEM login
script or create individual USER login scripts. The latter approach is
more work but there is security benefit to creating USER login scripts.

Among other things the DEFAULT login script maps S1 and S2 search drives
to SYS:PUBLIC and to the DOS subdirectories under PUBLIC. It also attempts
to map a user home directory immediately under SYS: For more information
see the Installaton and Upgrade red book. By the way you cannot modify
the DEFAULT login script because it is built into LOGIN.EXE so the best
you can do is prevent it from executing.

[Thanks to Andrew Lampert for this info]

In NetWare 3.12 and above, or earlier versions upgraded to the latest
LOGIN.EXE, you can use the NO_DEFAULT login script command to prevent
the execution of the default user login script for users who have no
personal login script.

[Thx S.M.D.]

Alternatively, you could ensure that every user has a NetWare login script,
however small, and that there is a system level NetWare login script as
well. By the way, use "PATH string" as opposed to "SET PATH=string". The
former goes through command.com for regularization, the latter is taken
verbatim.

[Thx Joe D.]

This last point is a good idea from a security standpoint, too. Basically,
on a server where users are allowed to have their own personal login
scripts, an account without one may be a security hole. For the details,
see the Hacking NetWare FAQ at:

http://www.hookup.net/~apayne/nwhack.html

[Thx S.M.D.]

Or, you could ATTACH instead of LOGIN to the NetWare file server(s).
You will either need to first login to another file server which has the
ATTACH command available or copy ATTACH.EXE to the workstation's disk.
Then enter the login command as "LOGIN /S nul *username*" which will
attempt to read the script from the DOS nul device, which always returns
end of file, effectively avoiding reading a login script.

If you are running NetWare 4.x you can LOGIN /NS (/NS meaning No Script).
In a 3.x environment use LOGIN /S... Use /S to point to a text file on a
local drive containing login script statements (A simple WRITE "It worked"
should do) The easiest way of all is to LOGIN to another server and ATTACH
to the problem server. If security is not an issue, copy ATTACH.EXE to
your sys:login directory to avoid future problems.

[Thanks to A. Murray for this info]

At least in 3.1x, the Login scripts are in the mail directory. So the
supervisor Login script is at sys:mail\1\login. If all login scripts are
going to be the same, set the system Login scripts to what you like it to
be and have only exit in the user login script. You don't want to leave
no login because people have write access to the mail directory and can
store a login script that causes problems. If there is something there,
they can't change it.

[Thanks to Tom Tuckerman for this info]

H.3 Remotely controlling a PC with a telnet compatible program

To use Telnet to remotely control a PC, get telnetd.zip at:

ftp://ucselx.sdsu.edu/pub/wattcp/telnetd.zip
*130.191.1.100*

It works really well with CUTCP TELNET, and also works fine with MacTCP
TELNET and most other TELNETs as well.

H.4 Getting userIDs and other information into programs

There are essentially four ways to import Novell information into programs
you have written, each of which is appropriate for some solutions:

H.4.1 Environment variables

Use the login script command:

dos set VARIABLE="Value"

to put the user-id (%LOGIN_NAME), station number, etc. (consult the Novell
documentation for the list of available values), into an environment
variable. Now you will be able to retrieve the environment variable in both
batch files and programs. In Turbo Pascal as well as most varieties of C
and C++ use the expression GetEnv("VARIABLE") to retrieve an environment
variable.

This technique is good for simple programs which only need a few Novell
values, and for batch files.

H.4.2 Piping in information from WHOAMI

Write your program to read its input in the form that WHOAMI types, and then
pipe in the output from WHOAMI:

WHOAMI [/a] | YOURPROGRAM

You will have to program to ignore lines that contain only / - \ because
these still appear at the head of the file while the program is scanning
the bindery information.

This is inefficient, but it is the only way to get group arbitrary group
memberships if you cannot use either (C) or (D) below.

H.4.3 Novell APIs

Purchase the Novell APIs, available in both C (which work with several
versions of C and C++, including all Borland products) and assembly language
(which you could also use in any high level language with an interrupt
command). With these you can retrieve directly almost any information that
the account running the program has access to. The APIs provide not only
basic services like user-names and connection number, but advanced ones like
print queues and IPX/SPX communications, among others.

This is the best and most efficient solution, but requires investment in the
APIs as well as programming knowledge.

An alternative to the SDKs is "Programmer's Guide to Netware" by Charles
Rose. This book has extensive details on Netware v2.x system calls and
covers many Netware v3.x calls.

There is also a shareware API library available via anonymous FTP at:

ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/msdos/c/netclb30.zip

or any SimTel mirror site.

[Thanks to Adrian Cunnelly for this additional info]

H.4.4 Third Party Utilities

UPDATE.EXE by Robert Evans is a freeware
utility that allows you to detect the existence of specific sub-strings
in text files, add, replace, delete specific lines, files, directories etc.

http://www.soe.purdue.edu/staff/bob

[Thanks to Dave Lehman for this info]

user info utility

USERDUMP by Roy Coates will tap the bindery and list user info such as
mail address, user id, etc. and is available at:

ftp://ftp.mechnet.liv.ac.uk/novell/freeware/userdump.zip

[Thx R.C.]

DISKHOG by Roy Coates will list the disk space used by user, including
subdirectories and is available at:

ftp://ftp.mechnet.liv.ac.uk/novell/freeware/diskhog.zip

[Thx R.C.]

H.5 What do all those columns in STAT.NLM v2.0 mean?

STAT.NLM is a process which records performance information for a Netware
v3.11 file server. STAT records a data point once per second and writes
to the disk once per minute to minimize the effect on the server.

Use DUMPSTAT to output the STAT data in a readable format. This is a DOS
command and its syntax is:

DUMPSTAT inputpath [outputpath] [-L | -X | -S | -Nnum | -Mnum]

where
-L Lotus format (comma delimited)
-X Excel format (tab delimited)
-S Screen format (column justified)
-N Output file size (default is 7200 points or 2 hours). You can
increase this if you want to put a day's worth in one file, etc.
A file with 8 hours of data would therefore have -N28800.
-M Data reduction factor ... or do you really not want that much data.
This is the number of records that will be averaged and output to a
single record. So putting 60 in here would give you a point per
minute instead of a point per second. 300 would give you a point
per 5 minutes.

Here is the official word from Novell on what the columns of output mean:

1. CPU utilization
2. Bytes received (bytes read from LAN comm channel)
3. Bytes transmitted (bytes written to the LAN comm channel)
4. Bytes read (bytes read from the disk)
5. Bytes written (bytes written through cache to the disk channel)
6. Packets routed (# packets using the router services of the server)
7. Number of connections

An important warning for anyone using STAT.NLM: the next filename to be
used by STAT.NLM is stored in a file called STAT.CFG. You must use the STAT
configuration utility to change this -- using a text editor will most likely
crash your file server.

[Thx G.F.]

H.6 Changing the number of licenced users on a Netware server

This answer refers to Netware v3.1x only. The serial number and maximum
connection count are both found in SERVER.EXE. When you get your upgrade
package from Novell, copy this file from the SYSTEM-1 diskette over your
old SERVER.EXE on your server's boot diskette or boot partition and your
server is upgraded. Note that it might be wise to keep the old SERVER.EXE
around in case you later discover that the new SYSTEM-1 diskette has a
media error or something. Also, if you have applied any static patches to
your old SERVER.EXE, they will have to be re-applied to the new one
(semi-static and dynamic patches, loaded in your AUTOEXEC.NCF, do not
modify SERVER.EXE and will continue to work as usual).

[Thx S.M.D.]

H.7 Register memory ("Cache memory alloc. out of avail. memory" msg)

This section is based on NOVELL FYI 1.1.39, extended to include information
provided by George Whitehead, R.J.L., Joe D. and S.M.D.
Much of the FYI is used verbatim.

ISSUE/PROBLEM
Server error message: Cache memory allocator out of available memory.

This can occur when mounting disk volumes even when there are plenty of
cache buffers available in machines with more than 16M of memory. It can
also occur I guess when you have run out of memory completely but the
solution in this case is obvious.

SOLUTION

EISA machines should be configured to use AUTO REGISTER MEMORY, but in
the case of ISA machines or EISA machines that are not configured
correctly, the following kludge will solve the problem. Every machine
that requires the REGISTER MEMORY command, uses more than 16MB of RAM,
and has large disk storage, will exhibit problems such as this. This is
not an issue in machines that do not require the REGISTER MEMORY command
(such as the COMPAQ SystemPro, PS/2 MODELs 90, 95, HP Vectra etc.)
because at boot up you see all of the RAM.

By the time you register memory in the AUTOEXEC.NCF, volume SYS: has
already been mounted. At the time the first volume is mounted, NetWare
draws a line in the sand, and only memory which it had available at that
time can be used for FAT caching for all subsequent volumes, regardless
of how much physical memory is available at that time. Therefore,
subsequent volumes will be mounted downward in memory until you eventually
run out of memory below 16 meg (see figure 1 below).

Figure 1:
|======{==}={==}={==}| ==========================|
{== VL2 VL1 SYS 16 64
MEG of MEMORY MEG

The key is to REGISTER MEMORY before loading the disk drivers or
mounting volume SYS:, as illustrated in figure 2 below.

Figure 2:
|===============|=================={==}{==}{==}|
16 { = VL2 VL1 SYS 64
MEG of MEMORY MEG

Here is the procedure:

Step 1. Remove ALL DISK DRIVERS out of the startup.ncf file. If
this is all that startup.ncf has then delete it.

For example my startup.ncf is:
set minimum packet receive buffers = 200

Step 2. Create an Autoexec.ncf file in the same DOS directory as
SERVER.EXE, making sure that the register memory command
is executed before volume SYS is mounted. Use the format
listed below.

file server name HOPE
ipx internal net 9088
register memory 1000000 1000000
load isadisk port=1F0 int=E
mount SYS
autoboot

Step 3. Create an Autoboot.ncf file in the SYSTEM directory.
Put into it all other Autoexec.ncf commands.

load NE2000 port=300 int=3 frame=ETHERNET_802.3
bind IPX to NE2000 net=01abfeed
etc.

The decision to use the name autoboot is purely personal. The mechanism
will work with a single Autoexec.ncf on the DOS drive containing all of
the autoexec.ncf commands. The advantage of the 2 file method is that
the complex part of the autoexec.ncf file is on the Netware partition
and can be edited from a workstation using your favourite editor while
the server is up. Others may find it preferable to have a single
autoexec.ncf on the DOS partition of the server as this allows access
to it when the server is down.

[Thanks to George Whitehead, R.J.L., Joe D. & S.M.D.]

Related bits and pieces.

Joe D. posted a message to the NOVELL LISTSERVER at the start of
July (1994 Joe?) which described how to configure EISA memory cards.

Earlier versions of the driver for the ISA/MCA Adaptec host adapters
(154x and 164x series) had a command-line parameter which informed them
that they were operating in a machine with more than 16 MB of memory.
Current versions of the drivers for these cards do not require this
parameter and the EISA cards have never required this parameter.

Some drivers may require:
set reserved buffers below 16 MB = 64

[Floyd: See H.16 below for more info on Adaptec]

It is possible to 'RUN' a sequence of netware console commands from a
batch file by typing the name of the file from the console. Put the
commands in a file in the SYSTEM directory and give it an NCF extension.
For example if the file was called TEST.NCF it could be run by typing
TEST, then pressing ENTER, at the console prompt.

[Thanks to Douglas Scott and S.M.D. for the info]

Some EISA don't register memory above 16MB. If this is the case, the
NSEPRO describes the solution for servers running NW4 is to put the
following lines in STARTUP.NCF:

SET AUTO REGISTER ABOVE 16 MEGABYTES = OFF
SET RESERVED BUFFERS BELOW 16 MEG = 200
...load the disk drivers
LOAD MEMFRGFX

[Thanks to ksommers for the info]

Also, make sure there is no interrupt conflict. Drew Morris reported
problems when a PCI SCSI card was set to Interrupt 15 and another
problem when a PCI adapter was on Interrupt 9.

[Thanks to Drew Phillips for the info]

Additional note: Netware 4.x auto-registers memory in a PCI-bus server
but Netware 3.x doesn't...unless you have more than 64 MB of RAM.
Above 64 MB you will have to register manually, which can be done in the
NetWare 4.x STARTUP.NCF file.

[Thanks to Achim Stegmeier for the info]

H.8 Where to get the Windows NT requester

A new version of the Windows NT client requester is now available at:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/updates/nwos/ntclnt
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/updates/nwos/ntclnt

[Thx H.K.]

H.9 Why can't I format a floppy under Windows when using boot ROM?

When remote booting, the NIC takes the place of the machine's A drive as
the startup device (Note: the boot image is nothing more than an image of
a bootable floppy disk). DOS notes this by marking drive A as the startup
device. To avoid wiping out your DOS and Windows system, Windows won't
let you format your boot disk/system disk. Jeff Macdonald has created a
shareware program for use with Windows that "fools" Windows into thinking
that the C drive is the startup drive, thus allowing Windows to format
the A: drive. The file is called FAKESTUP.COM and can be found at many of
the Novell sites including Joe D's site:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/apps/fakestup.zip
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/apps/fakestup.zip

[Thanks to Doug Williams for this info]

H.10 Getting a list of usernames on a server to an ASCII file

John Baird of New Zealand has developed a range of tools for Netware which
are widely regarded as essential for supervisors. One of these is GRPLIST,
which will list all users in a group. To get all usernames into an ASCII
file, issue the following command:

GRPLIST * /f

which will create a file called USERS.LIS containing all user names on the
server. John's utilities are available from most of the ftp servers listed
in the FAQ, in the file JRB221A.ZIP.

H.10.1 Creating users from an ASCII file

There are at least two programs that will create users based on input from
an ASCII file.

H.10.1.1 Mass User Management

Mass User Management reads in a tab, comma or space delimited file and
creates the users. It uses templates to match different user account
restrictions to different users in the ASCII file. A demo is available at:

ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/msdos/novell/MUM13A.ZIP

This version of Mass User only works in bindery emulation on NetWare 4.1
servers so all users must be in the same context. An NDS version is in
the works, though. Co-authored by Shawn_Holmstead@novell.com and others.

H.10.1.2 UIMPORT

UIMPORT reads an ASCII text file and add users. I know nothing further.

H.11 Remote access to a LAN

There are a variety of ways to get access to your network remotely. These
include running a telnet server (e.g. telnetd described elsewhere) on a
workstation and accessing it via tcp/ip, running remote control clients and
accessing them via modem, running remote network node clients and accessing
them via modem and of course iptunneling across a tcpip network.

Conceptually and practically, the simplest solution for many people is to
run a remote control client on their own workstation which they dial into
and control from remote sites. This requires 2 modems (preferably fast ones
using V.34, or V.32bis in a pinch) and also requires that you leave your
workstation permanently turned on - in itself arguably a Good Thing provided
that the monitor is off. It also requires some software and there are a
large number of choices.

Commercial packages include PC-Anywhere, CloseUp, Blast, Carbon Copy and
Reachout, Stac Electronics, 1201 19th Place, Vero Beach, Fla 32960
(407)770-4777, FAX: (407)770-4779, TECH: (407)563-2255. These cost around
$100 to $200 per node and often work quite reasonably.

Shareware packages such as Telereplica (tr4-26.zip in SimTel mirrors MODEM
directory) offer a very cost effective solution. Telereplica has long
passwords which are very hard to crack and can even do dialback for added
security. The only drawback is that it does not do graphics but at 9600
baud, life's too short anyway! If you really need to run a graphics package
(e.g. Harvard Graphics or whatever), do it at home and upload the results
to your workstation. It's much faster that way !

There's also some PD software released from PC Magazine some years ago. Look
for PCREMOTE.ZIP which has assembler source for a simple remote control
package via modem which could be the basis for a more sophisticated effort.

[Thanks to Dr Ross Lazarus for this info]

One of the Very Frequent Questions on this list is how can folks dial into
their NetWare file server.

At present, they can't, at least not like they think they might. Some device
has to act as a client node on the network and then put things into a form
suitable for async transmission. Whether SLIP or PPP or another framing
method is used normally is a small part of the picture. In any case, the
server is not an interactive login machine such as a Unix box and DOS does
not work to a classical terminal interface.

This means the node on the net can execute the DOS programs and relay
screen and keyboard updates across the phone lines (Carbon Copy,
PC Anywhere, et al), or it can try to wrap IPX packets into async frames
and unpack them on the other end. Things such as Netblazer/Worldblazer
modems (though by now "modem" is the small part) act as such relay nodes.
Novell's Access Server, and similar boxes, run a bunch of DOS machines
having keyboard/screen relayed across the net. NAS simulates many machines
on one via a special version of DESQview.

Since you have LWP/DOS 4.1, have a look at the XPC part of things. The idea
is to relay the keyboard/screen of a DOS machine executing the program of
choice across a wire using IP packets and the X window system protocol
on top. Thus you could execute WordPerfect/DOS sessions from your Sun
workstation, with your DOS PC doing the real work. Taking one more step,
put a modem on your office DOS PC, run XPC there, and at home fire up a PC
running X to a matching modem.

You might want to look at:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/..???../brainshr.zip

which is basically the floppy disk passed out at Brainshare/SLC (aka
Novell Developer's Conference) this spring by Brian Meek addressing
LWP/DOS, dialing, SLIP_PPP, and even Kermit's role in this. The
development Kermit was just for developers, is out of date and should
not be redistributed.

[Thx Joe D.]

H.12 Short Term Memory -- how much does your server need?

The default Short Term Memory allocation will ALWAYS crash your server if
any type of load is put on it. I would suggest that you immediately set
this value up to 5000000. We happen to run our servers at 8000000.

The exact syntax, which can be placed in your AUTOEXEC.NCF would be,

SET MAXIMUM ALLOC SHORT TERM MEMORY=8000000

[Thx G.F.]

H.13 BTRIEVE -- what do I need?

Btrieve is a record manager running as an NLM on a Novell server. Certain
applications can use a Btrieve client to make requests to the engine on the
server. BTRIEVE.NLM is the server component, while BREQUEST.EXE is the DOS
client. More complete documentation is included with the Novell manual set.

When performing installs of some programs, make sure the btrieve related
programs in sys:system are NOT flagged as read-only.

Btrieve is no longer part of Novell. Btrieve Technologies can be reached
at: #300 - 8834 N Capital of Texas Hwy, Austin, TX 78759-9774, Tel: 800-
BTRIEVE (US & Can), 512-794-1719, or by eMail at Info@BtrvTech.COM

[Thanks to Mark Fogel, H.K. & R.J.L. for this info]

H.14 What to do if you've lost your SUPERVISOR password.

Panic. :-) In fact there are several options you can try.

SETSPASS.NLM, available via anonymous ftp from netlab2.usu.edu in misc,
allows you to change the SUPERVISOR password from the server console, as
long as you know the serial number of your copy of Netware.

SETPWD.NLM, that doesn't require that you have the serial number, is
located in the same directory.

LASTHOPE.NLM will "zap a corrupt bindery" but seems to suffer from poor
(i.e. missing) docs.

ftp://salford.ac.uk/network/nlms/lasthope.zip
*146.87.255.21*

If you have some unallocated disk space on the server you could create
a new SYS: volume on that. This will create a new bindery as well as
LOGIN, SYSTEM, PUBLIC and MAIL directories. However it is a bit drastic.

Alternatively, *FOR NETWARE 2.X SERVERS ONLY*, you can try the following:

1. Bring the server down.
2. With some disk sector editing software (Norton Disk Edit for
example) find the directory tables.
3. Change the name of files NET$VAL.SYS, NET$PROP.SYS, NET$OBJ.SYS
to something else (preferably NET$VAL.OLD etc.)
After that all user definitions will be deleted.
4. Bring the file server back up.
5. Login as supervisor (at that time you will need no password)
6. Find changed files in SYSTEM directory (they have attributes
hidden, system), change their attributes to normal and
be sure that they have extension ".OLD"
7. Run BINDREST program to get your original user definitions back.
Now, you will have all your users including supervisor with
their old definitions and passwords, but you are already in as
supervisor and so you can change your password to anything you like.

Note: It appears that in NetWare 2.x there are only two bindery files. For
more information on this see the Hacking Netware FAQ at:

http://www.hookup.net/~apayne/nwhack.html

[Thx S.M.D.]

You can also try to use your sector editor to edit the names used for the
bindery files in SERVER.EXE. Unlike the previous NETWARE 2.X ONLY method,
this has the advantage of not damaging the directory tables if things go
wrong. Try the following steps:

1. Bring the server down.
2. Make a backup copy of SERVER.EXE.
3. With some disk sector editing software (Norton Disk Edit for
example) change the name of files NET$VAL.SYS, NET$PROP.SYS,
NET$OBJ.SYS where they occur in SERVER.EXE to something else
(preferably TMP$VAL.SYS etc.)
4. Bring the file server back up.
5. Login as supervisor (at that time you will need no password)
6. Find changed files in SYSTEM directory (they have attributes
hidden, system), change their attributes to normal and
be sure that they have extension ".OLD"
7. Bring the server down again.
8. Restore your backed-up SERVER.EXE and reboot.
9. Run BINDREST program to get your original user definitions back.
Now, you will have all your users including supervisor with
their old definitions and passwords, but you are already in as
supervisor and so you can change your password to anything you like.

There is a program called BURGLAR that is designed to break passwords.
You can find it at:

ftp://ftp.rhij.nl/cyco/burglar.nlm

Note: BURGLAR creates a tempory user that is incomplete. Log in under
this users name (and remove the account after use). BURGLAR was written
bij Bart Mellink from Cyco.

http://www.cyco.nl

There is additional information in the Hacking Netware FAQ at:

http://www.hookup.net/~apayne/nwhack.html

[Thx S.M.D.]

H.15 Synchronising workstation time with server time

Time synchronization occurs at two times. The first is at the
time when the shell or redirector makes a connection to a server
(the NOT-LOGGED-IN connection which gives you access to SYS:LOGIN).
To disable this connection from setting your workstation's time,
use SET STATION TIME = OFF in your NET.CFG.

The second time is during the login process. In the absence of
a SET_TIME OFF command in any login script executed by the user,
the workstation's time will be set to that of the fileserver.
This command is supported in the LOGIN.EXE which ships with NetWare
3.12 and 4.x; it can be downloaded from the usual places for earlier
versions.

[Thx S.M.D.]

H.16 Problems with disks and tape drives on Adaptec SCSI controllers

Many users have experienced problems with older Adaptec SCSI controllers
with both disks and tape drives. If you're running older Adaptec software
you should upgrade it immediately to the current release (minimum
2 June 1994). You should also seriously consider upgrading your hardware,
as the 1542C has problems in servers with more than 16MB memory. The
1542CF doesn't.

[Thanks to Julian Byrne for this info]

Contact Adaptec's Literature Hotline at 800-934-2766, BBS: 408-945-7727
Tech. Support Hotline: 800-959-SCSI (7274) or 408-945-2550, Interactive
FAX: 408-957-7150 (PCI compatibility list is doc #21105),
ftp://ftp.adaptec.com, http://www.adaptec.com

[Thx V.K.R.]

H.17 FTP address/contact info for various NIC MLID drivers

Network Interface Card ODI MLID Vendors / Driver locations:

3Com Corporation
(800) NET-3COM
BBS: (408) 980-8204
ftp://ftp.3com.com/adapters
*129.213.128.5*

Accton Technology Corp.
800-926-9288
BBS: (408) 452-8828
ftp://ftp.edu.tw
*140.111.1.10*
ftp://ftp.accton.com.tw
*192.72.24.119*
http://www.accton.com.tw/
gopher://gopher.accton.com.tw/
support@accton.com.tw

Allied Telesis, Inc.
(206) 488-5888
BBS (206) 483-7979
ftp://ftp.salford.ac.uk/supplier/allied
*146.87.255.21*
ftp://gateway.centre.com/pub
*198.93.88.66*

Apple Computer Inc.
(800) 538-9696

BOCA Research Inc.
(407) 997-6227

Cabletron
ftp://ctron.com/pub
*134.141.197.25*

Compaq
ftp://ftp.compaq.com/pub/softpaq/Drivers
*131.168.249.252*
http://www.compaq.com/cgi-bin/present/support/latest.html

CNet Technology Inc.
(800) 486-2638
BBS: (408) 954-1787

Cogent Data Technologies Inc.
(800) 4-COGENT
BBS: (206)-378-5405

Digital Equipment Corp.
(800) 722-9332
ftp://ftp.dec.com/pub/micro/msdos/network
*16.1.0.2*

D-Link Systems Inc.
(800) 326-1688
ftp://dlink.com/pub
*192.152.81.1*

Eagle Technologies
See Microdyne

Hewlett-Packard Co.
(800) 752-0900
ftp://ftp-boi.external.hp.com/pub/computer_products/network
*192.6.71.2*

International Business Machines
ftp://software.watson.ibm.com
*129.34.139.5*

Intel Corp.
(800)538-3373
BBS: (503) 645-6275
ftp://ftp.intel.com/pub/support/etherexpress
*143.185.65.2*
www.intel.com

Linq Systems Corp.
(800) 870-3185

Microdyne
1140 Ringwood Court
San Jose, CA 95131-1726
(408) 432-1191
Fax: (408) 432-1265

Mitron Computer Inc.
(800) 713-6888
BBS: (408) 371-9786
ftp://mitron.com
*199.182.76.100*

Racal Interlan Inc.
(800) LAN-TALK
(508) 263-9926
fax: (508) 635-9140
email:Cust_Servie@RImail.interlan.com
ftp://ftpserv.interlan.com/
*130.204.8.16*

Standard Microsystems Corp.
(800) SMC-4-YOU
ftp://ftp.rug.nl/networks/novell/smc
*129.125.4.15*
ftp://novftp.rc.rug.nl/drivers/smc
*129.125.3.31*
ftp://ftp.smc.com

Thomas-Conrad Corp
(800) 424-3579
ftp://novftp.rc.rug.nl/drivers/thom-con
*129.125.3.31*

Tulip
ftp://novftp.rc.rug.nl/drivers/tulip
*129.125.3.31*

Western Digital
See Standard Microsystems Corp.
http://www.wdc.com
ftp://novftp.rc.rug.nl/drivers/western
*129.125.3.31*

Xircom, Inc
2300 Corporate Center Drive
Thousands Oaks, CA 91320
Tel: 805-376-9300
Fax: 805-376-9030
BBS: 805-376-9130
Sales/Support: 800-438-4526, 800-874-7875 (Canada?)
Tech Support: 805-376-9200
Tech Support Fax: 805-376-9130
Factsline Document Retrieval: 800-775-0400
Compuserve GO XIRCOM
Canada - Keating Technologies, Inc.
(416) 479-0230 (Markham, Ontario)
Europe, Middle East, and Africa
32 3 326-34-94 (Belgium)
BBS: 32 3 326-23-68
Asia Pacific
(852) 525-2078 (Hong Kong)
BBS: (852) 537-6048

There are also NIC ODI MLID drivers on these locations:

Microsoft Corp.
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com
*198.105.232.1*
http://www.microsoft.com

Novell Inc.
ftp://ftp.novell.com
*137.65.1.2*
http://www.novell.com
ftp://sjf-lwp.sjf.novell.com
*130.57.11.140*

Utah State University
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu
*129.123.1.44*

[Thanks to Forrest H. Swick for this info]

H.17.1 Suitable NICs for the NetWare server itself

>Are the 3Com "3C509" cards I have in my server suitable?

3C509 have a very small packet buffer, too small to stand much traffic at
all. They interrupt the cpu with "packet has arrived" before the full
packet is in, and that means the software does not know the size of the
buffer to allocate to absorb the packet and thus it must allocate a max
length one every time (memory hog, oink). The cpu must hang around waiting
for the packet to arrive (1.5msec for a full length Ethernet packet,
forever in cpu terms) and then clear the board. The cpu has to do all the
work because the board is not a bus master kind. Given the tiny board
buffering the cpu must attend to the board swiftly or packets get lost from
overruns.

All of these things are bad characteristics in a busy server, and modern
NICs avoid these problems. An NE-2000 is a better board in a server, and
there are many boards much better than the (ISA bus) 3C509 NIC.

Good boards in servers are bus masters, meaning EISA or PCI bus currently.
Not just PCI or EISA boards, but bus master boards. With these the main
server can keep working on requests while the lan adapters deal with packet
busywork, cpu utilization goes way way down, fewer packets are lost from
overload, the server continues to perform well as the load grows high and
higher. The disk system is happier too because there are fewer lapses of
attention to it, so think of the server as being less stressed by better
lan adapters (and by better disk adapters).

Servers (CPUs, disks, NICs & RAM) are about to be strained by:
(1) Win95 and its applications which require larger file transfers,
(2) User demand for 100Mb/s service to the desktop.

[Thx. Joe D.]

H.18 Fax products for NetWare

Optus Facsys [requires a dedicated PC], provides OCR for incoming fax
routing.

Cheyenne FaxServe [runs as an NLM on the server] from Cheyenne Software,
516-484-5110 or 800-CHEY-TEC, Fax: 516-484-3493, faxserve@chey.com. The
latest version, 3.x, supports NetWare 4.x, NDS, and includes an enhanced
FAX client for Windows workstations.

QNT QPServer [requires a dedicated PC]

Castelle FaxPress [allows the use of multiple fax/modems, doesn't need
a dedicated PC, but incoming faxes must be routed]

GammaLink fax board and RightFAX software

[Thanks to H.K., Bill Willcutt & Ivo Spigel for this info]

WinPort allows Network Faxing, Remote Access and Modem Pooling. You can
also map the network modem to a standard unused comm port in windows.
LanSource's Tech number is (416) 535-3555.

[Thanks to Greg Horne for this info]

Faxware from Tobit, Germany. Is NLM based, supports almost any fax-modem,
ISDN adapters with G3 add-on board for inbound routing, has an optional
PCL NLM, an optional fax-on-demand module, an API and is fully integrated
with Netware, ie. it knows users and groups, uses NW queues and can poll
directories

[Thanks to Achim Stegmeier for this info]

H.19.1 Backup software products for NetWare

Novaback works with NW 3.x and 4.0x servers, but it doesn't back up NDS.
It also backs up FAT based disk drives on the local machine. Novaback is
made by Novastor Corporation, #109-30961 Agoura Road, Westlake Village,
CA 91361, Voice: (818) 707-9900, Fax: (818) 707-9902 and is available
in DOS, Windows or NLM versions.

Cheyenne Software makes ArcServe for DOS and Windows clients. ArcServe
can also back up workstations. Cheyenne can be reached at 516-484-5110,
Fax: 516-484-3493, or 800-CHEY-TEC for Technical Support. Mailing address:
3 Expressway Plaza, Roslyn Heights, New York 11577, eMail arcserve@chey.com
or arcserve-win@chey.com (for ver. 5), arcserve-dos@chey.com (for ver. 4)
or support@chey.com. They also have an ftp site, ftp.chey.com and
a Web site, www.chey.com. Make sure that the hardware that you plan to
use is *fully* supported and certified by Cheyenne's compatibility
listing and that you have all the *latest* patches and updates for your
NetWare and supplementary products. Current version is 5.01G and there
is a patch file for this, aw0200.exe. As of May 4, 1995 there is now a
Arcserve eMail list run by Kevin Cheek (kcheek@umich.edu) -- send a
message to majordomo@mmg2.im.med.umich.edu with a Text/Body line of
Subscribe Arcserve or Subscribe Arcserve-Digest to get the digest.
NOTE: A lot of people are very unhappy with Arcserve...

[Thanks to Robert Maubouche, David Jancan & Kevin Cheek for this]

BackExec is a server based product by Arcada. It is fully SMS compliant
and can back up 3.x and 4.1 based server including NDS. It also has the
ability to backup other servers as well as DOS, Windows, Mac and Unix
client stations. Arcada can be reached at http://www.arcada.com, or at
#1101-37 Skyline Drive, Lake Mary, FL 32746, (800) 3ARCADA/(407) 333-7500,
Fax: (407) 333-7730. Arcada provides an upgrade for Cheyenne users. A full
featured 30 day evaluation is available at ftp.arcada.com. Tech support is
available via the 800 number. Backexec is not as full featured as
competing products but it handles backups and restores well.

[Thanks to Jonn Martell for this info]

A newcomer is SnapBack from Columbia Data Products. They can be reached
at (407) 869-6700, Fax: (407) 862-4725, BBS: (407) 862-4724,
cdpi@cdpi.com or http://www.magicnet.net/cdpi

[Thx B.F.]

LANShadow from Horizons Technology, Inc, 3990 Ruffin Road, San Diego,
CA 92123, (800)828-3808, 619-292-9439, uses a backup server that can
backup multiple servers if necessary and can be located anywhere on the
network.

[Thanks to Eliot Ware for this info]

Evaluation copies of Palindrome, 600 E. Diel Rd., Naperville, IL 60563,
(708)505-3300, software can be found at:

ftp.palindrome.com
or
ftp.seagate.com/palindrome

[Thanks to Phil Randal for this info]

H.19.2 Backup hardware products for NetWare

Digital Linear tape is 50-100% faster than DAT and more reliable, since
the tape floats above the tape heads and are never in contact with it.
DLT's work just fine with just about any backup application that you
might have. They are ASPI compatible with ASPI drivers readily
available. The standard DLT holds 10 GB uncompressed, 20 GB compressed.
A new DLT offering was recently released that holds 20 GB uncompressed and
40 GB compressed. The 10/20 GB tapes are about $25-$30 each, the 20/40 GB
about $100. Both single drive and jukeboxes are available, with the
jukeboxes harder to come by due to the present demand. Quantem owns the
rights to DLT, but the technology is licensed to a number of vendors.

[Thx G.F.]

Note: 8mm tape allows for 1500 passes, DAT - 5000 and DLT - 1,000,000.

[Thanks to Shaun@CCNET.UP.AC.ZA for this info]

The Intel Storage Express can be equipped with an auto changer DAT drive
with up to 24 GB capacity (48 with compression). It can achieve up to 100
MB/sec across the [fiber] network.

[Thx B.F.]

HP Jetstore 6000: Stores up to 8 GB, 5 drive auto-changer available.

[Thanks to Daniel Tran for this info]

Colorado Memory Systems, 800 S. Taft Ave., Loveland, Colorado 80537,
(800) 451-4523 Product info/purchase, (970) 635-1501 DOS Tech Support
(970) 635-1502 Windows Tech Support, (970) 635-1503 Netware Tech Support
(800) 368-9673 QicFAX, (970) 635-0650 BBS

H.19.3 Backup methodologies

Weekly Full: Five tapes, labeled Monday through Friday. Incrementals are
performed Monday to Thursday and a full backup on Friday. The backup
horizon is one week. Using ten tapes would extend this to two weeks.

Sequential Reuse: This uses five full tapes which are recycled. Four
incremental tapes are used from Monday to Thursday, with the Friday full
being rotated. This gives a backup horizon of five weeks.

Tower of Hanoi: The five full tapes of the Sequential Reuse, relabelled
A to E here for brevity, are used as: A B A C A B A D A B A C A B A E.
In this method, tape A is reused every two weeks, tape B every four weeks,
tape C every 8 weeks, tape D every 16 weeks and tape E every 32 weeks.
Using more tapes extends the backup horizon further.

Paul Merenbloom method: Tapes are divided into groups of daily, weekly,
monthly, and annual. Use eight sets of daily tapes (two-month rolling
rotation) and two sets of weekly tapes (104-week rolling rotation).
Monthly and annual tapes are set into permanent storage.

Cheyenne ARCserve method: Based on a seven-day week, which has at least
one full backup that produces a weekly tape. During each week, there can
be zero to six daily backups. You have the choice of running full,
differential, or incremental backups for your daily backups. Every month
a monthly tape is produced. At the end of the year the last monthly tape
becomes the yearly tape. This cycle can go on indefinitely.

[Thanks to Forrest H. Swick for this info]

In response to a user's desire to re-partition a NetWare 3.12 server
into 2 or 3 volumes, Joe D. posted the following:

- Backup *everything*, including drive C:, twice.

- Load Install, volume options, zap, recreate, reload System & Public
The trick will be finding those files, which is best done by acting
as a NW client during this entire process, with all files held on
another NW server (image of the CD-ROM or floppies in a directory).

- Restore from tape. Be sure to restore the bindery first, then files
with trustee rights. Most backup programs will not restore space
restrictions nor printer queues, so recreate those by hand afterward.

- Syscon, change rights

- Other details (Mail stuff, login script funnies, etc)

But make sure your tape program will restore to a new volume name!
Hint, borrow a spare hard disk as a temp volume.

[Thx Joe D.]

Then, responding to a user who wanted to rebuild a server but who had no
backups as yet, Joe D. said:

You can try SBACKUP and keep your fingers crossed. Be sure to have
a good XCOPY *.* /s/e to some hard drive somewhere.

You can mount the big new volume as SYS2:, run bindfix twice on SYS:,
copy everything from SYS: to SYS2: (xcopy from the root). Missing will
be open files and system files (print queue things, plus the active
bindery files), and trustee rights. Obtain trustee rights with a separate
program (Wolfgang Schrieber's utils for a start). Dismount both volumes,
swap names, mount the new SYS:. Run BINDREST, then restore trustee rights
from that separate program or do it by hand.

I indicated privately that Novaback SCSI tape drive software costs less
than $100 and works fine on NW 2/3 servers. But ya gotta have a decent
backup device, translating into a SCSI tape drive (DAT or maybe Exabyte,
or DLT if you have lots of $$$).

[Thx Joe D.]

H.19.4 Disaster Recovery methodologies

Purchase a computer for a user that is equal in capabilities to you
server and give it to a user on the condition that when the server dies,
this becomes the backup server or used for spare parts. Ths computer
would have the same disk, controller cards, and RAM as the server. When
developing a disaster recovery plan, write it in the perspective that you
were disabled in the disaster and a network consultant from an outside
company would be able to restore your systems. Specifically state where
disks are located, where passwords are stored etc. Be exact and very
detailed . Document, Document, Document!

Besides the nightly full backups I do using Legato's Networker, I have a
server that contains equal amount of disk space to all my servers. Each
night, I use Arcserve and archive to this Server. If my main server goes
down, key personal can log onto this one for the purpose of reading
databases for customers while we frantically bring up the primary server.
We are looking at Vinca and Horizons Technology, LANshadow for online
mirrored solutions. These companies have different solutions for
different budgets. Take a look at all the products Vinca has.

A useful product that many many network administrators might find handy
is Open File Manager from St. Bernard Software, 619-676-2277, allowing
your backup software to backup open files.

[Thanks to Brent Case for this info]

Some books on Disaster Recovery include:

"Disaster Recovery for LANs: A Planning and Action Guide" by Regis J.
"Bud" Bates. ISBNs 0-07-004194-6 HC, 0-07-004494-5, McGraw-Hill, 1994.
TK5105.7.B38

[Thx J.H.]

"Writing Disaster Recovery Plans for Telecommunications Networks and
LANs", by Leo A. Wrobel, 1993, Artech House, Norwood, Massachusetts.
ISBN 0-89006-694-9

[Thanks to Russ Bellew for this info]

And, of course, Ontrack Data Recovery, (800)555-1212...$ alert...

[Thanks to Christopher D. Heer for this info]

Installing netware again is kinda easy, so all I do is keep a tape backup
of the SYS volume, and a mirror of the backup install in our fire safe.
I also mirror the more important system files on a seperate volume.

I tried a dummy disaster recovery a while back and this worked ok for me.
The most important thing is to take regular backups.

[Thx R.C.]

If your tape backup software and tape drive are on the server as .NLMs,
then you would have to install from the Novell disks, then install your
tape backup software, index a tape, then do your restore. I do an archive
to a standby server each night so I can log my key users in for viewing
vital customer service data while we try to repair the primary server.

Don't forget to backup your DOS partition with Startup.ncf and your
controller card drivers. My duplexed drives have duplicate 10 Meg DOS
partitions so I can swap the Primary with Secondary if I need to.

Also, I recommend you document your disaster recovery detail enough so
that a local CNE could be hired to restore in case your were hurt badly
in the disaster. Document where backup passwords are, physical location
of software, tapes, etc. as well as local vendors that can provide
equipment & services & procedures for procurement. Include phone numbers,
WAN techicians etc. Document, Document and Document.

[Thanks to Brent Case for this info]

Furthering the above, not only should you document where all diskettes
required are located (DOS, NetWare, backup software, patches, and anything
else which may be required) but you should make _multiple_ copies of each,
and store at least one set off-site.

[Thx S.M.D.]

"We do nothing clever - since being clever usually takes more time."

For virus prevention - On newer machines we simply disable writing to the
boot sector of the hard disk via the BIOS. We also disable booting from A:
On older machines, we run the "Chip-Away" anti-virus boot-rom from our
ethernet cards which prevents writing to any boot sector.

For disaster recovery, I keep backup tapes both in a fire safe, and also
keep copies well off site, just in case. I also keep hardware copies of
my netware startup files, copies of the bindery on floppy, an image of my
backup program so that having re-installed a basic netware system from
floppy I can quickly restore everything else from the backups. I've tested
my "Panic-Kit" and it works well. The main reason I keep it simple is so
that it is much easier to keep up to date. If you have a complicated
procedure, you'll be less likely to update it as often.

[Thx R.C.]

You need but a small handful of .EXE/.NLM/.DSK files (including DOS utils)
to bring up a server with an empty drive, create the DOS partition, format
it, dump floppy contents to it, run SERVER, load disk driver, create the
NW partition and volume SYS: etc, load the files needed to run the tape
restore program (including IPX comms).

They can fit onto a few floppies, as I demonstrated yet again yesterday
for another NW 3.12 server. In my case Backup Exec (Arcada) did the
restore while running on another server. Think of this floppy collection
as your "Emergency Boot Disk for NW", to coin a phrase.

[Thx Joe D.]

H.20 Resetting Intruder Detection for Supervisor ID

The user ID "supervisor" and other Supervisor equivalent IDs can have
Intruder Lockout reset immediately by typing "ENABLE LOGIN" at the console
prompt...another reason to keep your console keyboard secure, either
physically or via keyboard password protection.

H.21 Testing that the Login process was successful

The following batch file snippet will test the errorlevel returned by
LOGIN and attempt to login again if not successful:

:Try_To_Login
Login %1 %2
IF ERRORLEVEL 1 GoTo No_Luck
GoTo Login_Successful

:No_Luck
echo Login attempt unsuccessful. Trying again...
GoTo Try_To_Login

:Login_Successful

Note: This batch file code assumes that NETx or VLM are loaded correctly.

[Thanks to Henrik Olsen for this info]

H.22 Cron-like programs

NCL.NLM is free, and has timed execution features. It is also handy for
other stuff you sometimes wanted to do from the console, but couldn't.

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/misc/ncl.zip
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/misc/ncl.zip

[Thanks to Mark Wood for this info]

H.23 Anti-Virus programs

There are a number of anti-virus products available, including products
from McAfee Associates (800)866-6585 (Scan, Clean & NetShield), Symantec
(Norton Anti-Virus), Central Point (Central Point Anti-Virus), Intel
(800)538-3373 (Virus Protect), ThunderByte (800)968-9527, IBM Antivirus,
F-Prot (see detail below) and others.

F-Prot 800-423-9147 ($1/machine shareware, $10/machine commercial at the
150 machine level). The shareware version is available at:

ftp://ftp.coast.net/SimTel/msdos/virus/fp-218a.zip

VirusNet LAN is a National Computer Security Association (NCSA) certified
system available at ftp://gti.net/pub/safetynet/vnlan.exe. It will
distribute virus protection to all workstations, and provides central
control of scheduled scans, updates and audit logs. A 3K TSR is provided
which prevents infected files from being run or copied, and checks
diskettes as they are accessed.

The ftp site also lists the 5,600 viruses detected by the latest version,
and also contains a slick network security software, StopLight LAN
(sllan.exe).

[Thanks to Bob Janacek for this info]

H.24 How can I keep my server on time?

NetWare servers are notorious for losing time as the server is often
too busy handling other interupts to always catch the clock interupt.

One way to keep the server on time is to synchronise it with a TCP/IP
timeserver. This can be done with RDATE.NLM from Murkworks. This free
NLM requires that TCP/IP is loaded on the server and that the TIMEZONE
parameter is set correctly.

RDATE will check the time on the timeserver at regular intervals and
correct the file server if there is a difference.

Also, SYNCTIME.NLM can be run. It occasionally synchronizes the NetWare
"soft" time to the hardware clock inside the PC.

[Thanks to Olger Diekstra for this info]

NetWare 4.x includes the ability to keep all servers' clocks synchronized,
within some margin of error. In fact, it _requires_ it, as NDS uses
timestamps to track what data needs to be replicated to other servers.

Also, if you have one NetWare server which you keep set with the correct
time, you can have other 3.x servers follow its time using SYNC.NLM.

[Thx. S.M.D.]

H.24.1 What is my TIMEZONE?

Netware's TIMEZONE variable works backwards from the rest of the world.
The default timezone is US Eastern Standard Time, GMT-500 which has
TIMEZONE=EST5EDT. For Eastern Australian Standard Time, GMT+1000, it's
TIMEZONE=EAT-10EDT. For Central Australian Standard Time, GMT+930, it's
not supported on NetWare 3.1x servers - only whole hour zones are allowed.

TIMEZONE must be SET before loading CLIB.

[Thanks to Gordon Keith for this info]

H.25.1 NetWare Memory Requirements -- Time To Worry?

Free Cache Buffers (as shown on the console MONITOR display) ought to
stay above 50% of original cache buffers (ie. above half of the total
memory). If they are below 50%, then you need to add memory.

H.25.2 NetWare Memory Requirements -- How Much Is Enough?

A Novell Application Note Supplement published in December, 1994 entitled
"Calculating Memory Requirements for NetWare 3 and 4" stated "The server
memory calculations included in NetWare 3 and 4 documentation are
out-dated and in some cases produce wildly incorrect requirements."

The Application Note Supplement mentioned previously included a more
detailed worksheet for calculating server memory requirements. The same
worksheet can be used for both 3.x and 4.x versions of NetWare. Even this
worksheet is inadequate in many cases, for example when CD-ROMs are
mounted as NetWare volumes. A separate Application Note Supplement
contains additional considerations, but no definite forumlae, for
multiple Name Space support. The worksheet, with additional comments
and instructions follows:

STEP 1: DETERMINE THE FOLLOWING SEVEN VALUES FOR YOUR SERVER

V1. Enter the total megabytes of disk connected to the server:___MB

For example: enter 1 for each MB, enter 1024 for each GB. Do NOT include
CD-ROM volumes that'll be mounted as NetWare volumes. These have their own
memory requirements not adequately covered in these Novell formulas, and
will be calculated later.

V2. Calculate megabytes of useable disk space connected to server:___MB

If you are mirroring or duplexing all partitions this will be one-half of
V1, otherwise copy V1.

V3. Enter the server's volume block size (4, 8, 16, 32, or 64): ____KB

V4. Calculate disk blocks/MB (Divide 1024 by the value V3):____Blocks/MB

The Blocks/MB can be determined using the following table:

Block Size (KB) | 4 | 8 | 16 | 32 | 64 |
-----------------+-----+-----+------+------+------+
Blocks/ MB | 256 | 128 | 64 | 32 | 16 |

V5. Calculate the total disk blocks (Multiply V2 * V4):____Blocks

This calculation assumes that all volumes on a server have the same block
size. If you have various block sizes, separately calculate the number of
blocks of each size, and add the number together to get V5.

V6. Enter the maximum number of clients attached to the server:___Clients

Be sure to include as clients such devices as printers with built-in
network connections or other external print servers, mail servers,
application servers, and gateways that reside on computers separate
from the file server but need to be "logged in" to the server.

V7. IF SUBALLOCATION IS ENABLED, enter the maximum number of files that
will reside on the server:_____Files

STEP 2: CALCULATE YOUR SERVER'S BASIC MEMORY REQUIREMENTS

Line 1: Enter the base memory requirement for the core OS:_______KB

Enter 2048 for NetWare 3, or 5120 for NetWare 4.

Line 2: Calculate the memory requirements of the NetWare Media Manager
(Divide V1 by 10):_______KB

Line 3: If File Compression (NetWare 4.x only) is enabled, enter 250,
otherwise enter 0:________KB

Line 4: If Suballocation (NetWare 4.x only) is enabled, calculate the
required memory, otherwise enter 0:_________KB

Multiply V7 * .005 (or divide V7 by 200).

Line 5: Calculate the memory required to cache the FAT
(Multiply Line V5 * .008):_________KB

Line 6: Calculate the memory requirement for file and directory caching
using the following table:________KB

This calculation assumes a 0.4MB file cache per client memory requirement.
The number decreases as the user size grows, based on the assumption that
there is increasingly repetitive use of shared data already in the cache.

Less than 100 clients V6 * 400
Between 100 and 250 clients 40,000 + ( [V6 - 100] * 200 )
Between 250 and 500 clients 70,000 + ( [V6 - 250] * 100 )
Between 500 and 1000 clients 95,000 + ( [V6 - 500] * 50 )

Line 7: Enter the total memory (KB) required for support NLMs:________KB

2,000 KB is recommended by Novell for BRIEVE (700), CLIB (500), INSTALL
(600), and PSERVER (200). Almost all servers will require these, although
INSTALL is probably only needed occasionally and could be loaded only when
needed. If you will allocate memory to Btrieve's own cache over the default
amount of 256 (an option available with Btrieve versions 6.x), add the
additional amount to the 2,000 value. If you will be loading TCP/IP on the
server, add XXXXXX KB.

Line 8: Enter the total memory (KB) required for other services:_______KB

Other services include NetWare for Macintosh, NetWare for SAA, NetWare SQL,
OracleWare, NetWare Management System, and so on. The memory requirements
should be listed in each product's documentation.

STEP 3: CALCULATE YOUR TOTAL MEMORY REQUIREMENT

Line 9: Sum Lines 1 through 8 for your total memory requirement:______KB

Line 10: Divide Line 9 by 1024 for a result in MB:______MB

If you will not be loading additional Name Spaces or using CD-ROM volumes
on your server, you are finished.

Optional Name Space support requires additional memory for directory
caching. Each directory entry is 128 bytes long. NetWare caches the DET
in 4 KB blocks, each containing 32 entries. When only DOS Name Space is
loaded, accessing a directory entry for one file automatically brings the
directory entries for 31 additional files in the same subdirectory into
memory. Client requests to access any of these directory entries are then
serviced out of memory without requiring another disk read.

When another Name Space is loaded, each file is given a second directory
entry for the necessary Name Space information. Ideally, all the Name
Space entries for a particular file are kept together in the same block.

This is a good reason for adding name spaces when you create the server,
and not after - if you go back and add a name space later, then the DET
entries for each file that exists at that point will be in two separate
places. The original entry for the implicit DOS namespace will be wherever
it was created, and the second entry for the other namespace will be in
whatever was free space at the time you added the second namespace. Files
which are added after that time will generally have their directory
entries placed together.

[Thx S.M.D.]

With two Name Spaces loaded, a block can only hold directory entries for
16 files. With three Name Spaces, there are ten files per block (with two
wasted entries), and eight per block with four Name Spaces. Because of
this, clients' disk access speed will decrease noticeably as additional
Name Spaces are loaded if the same amount of memory is allocated to
caching directory entries. Having multiple Name Spaces loaded does not
increase the memory used to cache the files themselves, only memory
caching the DET. Thus, to accomodate the additional memory needed to
prevent loss of performance, increase the number in Line 6 above by 25
percent for each additional Name Space loaded.

[NetWare 4.10's CDROM3.EXE's] CDROM.NLM uses a 64 KB block size for all
CD-ROMs, reducing the memory needed for FAT caching. To calculate memory
needs for CD-ROM volumes, use the following methods:

[Thx S.M.D.]

Divide the total size of all files on the mounted CD-ROM volumes (in
megabytes) by 10 to get the kilobytes required for the NetWare Media
Manager:______KB

Divide the total size of all files on the mounted CD-ROM volumes (in
megabytes) by 8 to get the kilobytes required for caching the FAT:____KB

Add the above two numbers, plus 80 KB for each CD-ROM volume. For
example, for two CD-ROM volumes with a combined 1 GB (1,024 MB) of
files, the result would be 102 KB + 128 KB + 160 KB = 390 KB.

This calculation does not allow any additional memory for file and
directory caching of the CD-ROM; it is assumed that this requirement
will be met by the formula in Line 6 above. If you have a server with
a large number of CD-ROM drives atached compared to the hard disk space
installed, this result may be inadequate.

Going through the above exercise will result in a memory requirements
estimate usually several times the amount from the "quick and dirty"
formula in the Red Book. It is a much more accurate number, but still
an estimate.

[Many thanks to Jerry Heidtke for this info]

H.26 How to wire 10base-T cable using RJ-45 jacks

To wire 10base-T cable using RJ-45 jacks and 8-wire unshielded twisted
pair cable, depending on your specification, here's what you'll need:

If you are starting with new wiring, use 568B. If you are using old AT&T
installations (pre M11 and M100 jacks), use 568A.

[Thanks to Daniel E. Cullinan & H.K. for this info]

H.27 Advantages of purging files

In theory, manually purging files on NetWare should not be necessary.
Experience has shown, however, that there are advantages to purging.

Purging files that are temporary in nature allows other more essential
deleted files to have a longer "deleted but not purged" (ie. still
salvageable) life. Also, any \TEMP directories, and all print queue
directories (those funny numbered ones under SYS:system), should be
marked with FLAGDIR [in NetWare 3.x, FLAG in NetWare 4.x and not possible
in NetWare 2.x as it only stores one deleted file per user, and this is
lost on logout] as "purgeable" e.g. FLAGDIR Z:\SYSTEM\10000001 PURGE

[Thx S.M.D.]

One other benefit of purging files manually (or explicitly with FLAGDIR)
before NetWare is forced to re-use their space is that NetWare seems to
run better (probably from less RAM wasted keeping track of deleted files).
This improvement may be more noticeable in NetWare 3.x than 4.x.

Finally, the command SET MINIMUM FILE DELETE WAIT TIME = x timeunits
can be used to set the time that must expire before NetWare considers
deleted files purgeable.

[Thanks to J.P. for this info]

H.28 Moving user rights/passwords from server to server

There is no way to dump users out of the bindery with a password, there
just isn't a function call to read the bindery password. There are several
programs which will read all the user's properties (except password) and
dump them into a file compatible with MAKEUSER.

Assuming that users on all the servers will stay the same, there are two
ways I know of to transfer users to a new server. If you are totally
reorganizing your servers, it would probably be best to start from
scratch.

Method #1 - use your tape backup. This is also a great time to test it.
We found out this way that ours wasn't handling the binderies correctly.

Method #2 - copy the bindery. You'll need something like the Trustee or
TList program from JRButils or WSchrieb packages. Then, run Bindfix on
the old server TWICE so that the .OLD files are current. Then BindRest
the .OLD files on the new server.

[Thx B.F.]

Note: The text files from the above utilities don't quite match the
format needed by GRANT, so some simple hand editing will be necessary
before GRANT will accept them. Best to practice this before committing
to the formal server change.

[Thx Joe D.]

H.29 Spanning a volume across multiple hard drives

There are probably only two situations where you want to do this:
- If you have redundancy, in the form of RAID, mirroring, or duplexing
- If you simply don't care about the data you're putting on that volume.

If you span a volume across multiple hard drives, essential information
such as the file allocation tables, the directory entry tables, and even
the files themselves will be split across the drives. The loss of any
single drive destroys the _entire_ volume, as some of each of the above
types of data will be lost. That's right - not just the data on that one
drive, but the _whole_ thing. Probably not what you want!

Keep in mind also that the MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) of a number
(n) of identical drives is the MTBF of one drive divided by n. That means
n times as many failures, on average, in any given period, and each one of
those failures takes your whole volume with it. Each time it fails, you'll
be recreating the volume and restoring all that data. Oh, and if it's your
SYS: volume, you'll have to reinstall NetWare first.

[Thx S.M.D.]

H.30 Load Balancing NLMs

The Novell document TID1200307, dated Mar 8/95, suggests:

To load balance between NICs on a Novell network , you can
use one of three (sic) different options:

(1) NLSP - NetWare Link State Protocol, found in
ftp://ftp.novell.com/pub/netwire/novlib/04/ipxrtr.exe

(2) Kalpana - 1-800-488-0775, provides inbound and outbound load
balancing to provide additional server capacity without routing.

(3) NSI - Network Specialists Incorporated, 1099 Wall St. West,
Lyndhurst, NJ 07071, (800) 775-4674, (201) 804-2799, (201) 804-8400,
provides recovery and load balancing, reports when interface
card or link is down.

(4) Ornetix - 800-965-6650, provides load balancing, peer
level access with full security and network redundancy.

[Thanks to Joe Harrison for forwarding this info]

H.31 Should I use SCSI or IDE hard drives on the file server

Go SCSI. Here are three reasons:

(1) Want to add, say, a tape drive and a CD-ROM on the server? Most
(though not all) ATA host adapters allow a maximum of two devices, and
the rest stop at four. In normal use, SCSI goes to seven. Also, the
selection of SCSI tape drives far exceeds that of ATA tape drives. And
at the moment, at least, there's far more support for devices other than
hard drives connected to SCSI than to ATA. Want to run a CD-ROM out of
your server? You have many options if it's SCSI, and not many (presently
zero, I think, though I'm not 100% sure) if it's ATA. Check the spec
sheets for BackupExec, ARCserve, etc. and see how many ATA tape drives
they support, and then see how many SCSI tape drives they support.

(2) SCSI is inherently well-suited for multitasking systems. The
server can fire off several requests to the drive, and then go off and
do something else (like servicing someone else's requests out of cache)
until the drive has the data ready. Heck, the drive doesn't even have
to return the results in the same order as they queries, if it can find
a more efficient way to handle them. For ATA, not only can it only handle
one request at a time (that's one in total, not one for each drive), the
CPU generally sits idle while that request is being handled.

(3) Want to talk top speed? The most common SCSI these days is Fast
SCSI-II, at 10 MB/s. The most common ATA is plain old ATA; I'm not sure
how fast that goes, but it's significantly lower. The next step up for
SCSI is Fast Wide SCSI-II, at 20 MB/s. No ATA variant gets that high;
they top out at 11 or 13 MB/s or somewhere in that vicinity. I'm not
saying that either one can sustain this (hard drives aren't anywhere
near that quick yet, so it would take several drives per host adapter
to sustain that transfer rate even for sequential access) or that most
systems will show any significant performance difference, but someone is
sure to say "ATA transfer mode blah blah blah runs at this speed, and
SCSI only does 10," so let's compare apples to apples.

[Thx S.M.D.]

H.32 Expected bandwidth from "10 Mbit" ethernet

Lab tests have shown that an Ethernet network can approach 95%
utilization. [Floyd: Real world percents are more in the 50% to 60%
range, before collisions make efficiency head toward zero.] Much depends
on the number of nodes on a segment(s), the length of cable(s) and the
packet (frame) size.

A 167k eText version of _Measured Capacity of an Ethernet: Myths and
Reality_, by Boggs, Mogul and Kent, DECWRL 88/4, is available at:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/misc/ethercap.zip
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/misc/ethercap.zip

Also, the 336k _Binary Log Arbitration Method_, by M.L. Molle at:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/misc/blam.zip
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/misc/blam.zip

And Don Provan's 20k _Ethernet Frame Type History_ (heavily quoted in
section L of this FAQ) at:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/misc/ethernet.txt
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/misc/ethernet.txt

[Thx Joe D.]

H.33 Performance considerations of Bridges versus Routers

Many have turned to multiport routers to divide their traffic into smaller
units (segments), even though routers introduce a significant delay when
processing the lan segments. Routers also complicate the network management
tasks as the segments created by the routers should exits as a separate
logical subnets.

A virtual lan minimises this problem by acting as a bridge rather than
routing the traffic for different segments within the same virtual lan.
Allowing multiple segments per subnet means fewer routing bottlenecks.

Virtual lans (layer 2) are based on a bridged architecture that transmits
media access control (MAC) source and destination addresses. Traffic
between virtual lans is handled by the router which provides security,
filtering and traffic management.

There are two kinds of switching hubs:

* Port-Switching hubs: In this case the ports are grouped together and
assigned to segments via network-management software. Port-switching hubs
broadcast traffic to the group of ports which the recipient is a member of,
limiting unnecessary traffic.

+----------------------+
| __________|____User A
| | |
| ------------------ |
| () () () () |
| ------------------ |
| |
| __________|____User B
| | |
| ------------------ |
| () () () () |
| ------------------ |
+----------------------+

* Segment-Switching Hubs treat ports as separate sements and forward the
packets from port to port. They also transmits packets directly to their
destination, thereby increasing the network capacity.

+----------------------+
| () () () () () () () |
| () () () () () () ()------User A
| () () () () () () () |
| () () () () () () ()------User B
| () () () () () () () |
| () () () () () () () |
+----------------------+

Each switch reads the incoming frame and learns the MAC address associated
with each virtual lan. If the end station broadcast or multicast frames
these packets are distributed to all ports in that end station's virtual
lan.

Pure Ethernet switches cache the MAC address and information about which
port the mac address is connected to. In virtual lan switches, a virtual
lan number is added to the mac and port information in the forwarding
table.

There are three methods of conveying the information:

* Signaling Messages

With Signaling Messages, when an end-station powers up, the local switch
learns its virtual lan number and sends a high priority number to other
switches so that they learn and update their forwarding tables. In a
large network this synchronization process can become a bottleneck.
Every time a station powers up it sends its frame, and this message
must be propagated to all switches before the traffic can flow. Along
with this synchronization the switches also send the cache table so that
each of them can also update their table. This can cause the tables to
grow to 1000 bytes or more.

* Frame Tagging

With Frame Tagging, a short tag is appended to the start of the frame
that passes the backbone. The tag identifies the virtual lan it belongs
to and also ensures that the switch knows the port group of each frame.
The addition of this tagging information can cause these frames to become
longer than Ethernet's maximum frame length, thus violating the ethernet's
media protocol. Bridges and other forwarding devices treats these as long
frames which means that these packets are discarded. Switch vendors
implement prorietary schemes to deal with this problem.

* Time-Division Multiplexing

Switches that handle virtual lans at layer 2 can also use the standard
spanning tree algorithm. The spanning tree algorithm is a very simple
low-level protocol that is fine for bridges but it can be a problem
when scaled up to a large virtual lan. Switch vendors also provide
proprietary solutions to deal with this problem, typically by adding
enhancements to the algorithm to make it faster and more robust.

Because layer 3 virtual lan switches can route and bridge, the need for
routers in workgroups and departments is greatly reduced. One protocol
problem is the inability to handle non-routable protocols like NetBios
and LAT. Layer 3 switches cannot sub-divide non-routable protocols into
differnet virtual lans. Layer 2 virtual lans are protocol-independent
making them better suited to subdivide nonroutables.

Despite the problem with non-routable protocols, layer 3 virtual lans have
more intelligence and processing power than layer 2 devices. Layer 3
devices also provide additional features such as filtering, where you
can block or pass traffic by looking at the user defined frame fields.
For example, switches can keep RIP/SAP traffic and Telnet packets off
certain segments within a virtual lan.

With IEEE 802.10 secure data exchange it is possible to merge some layer 2
strengths within layer 3 virtual lans. This scheme specifies techniques
such as fragmenting and then reassembling of frames that exceed the
maximum allowed by the ethernet media protocol. Because of this 802.10 can
convey virtual lan information accross a number of media types including
FDDI, Ethernet, Token-Ring and HDLC networks.

As a rule of thumb, throughput decreases and latency increases as the
amount of processing the switch has to perform to forward the packets to
the correct port increases. The packet handling process involves looking
up the MAC address which is a layer 2 function. Layer 2 can provide very
high performance if the packets are being shunted between stations that
belong to the same virtual lan. When the nodes are attached to different
segments, the packets have to traverse over routers which could mean
degradation. When handling 64-byte packets, ethernet switches deliver
maximum wire speed rates (14,880pps)

A minimum size packet of 64 bytes takes 51.2 nanoseconds to propagate.
Each frame also has an 8-byte preamble, not considered part of the frame,
that takes 6.4 nanoseconds to propagate. Finally there is a 9.6 nanosecond
inter-frame gap. If you divide one second by the sum (67.2 nanoseconds),
you get 14,880, the max number of packets a 10mbps can deliver.

A virtual lan can also take a performance hit when it handles larger
packets. Cut-through switches process packets at a constant rate,
regardless of packet size. Under Cut-Through switches read the mac address
(the destination address) of each packet and then immediately send the
packet along. The Cut-Through procedure reduces the latency or delay for
a forwarding operation. In Store-and-Forward each incoming packet is
stored in a memory buffer at the incomming switch port before it is
forwarded to its destination. Loading the packet into the buffer takes
time, the larger the packet the longer the delay. CRCs are used to ensure
that frames are well-formed. Store-and-Forward switches discard RUNTS
(short frames typically disrupted by a collision) and JABBERS (overly long
frames sometimes caused by defective NICs). Cut-Through switches do not
filter out these bad frames. Jabbers often look like broadcast frames to
a Cut-Through switch and can cascade all over the network if nothing is
done to eliminate them.

Today switches are implementing both Cut-Through and Store-and-Forward
techniques. Initially the switch will be setup as Cut-Through but when
the packet rate increases beyond user-defined frame settings the Store-and
Forward method will be used.

With Full-Duplex ports the ethernet connection does not have to listen
for collision, as no other traffic source is there to collide with. For
this reason a connection can freely receive and transmit at the same
time. If everything is balanced properly you can attain 20mbps.

"100vg" eliminates packets collisions and permits more efficient use of
network bandwidth. It does this by using a demand-priority access scheme
instead of the CSMA/CD scheme used in 10BaseT ethernet and fast ethernet.
It also requires users to install new network adapter cards, hubs and/or
switches.

In each round-robin polling sequence, every port on the network has the
opportunity to send one packet. When a tremendous volume of traffic is on
the network, the hub or switch can take a long time to service normal
requests, possibly causing timeouts and congestion. Thus, no matter which
access method you use, depending on the traffic, things are bound to slow
down and cause latencies.

[Many thx V.K.R.]

Here are some URLs for switching equipment vendors:

http://wwww.3com.com (3Com, look at LP2016, LP2500 & LP6000)
http://wwww.ctron.com (Cabletron)
http://wwww.cisco.com (CISCO, look at the Kalpana Switches)
http://www.smc.com/homepage.htm (SMC, look at the Tiger Switch)

[Thanks to James Munnerlyn for this info]

H.34 Data Transfer by Bus type

The following table originally appeared in Network VAR:

BUS WIDTH Speed Capacity
(bits) (MHz) (Mbps)

ISA 8 8.25 4*
ISA 16 8.25 8.25*
EISA 32 8.25 33/40/80
VESA 32 CPU (40) 160 (max)
MCA 32 8.25 33
PCI 32 33 132
PCI 64 33 264
PCI 64 66 528

* Uses two clock cycles per transfer

[Thx J.H. & S.M.D.]

H.35 Maximum wiring lengths

For 10Base2, the limits are:

Maximum length per segment: 185m
Minimum length PC-to-PC: 0.5m ?
Maximum PC's per segment: 30

If you are talking about the yellow cable (10Base5)

Maximum length per segment: 500m
Minimum length PC-to-PC (2 vampire taps): 1.5m ?
Maximum PC's (vampire taps, per segment): 50

[Thanks to Markus Muehlbauer for this info]

Remember that a separate metal conduit or raceway will prevent HF signals
from interfering with the signals in Cat 5 cable and vice-versa. Most
cabling systems manufacturers have guidelines on distances to powerlines.
Ask them for it. Consider installing enough wall-outlet's per square meter
to run _everything_ except lightbulbs and coffee machines over the new
cabling system, this includes your telephone system. The people who
maintain your switch will appreciate being able to move people with phones
in minutes, not days. You might pay a lot more in advance on cabling but
a good cabling system will pay for itself because of less money spent on:
- Money spent on extra hours (extra personal)
- Time spent on changing cable
- Materials
- Finding cabling problems
- Calling in a cabling contractor
- Asking us to help :-)

[Thx H.K.]

Also on CAT5 structured cabling:

- 3 feet from all electrical in runs over 50 feet
- 1.5 feet from all analog/hybrid voice cable
- minimum bend radius 1.5"
- sloped approaches to wall stubs (conduit to box) rather than
straight drops

[Thanks to Larry Dolinar for this info]

H.36 AC Power and its effect on file servers

All I have so far is the following URL:

http://www.magna.com.au

H.37 Negative numbers from CHKVOL -- yup, time to worry

Immediately you should run VREPAIR "at least twice" and "at least once
more after you get no errors from it".

[Thx Joe D.]

H.38 Running Netscape across NetWare (vs dial-up)

Running Netscape from home is pretty straightforward. You just need
a Winsock.dll like the shareware version from Trumpet or others.

Running Netscape across NetWare requires you load TCPIP.EXE as part of the
client boot process, then having VTCPIP.386, WLIBSOCK.DLL and WINSOCK.DLL
in the Windows System directory, with no duplicates of these files anywhere
else. The latest version of TCPIP.EXE will auto-load VTCPIP.386, otherwise
place a device=vtcpip.386 in the [386 Enh] section of system.ini...then
follow the netscape documentation.

[Thanks to Markus Muehlbauer for this info]

H.39 Help Desk software for NetWare

HelpStar, (800)-563-4357, test driveable at:

ftp://ftp.helpstar.com/pub/helpstart/hsw5cw.zip

[Thanks to Lewis M for this info]

DOMINION by InterApps, Inc. Operates within Windows 3.1x, Windows NT and
OS/2; compatible with Netware, VINES, LANtastic, LAN Manager, and NetBios-
based LANS. A native Windows application that was designed by people in
the Help Desk and network management field, it takes full advantage of the
Windows environment, including support for full-motion video, CD-ROM and
sound. It includes modules for problem, inventory, change and financial
management. It'S relational database system provides limitless storage and
high speed retrieval of text, images, and binary data. It also provides
the capabilities to work the SQL-based database engines like Oracle, XDB,
SQL-Server, IBM's DB2 and others.

Contact the Help Desk Institute (HDI):

The Help Desk Institute
1755 Telstar Dr., Suite 101
Colorado Springs, CO 80920-1017
Tel: (719) 531-5138

H.40 Deleting very large "sparse" files

>We have a 4 GB sparse file on our server and like to remove it but FILER
>can't do it

ftp ftp.salford.ac.uk/network/utils/tsparse.zip

ftp ftp.salford.ac.uk/network/utils/tsparse.txt

[Thx V.K.R.]

H.41 Slow mount of 50 GB drive array

>A 50GB disk array is used with a Netware 3.12 server. However, the
>server takes 20 minutes to mount the disk array during the startup.
>How can I speed up the mounting?

How about a faster disk I/O channel? NetWare v4.1 also is much more
efficient during the boot process, so perhaps an upgrade is in order.

>I know that it does a consistency check on the two sets of directory
>tables and FATs to verify that the two copies are identical.

Only one directory table. FATs are indeed verified.

>Are there any other [checks], and can those be turned off?

Yes, no. What may be the largest factor in the apparent slowness you
describe is the rest of the volume mounting process. First, NetWare
builds a copy of the entire FAT of every volume in RAM. Second, it
builds an index, called a Hash Table, of the Directory Table and
caches the index in RAM. Believe me, you don't want NetWare to *not*
do those things!!! Not with as much as 50 GB of data!

These functions are core to the NetWare operating system, and there's
no way to turn them off.

[Thanks to Roger Kresge for this info]

H.42 Clearing "Not-Logged-In" license robbers

This isn't a problem on NetWare 4.x, as NOT-LOGGED-IN's don't count
against your user count. For NetWare versions prior to 4.x, try:

ftp://ftp.iastate.edu/pub/pc/novell/utilities/nliclear.zip

[Thanks to Brian Scott and S.M.D. for this info]

Also, SHUTDOWN by Roy Coates will forcefully disconnect users, with an
optional time delay and accompanying warning messages.

ftp://ftp.mechnet.liv.ac.uk/novell/freeware/shutdown.zip

[Thx R.C.]

ZZClear is a freeware NLI clearer. If the number of NLI's is less than 2
[i.e. all N-2 connections are logged in], it will force the NLI clear.
Has options for not clearing the boss'es connection or other station
requiring protection from clearing.

ftp://ftp.novell.com/netwire/novuser/07/zzclear
or
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/netwire/novuser/07/zzclear
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/netwire/novuser/07/zzclear

[Thx J.P.]

H.43 Running alternatives to MONITOR on the server console

Novell wrote SS.NLM and CPU-UTIL.NLM and put them in the Public Domain
"back at the dawn of time". When loaded (one autoloads the other) they
create a histogram of CPU utilization which makes a great screen saver
for monochrome server consoles. You can find them on:

ftp://tribble.missouri.edu/pub/novell

[Thanks to Ron Neely for this info]

H.44 NLMs allowing access to NetWare Server C drive

The NetWare NLM SDK contains NWSHELL.NLM that allows DOS type access to
any partition on the server, including the DOS partition. It asks you to
log in before it lets you on the Netware partitions and will also let you
log in to other servers. It is located on the CD as:

novsdkcd_4:/nlm/novm/nwshell

[Thanks to John Bazeley for this info]

H.45 NLM to delay loading of AUTOEXEC.NCF NLMs

DELAY.NLM is the program. Just 4 KB, it can be downloaded at:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/netwire/novuser/07/delay.zip

[Thanks to Jiri Polach for this info]

H.46 Checksum errors showing up on MONITOR.NLM screen

This indicates Bad Packets.

The first place to look at is your wiring plant. Not all twisted pair
wiring is created equal, and less stays that way over time (no squeezing
it, no tight bundles, need to recrimp the crummy RJ45's from time to time).
If the wiring plant was incorrectly installed (above, plus wrong pairing,
plus wrong punch down blocks, excessive length, or even not even Cat 3
wire) then all kinds of troubles ensue. Twisted pair lan wiring is NOT
Telco junk and can't be treated that way; and it is more susceptible to
maltreatment than coax.

Before jumping too far, also check the hubs (replace with a spare) since
flakey hardware occurs too. To check the wiring plant either you really
know what you are doing so visual inspection tells a lot, or you rent/
acquire a high calibre cable tester (hand held box) with perhaps an
operator attached (see below for story).

The checksum is at the very end of each packet and that's the place least
likely to be damaged in transit unless the system is well out of spec.

Packets do get damaged, no matter how good the wire/fiber and electronics
are. Damage can be subtle, enough so to pass the hardware CRC check since
software is also involved. Thus we should be running IPX with checksums
turned ON. We can't use IPX checksums with Ethernet_802.3, so those are
losers. UDP/IP packets are similar, and Sun runs NFS without UPD checksums
(but don't you make that mistake). Lest folks think I'm just talking, have
a look at an serious IP machine and see the errors revealed by netstat.

I provide my student lab consultants with a show and tell on lan wiring.
That lab uses coax (better than twisted pair, cheaper too). I demo ordinary
packets with a good Tektronix sampling scope, plus variable attenuators,
coax stub extensions, inserting another kind of coax, etc. Twisted pair is
much more difficult to demonstrate, but near end cross talk (NEXT), a major
spec/issue of lan cable, is easy to show by watching the receive pair as
the board transmits.

More background info: Twisting wire isolates a pair from the world better
than not twisting the wires, yet radiation still leaks away. The impedance
of the wire changes as the twisting changes, and the coupling to the world
(other wires) changes too. Thus squeezing wires in a bundle increases NEXT,
a very bad thing. Unwrapping wires to fit RJ45 plugs and punch down blocks
does the same, so great care is needed to do this just right (not to
mention using the proper punch down blocks).

Transmitted data goes on one pair, received data on another. If we
scramble the wires so twisted pairs are not Tx or Rx then major trouble
from NEXT (cross talk) ensues.

As we go from 10Mb/s Ethernet to 100Mb/s (and you will go too) these
problems scale up by a factor of 10. Cat 3 cable is just adequate, Cat 5
is better, and the difference is in the way wires are bundled in the
jacket. So how come there is such a cost difference? Because they can get
away with it, that's why, and some [net-god] system managers insist upon
validation of NEXT, impedance and attenuation when the wiring is installed.

[Thx Joe D.]

H.47 Using EMM386 with Boot ROM (ie. diskless) workstations

You need to use the undocumented /y=[d:][path]EMM386.EXE switch to point
to where a copy of EMM386.EXE can be found _after_ the boot image has been
discarded.

[Thanks to David Brisbane and George Spencer for this info]

H.48 Fixing NetWare partition problems when Mac support NLMs are used

Reboot the server. Run SERVER.EXE with -na -ns, load your hard disk
drivers, load VRepair, then switch back to the console (using Alt-ESC)
and load V_MAC.NLM as it is needed for proper repair of Mac namespace
(fork) stuff.

[Thanks to Joerg Trawinski for this info]

H.49 BSOD (Black Screen of Death) fix

If you are finding that machines running Windows and connected to
NetWare are halting with just a black screen (of death) then:

- Replace the device=*vtd entry in the [386 Enh] section of SYSTEM.INI
...with...I forget...Anyone recall the name & location of the vtd*.386
file that is needed?

- Add a TimerCriticalSection=1000 or =10000 entry to the [386 Enh]
section of SYSTEM.INI, as per the March 95 issue of Novell App Notes:

"If you are running a version of DOS Requestor earlier than version
1.20, or if you are running a version of VNETWARE.386 dated earlier than
8-17-94, you will need to add to the [386 Enh] section of SYSTEM.INI a
"TimerCriticalSection=10000 line. The VNETWARE.386 driver for the DOS
Requestor 1.20 defaults to 1000, which better supports mobile products."

[Thanks to Wayne Fee for this info]

I. SAMPLE CONFIGURATIONS

I.1 Comparison between NETX and VLM NetWare Client Software

VLM are a lot of different modules rather than one big program. You can
choose which modules to load and where they are to be loaded (i.e.
conventional, UMB or extended memory). VLM does for NETX what ODI did
for IPX.OBJ, and provides more configuration options so the move from
NETX to VLMs should be considered as inevitable as the move from IPX.OBJ
to the ODI model.

You can use VLMs on NetWare 3.11 but to use packet burst technology you
need to get and load PBURST.NLM (available from ftp.novell.com and its
mirrors). Nothing else is required on the server but if you do not get
and install the related security enhancements, you will need to add the
command SET NCP PACKET SIGNATURE OPTION = 0 to your AUTOEXEC.NCF
immediately after the line that loads PBURST.NLM. Also, you will need to
configure your clients to use ODI drivers before they can use VLM as VLMs
do not work with IPX.OBJ/IPX.COM.

Programs needing packet driver software are supported, via ODIPKT.COM,
and Windows requires a different NETWARE.DRV for VLMs than for NETX.
The DOS client kit can be ordered from any Novell vendor. This gives
you a site license for VLM v1.1 and Novell's TCP stack, including
WINSOCK.DLL. Price is $US99. You then upgrade to version 1.2 by getting
the following files from ftp.novell.com: NWDLL2.exe WINDR2.exe and
VLMUP3.exe. While there you may wish to pick up NET33X.exe for your NETX
clients. For more information on VLMs, (installing, configuring, etc.),
consult the manuals you get with the DOS client kit.

To obtain the latest ODIPKT.COM (now at version 3.0)
ftp://hsdndev.harvard.edu/pub/odipkt
To obtain the latest ODITRPKT.COM (version 3.0 for Token Ring)
ftp://dc.cis.okstate.edu/pub/oditrpkt
By the way, ODIPKT version 3.0 takes hex arguments, earlier versions used
decimal values.

[Thanks to Gordon Keith, S.M.D. & James Harvey for this info]

There are huge architectural differences between them. VLM is a proper
DOS redirector, doing most of its work underneath DOS. NETX is a shell,
which grabs requests before DOS even gets a chance to see them. VLM is
modular, allowing you to load only the bits you need; NETX is monolithic,
and the whole thing must be loaded. VLM will perform a large degree of
memory management on its own; you have to do this yourself for NETX.

There's only one VLM.EXE whether you want it in conventional memory, XMS
(and this time it really _is_ XMS, not HMA), or EMS; you have to keep
track of separate versions of NETX for these three different configs.

From a features viewpoint, VLM supports Personal NetWare, NDS (an option
with NetWare 4.x), and bindery (NetWare 3.x and below, or bindery
emulation on 4.x); NETX supports only bindery. VLM includes support for
packet burst; no current NETX shell does. The corresponding Windows
drivers for VLM have more functionality than those for NETX, too.

NETX is faster on small operations, as it doesn't suffer the overhead of
DOS or of swapping bits and pieces of memory around. VLM is faster on
larger operations, as it has packet burst.

NETX generally (though not always) eats up a bigger chunk of
conventional/UMB memory; with VLM, you may find yourself with more
free conventional memory, depending on machine configuration.

Back up one workstation and upgrade it. Beat on it and try out
all of your software and make sure it's working perfectly before you
roll it out. Chances are it will work once you figure out all the
new stuff, but there _are_ still some apps that either won't work at
all with VLM or require some adjustments to your configuration. You
definitely want to find out about these before rolling VLM out to
your workstations.

Also, make sure your 3.11 server is up-to-date on the packet
burst, packet signatures, large internet packets (if applicable),
and LAN drivers. If it isn't running PBURST, you won't get packet
burst working and you'll probably notice a slight _drop_ in
performance when in reality you should notice an _improvement_.
If you don't have all of the updates for packet signatures, then
make sure you disable them entirely at the server, or else
all hell will break loose. LIP isn't going to make a difference
unless there are some clients who need to go through a router to
get to your server. And get the latest LAN drivers because
packet burst is going to increase the stress on your server
and there have been plenty of people posting here that setting up
packet burst exposed weaknesses in the old LAN drivers they'd been
using.

NETX is in the past. VLM is the future.

[Thx S.M.D.]

I.2 Sample NET.CFG for conventional NETX shells

Net.cfg is the preferred shell configuration file and replaces the obsolete
Shell.cfg. Most troubles using net.cfg are from incorrect syntax, spelling,
and punctuation (just the things you loved in school).

Important points. Major section headings are flush left, and their
qualifying minor clauses must be indented. The word "protocol" is used twice
in completely different and unrelated ways; beware. "Protocol" major
sections are for programs which locate the section by the name after the
word protocol; subclauses are for that program. The numbers 8137, 0800 etc.
are for the indicated protocol kinds only, never to be mixed or used with
other kinds. 8137 is only for IPX. Minor clause Bind .. is needed only if
two or more logical board choices are available for a given protocol. There
can be NO originality in the construction of these lines; if it's not
documented then don't say it.

Please see Kermit Project file MSKERM.BWR for more details on NET.CFG. It
is located on:

ftp://watsun.cc.columbia.edu/kermit/a/mskerm.bwr
OR
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/kermit/mskerm.bwr
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/kermit/mskerm.bwr

# Example file NET.CFG for conventional shells (MS-DOS)
#
# A "#" in column 1 or a ";" symbol makes what follows on that line a
# comment. Do not try to use ":", "*" or "rem" as a comment character.

# The following PB buffers entry is only applicable to the elicit BNETX

PB buffers=6
show dots=on
signature level=0

# Use only if more that one indented "protocol IPX..." line exists
protocol IPX
bind #1

# Use only if more that one indented "protocol IP..." line exists
protocol KERMIT
bind #1

# Below is for Novell's Lan WorkPlace for DOS
Protocol TCPIP
PATH SCRIPT d:\lwp41\net\SCRIPT
PATH PROFILE d:\lwp41\net\PROFILE
PATH LWP_CFG d:\lwp41\net\HSTACC
PATH TCP_CFG d:\lwp41\net\TCP
ip_router 129.123.1.254
ip_netmask 255.255.255.0
ip_address 129.123.1.145
tcp_sockets 16
udp_sockets 8
raw_sockets 1
# nb_sessions 4
# nb_commands 8
# nb_adapter 0
nb_domain usu.edu
# bind slip_ppp

Link Support
Buffers 7 1500
MemPool 2048

Link Driver NE2000
Frame Ethernet_II
Port 360
Int 5
Protocol IPX 8137 Ethernet_II
Protocol IP 0800 Ethernet_II
Protocol ARP 0806 Ethernet_II
Protocol RARP 8035 Ethernet_II

Link Driver SLIP_PPP
DIRECT YES
BAUD 9600
OPEN ACTIVE
TCPIPCOMP VJ
PCOMP YES
PORT 3F8
INT 4
FRAME SLIP
# FRAME PPP
Protocol IP 0800 SLIP

link driver IPTUNNEL
gateway 129.123.1.123

I.3 Sample NET.CFG for VLM redirectors

# Example file NET.CFG for VLM redirectors
# Don't forget to say LASTDRIVE=Z in CONFIG.SYS!
# Comments begin with a ; or a line starting with a #

# Following 6 lines for a 3C507 on a particular machine
Link Driver 3C507
Int 10
Port 320
Mem d0000
Frame Ethernet_802.3
Protocol Ipx 0000 Ethernet_802.3
;
# Following 4 lines for a 3C507 on a particular machine
Protocol IPXODI
Bind 3C507
SPX Connections = 5
IPX Sockets = 20
;
NetWare DOS Requester
Auto Reconnect = OFF ; OFF=Do not load auto.vlm
Average Name Length = 8 ; Shrinks connection table
Cache Buffers = 4 ; 0=Removes cache (default pretty
; good)
Cache Writes = Off ; ON=Faster writes but lost data
; integrity if there's a crash.
Checksum = 0 ; 0=OFF=speed up high quality links
Connections = 8
Dos Name = MSDOS
First Network Drive = F
LIP Start Size = 1500
Load Conn Table Low = Off
; Recommend trying defaults for the load low pair shown below
; [with low loading giving best performance but least low memory]
Load Low CONN = On ; OFF=Put connection table in high mem
Load Low IPXNCP = On ; OFF=Put IPX material in high memory
Load Low NETX = Off
Load Low REDIR = Off
Local Printers = 1
Long Machine Type = IBM_PC
Max Tasks = 50
Message Level = 3
Message Timeout = 540
; Name Context is read for DS only.
; Name Context = "O=USU" ; ? Joe ?
Netware Protocol = NDS,BIND
Network Printers = 3
Pb Buffers = 1
Pburst Read Window Size = 128
Pburst Write Window Size= 64
; Preferred server is read for Bindery only.
Preferred Server = _Your_Server_Name_Here_
; Preferred Tree is read for DS only.
; Preferred Tree = _Your_Tree_Name_Here_
Print Buffer Size = 64 ; 0=Disables PrtSc CAPTURE, saves 64b
Print Header = 64
Print Tail = 16
Read Only Compatibility = On
Show Dots = On
Signature Level = 0 ; 0=Don't load security.vlm
True Commit = Off ; OFF=let server buffer writes

; VLM SELECTION, *** ORDER SENSITIVE ***
; For Bindery include bind and netx, omit nds.
; For Directory Services include nds, omit bind and netx.
use defaults=off ; OFF=Use explict list of vlms which follow
vlm=conn.vlm ; Connection tables
vlm=ipxncp.vlm ; NCP over IPX
vlm=tran.vlm ; Transport services worker
vlm=security.vlm ; Security, optional
; vlm=nds.vlm ; DS, NCP Directory Services
vlm=bind.vlm ; Bindery, NCP
vlm=nwp.vlm ; Transport services worker
vlm=fio.vlm ; File I/O
vlm=general.vlm ; General support routines
vlm=redir.vlm ; Redirector
vlm=print.vlm ; Print services, optional
vlm=netx.vlm ; Bindery, shell compatibility
; vlm=rsa.vlm ; DS, RSA encryption, optional
; vlm=auto.vlm ; DS, autoreconnect/retry, optional
; vlm=nmr.vlm ; Managment responder, optional

Netx
show dots=on

## Below this line material (board drivers) is the same as for NetWare 3.11
## net.cfg. Please do not trash with unrelated commands.

Link Support
Buffers 7 1500
MemPool 2048
etc. as for regular shells.

[Thanks to H.K. and Joe D. for this info]

I.4 Tuning the performance of the NetWare DOS Requester

I.4.1 General Information

When tuning the performance of the NetWare DOS Requester, there are
generally 2 goals (or a blend of both):
- Maximum speed
- Minimum memory footprint

NOTE: The following is for version 1.20 of the Requester, which ships with
NetWare 4.1. NetWare 4.02 ships with 1.10, right ? If you don't use 1.20
yet, then I suggest you upgrade to it. You should get files VLMUP3, NWDLL2
and WINDR2 at your favorite ftp.Novell.COM Mirror. Use the 1.10 docs as a
reference.

I.4.2 Memory handling

As you might read on the NOVELL@listserv.syr.edu (BITNET: NOVELL@suvm)
list, the NetWare DOS Requester is a network requester which uses the DOS
Int2F redirection interface. VLM.EXE only creates the environment for the
modules that actually provide the functionality, i.e. the .VLM files.

When VLM.EXE starts, it creates 3 segments:
- Startup segment [in real mode memory]
- Global segment [in real mode memory or Upper Memory Blocks (UMBs)]
- Transient segment [in XMS or EMS]

VLM loads a part of the .VLM files in the StSeg but most code goes into
the GSeg or TSeg, depending largely on settings in the net.cfg file.

The StSeg is cleaned up when VLM has initilized the GSeg and TSeg and the
.VLM's are loaded in it. VLM does the memory management and the swapping
of .VLM code from TSeg into GSeg - this takes some time and thus speed.

The "Load Low" parameters in the net.cfg file determine if that module
is loaded in Tseg (= Off) or in GSeg (= On). GSeg gives best performance
since it is within the (real mode) 1024 KByte memory boundary but it
depends on the amount of UMB's you have available.

Play with these, you can change net.cfg settings, unload VLM (VLM /U),
re-load and then check memory footprint (mem /c |more), VLM memory status
(VLM /d |more) and performance using Perform2.

I.4.3 Module loading tuning / general tips
* For maximum speed on directory searches, you should keep IPXNCP
in GSeg by using "Load Low IPXNCP = On" in the net.cfg.
* For better performance on NETX calls, keep NETX in the GSeg.
* For better performance on small files, keep REDIR also GSeg.
* For a better overview, don't use the "Load = ....VLM" line.

I.4.4 Packet tuning

This generally means tuning NCP Packet Burst and LIP.

"Pb Buffers = 1" sets packet burst On, 0 sets it Off.

The "Cache Buffers" line determines the amount of packet buffers. You
can increase these for speed but it costs GSeg space. The "Read Window"
and Write Window sizes are the amount of packets that will pass until
an "ack" is required, you should play with these to see the results,
they highly depend on buffering of the NIC's that you use.

The LIP start size helps when you use routers in your net, set it to the
maximum packet size your net can handle. This prevents the Requester from
testing your LAN/WAN on the maximum LIP size it can use.

Another tip regards NCP searches. I found that the Requester performs
better on searching through directories when you increase the "Maximum
Outstanding NCP Searches" console set parameter from the standard value
of 51 to say, 200 or 300. On NetWare 4.x servers you can use SERVMAN NLM
to play with these parameters, but on NetWare 3.x you have to work with
SET commands, and put the right one in your NCF file manually.

[Thx H.K. & S.M.D.]

I.5 An Example STARTNET.BAT for use with the VLM Redirector

@echo off
set nwlanguage=ENGLISH
lsl.com
ne2000.com
ipxodi /d
vlm /mX /v4 /c=c:\nwclient\net.cfg
@echo on

Notes: /d omits diagnostics responder, saves memory
/mX puts shell in eXtended memory, /v4 is extra verbose
during loading
/c is path to net.cfg in case there's confusion

[Thx Joe D.]

I.6 Sample Appletalk entries in AUTOEXEC.NCF

Here are portions of two autoexec.ncfs for two file servers that appear
in the same zone. Lots ofmacs and printers and AppleShare servers appear
in this zone as well:

file server name GORILLA
ipx internal net 80e3c201

load appletlk net=10006 zone={"CIRCA II"}
load ne2000 port=300 int=3 frame=ethernet_snap name=public_lab_apple
bind appletlk to public_lab_apple net=0-0
load afp

file server name whale
ipx internal net 80e3c202

load appletlk net=10007 zone={"CIRCA II"}
load ne2000 port=300 int=3 frame=ethernet_snap name=public_lab_apple
bind appletlk to public_lab_apple net=10004-10005 zone={"CIRCA II"}
load afp

Note that file server WHALE is defining zone information while file
server GORILLA is learning it.

J. NETWARE 4.X MATERIAL

J.1 Installing Netware 3.12 or 4.0x without a CD-ROM drive (sort of)

For NetWare 4.1, Novell has engineered a workaround to get away from the
problem of having to deal with a DOS device that you have just "stomped on"
by loading a NetWare driver for your host adapter.

To install a new NetWare 3.12 or 4.0x file server without a CD-ROM drive you
need about 110 MB of disk space on a source file server that is not having
3.12 or 4.0x installed on it and a DOS partition on the server of at least
6 MB, but 15 MB is suggested by INSTALL. You also need a CD-ROM drive to
copy the distribution CD to that disk space. But after the CD is copied,
you don't need the drive anymore. That's the sort of part! Note that the
110 MB figure only applies if you install English support only. For other
language support, you'll need about 500 MB total.

Create a volume or directory on the source server, then copy the
distribution CD to it. Make sure to get all the subdirectories, empty and
occupied, and the file attributes. It wouldn't hurt to verify the copy too.
If you are using English only, you may save space by deleting all of the
contents of other language directories (German, Spanish, ...). Do not worry
about the errors generated during installation about the missing files.
Tell the install process to just skip the file it is looking for.

Create a 10 MB bootable DOS partition on the target server (standard
NetWare install instructions here). Also put an ODI stack and NETX.EXE on
the DOS partition.

Login to your source server and map a root drive to the volume or directory
with the CD contents on it. Change to that drive and start the installation.
Whenever you have to enter the drive letter of the CD-ROM drive, use your
mapped drive instead. You can complete most of the installation. There will
be a warning about your network drive not being available after you define
your LAN drivers. This is OK. You just won't be able to 'Copy On-line
Documentation...' nor 'Copy Computer Based Training...' just yet. So skip
those 2 steps. Also skip the 'Create DOS/Windows Client...',
'Create OS/2 Client...' and 'Create Upgrade/Migration...'.

Make sure to create your STARTUP.NCF and AUTOEXEC.NCF files.

Exit out of Install, down the server, and make sure the AUTOEXEC.BAT file
does NOT start the target server. Reboot the PC. Run the ODI stack and login
to your source server again. Map a root drive to the volume or directory
with the CD contents on it.

Start the server with the '-NA' option. This will prevent the AUTOEXEC.NCF
from running and starting up the LAN drivers again.

Make sure the SYS volume is mounted and LOAD INSTALL.

Choose 'Other Options' so that you can copy the documentation and CBT
(Computer Based Training) files from your source server. Make sure to use
the proper drive letter.

Exit out of Install, down the server, and make sure the AUTOEXEC.BAT file
starts the target server like it is supposed to. Reboot the PC. Success.

You can use any PC logged into the source server with the proper drive
mapping to do all of the 'Create... ' diskettes skipped earlier.

[Thanks to John Jobst and S.M.D. for this info]

J.2 Dumping your configuration to an ASCII file

If, at the : prompt you issue the command
LOAD REGISTER -C
you get your full configuration dumped to an ASCII file in SYS:SYSTEM. This
is a useful undocumented feature of Netware v4.0x.

[Thanks to J.P. and John Burton for this entry]

J.3 To Upgrade or Migrate to NetWare 4.1

If you UPGRADE from 3.12 to 4.1, rather than MIGRATE, the passwords, as
well as trustee rights, are retained. The distinction between an UPGRADE
and a MIGRATION is that an UPGRADE installs 4.10 on top of the existing
3.1x or 4.0x system, while a MIGRATION first creates a new 4.10 system
and then moves user files and trustee rights onto the new server.

You need to migrate if (1) you want to change your volume/disk structure
or block size, (2) you want to hang on to the old 3.12 system to facilitate
backing out of the 4.1 upgrade if that proves necessary, or (3) you want to
automatically eliminate the obsolete 3.1x or 4.0x system files.

[Thanks to Donald E. Hanley for this info]

If you have just upgraded and are experiencing problems, look at:

http://netwire.novell.com/ServSupp/texttids/netware/1001198.tid

You can also look at the "Top 20 systems TIDs" on NETWIRE then select
#4- Top Server Issues. It goes into depth about abends, high utilization,
memory problems, sbackup, rconsole, etc.

[Thanks to J.Darren Lofthouse for this info]

Also, check out "Upgrading to NetWare 4.1 Across a LAN/WAN Using RCONSOLE"
in the May 1995 Novell Application Notes.

[Thanks to James Powers for this info]

The biggest problem with migrate is it's (lack of) speed. Mind numbingly
slow. Its not media nor processor bound but only moves 3 MB/min over FDDI!
Migrating as much data as you have would take about 40 hours (ie too long).
A good tape system could handle it in about 4 hours.

We've all but stopped using MIGRATE for our upgrades for this reason. We
let MIGRATE create users, groups, trustee lists, etc. then we use the JRB
Util's NetCopy to copy the rest. It maintains ownerships. space quotas and
trustee assignments. It is on netlab2.usu.edu and mirrors as JRB212.zip.

[Thanks to Mike Avery for this info]

J.3.1 Upgrading to NetWare 3.12 instead of NetWare 4.1

If you have no need for, and no support to offer on, centralized admin
of all servers (that's what NetWare 4.x requires) then consider upgrading
to NetWare 3.12 instead. NetWare 3.x is easier to learn and maintain and
has a much larger array of third party products that will work with it.

Resist version-itis, particularly when higher does not equate to better
(it's different, by rather a lot). Discard thoughts of disk compression,
because you will want to get at files willy nilly and there must be space
to expand them.

[Thx Joe D.]

J.3.2 Upgrading from NetWare 3.11 to NetWare 3.12

Upgrading from 3.11 to 3.12 involves downing the server, copying the
3.12 SERVER.EXE and the other miscellaneous utilities (INSTALL,
VREPAIR, etc.) to the DOS boot area, and bringing the server back
online. Then just copy the new SYSTEM and PUBLIC files.

[Thanks to Mark Motley for this info]

J.4 Disable Login Banner

To turn off the Red Background banner in NW 4.1 when first logging on use
the /nb parameter, ie. login xxxx /nb

[Thanks to A.J. Sheehan for this info]

J.5 Restoring NDS

Here is food for thought which comes out of a couple of meetings with
Novell and experienced sites: don't use tape to restore NDS material.
Syncing NDS will be horrid and very unlikely to produce positive
results. Live backups (i.e. replicating partition information) is the
only recommended approach.

[Thx Joe D.]

Follow-up eMail comments were as follows:

>From what we have been told by Palindrome's tech.sup. the Novell TSANDS
>does not support properly restoring Object-Trustees, thus making it
>virtually impossible to do a full restore of a crashed server.

The problem is that object IDs are server specific, they are not
replicated, and upon restoration via replication new IDs are
assigned resulting in (a) loss of all directory and file trustee
assignments, (b) loss of file ownership (c) if doing bindery logins
the user's mail directories will no longer match their IDs, and
(d) if using bindery based printing, queue and print server
directories will no longer match their object IDs. These issues
are non-trivial.
- John Baird

----------------

The Red Manuals do not come close to stating the reality of tape
restoring/replicating NDS for crashed servers.
Thanks for folding things together John.
- Joe D.

--------

Adding to my own comment above, here is a "fair use" (I hope) snippet
from the Bullets discussion I referenced yesterday. Realize that this
lacks the surrounding explanatory material, and the tenor is instruction
to developers about what *they* should do, not what NDS does for them.

"During an NDS backup and restore, entry IDs change. NDS is backed up
by name, and therefore if any portion of any objects (sic) stored in
NDS is deleted and restored, the entry IDs for the restored objects will
be different. NetWare gets around this issue by allowing trustees to be
backed up by name. A similar strategy is necessary if entry IDs are used
to correlate file server-centric events with an object. ... It is wise
to store the object's name and entry ID somewhere, either as a backup or
a reference in the database, to ensure the information is accessible
even if the entry ID changes."
- Joe D.

----------------

At the recent Novell Brainshare conference in Sydney, one of the
Novell delegates was talking about the robustness of NDS, one of the
points that he made was that you never EVER want to run out of disk
space on SYS: otherwise transaction tracking shuts off and as a result
NDS stops. Because of this you may want to have all your queues on
other volumes, no applications on SYS: and compression switched OFF
since it can have "unpredictable" effects if there is not enough space
to get at an essential file that is compressed.
- Adrian Tritschler

----------------

Aren't the trustee rights still stored in the Directory Entry Tables
and these are backed up along with the file system not the NDS? Yes,
restoring just the NDS will give you no file or trustee associations,
but once you restore the server all should be there. I have not had
any success restoring 4.02 servers but 4.1 seem to come back fully,
groups and individual trustee rights intact and the NDS pointers. I had
problems with 4.02 dropping group objects, and holding the NDS together
without generating spurious objects.

My test restores were done most recently with Legato 3.1, and ArcServe
5.01g. Most should be able to do a full restore. It's the partials
that are a bear...I have yet to be able to restore a subpartition.
- Jerry

P.S. Procedure for restoring Servers:
First Create Server of Same name and Same internal ID
Second Restore all Master Partitions, (NDS)
Third Restore file system.
Run DSRepair until clean.

-----------------

Now that there's been a healthy discussion on this topic, it should
probably be pointed out that Novell has a Technical Information Document
(TID) that describes the proper sequence of events one should follow when
restoring a 4.x server with an NDS compliant backup in a couple different
situations (single server tree, multiple server tree, etc.).

It is document ID TID015684, entitled "Restoring NetWare 4.x Backup to
4.x Server". One can get it by visiting their web site and searching the
Operating Systems Technical Information Database with the Boolean combo
of "nds AND backup", or just entering the TID document ID.

One of the more interesting tidbits in it is: if you are restoring a
server that has replicas elsewhere on other server(s), set one of the
replicas to be the master before beginning the restore, as well as
removing all volume and server objects to be resotred from the tree.

The TID databases that Novell has available for searching via their web
site are and have been an invaluable resource to us. It is surprising
that there isn't more talk about them here.
- James B. Federline

----------------

You are right that providing NDS is back in place (via replication or
restoration) *prior* to replacement of file data, then trustee assignments
and ownership can be restored via an NDS aware backup system. But I stand
by my claim that proper replication does not make NDS backup a non-issue
because:

1 You still need an NDS aware backup system to back up the trustees and
file ownership via distinguished name, rather than via object ID as
bindery based backup systems do.

2 You must restore the trustee assignments over all volumes, not just SYS
(I'm assuming the reason for restoring is a failure of SYS, or SYS has
gotten into a state which is not vrepairable). I believe most backup
systems will allow you to restore file and directory trustees without
restoring the data.

3 If file ownership is important to your site (it will be if using
volume based quotas, and personally, I favour retaining it because it
allows you to identify who created files where), then you also need to
restore ownership over all volumes. As far as I'm aware, and I may be
wrong here, backup systems do not provide the option to restore
ownership without the data. Therefore to restore ownership you will
need to restore your entire file system. Given that the standard
recommendations are to place as little data as possible on SYS and to
keep applications and user data on other volumes, restoration of the
entire file system will increase the time required to get your server
running again by an order of magnitude. Our SYS volumes contain 10-20%
of the total space occupied on the server, and its only that high because
of Pmail. So, restoring all data would increase restoration time by a
factor of 5 which means I would accept the loss of file ownership and
simply set the ownership of files and directories to, say, admin on the
volumes which were not restored. But if using volume restrictions, there
would be little choice but to restore the lot. One change Novell have
made in NW 4 and it may be because of the problem of loss of ownership
after restoration via replication is to add a console set parameter
controlling the ability to extend ownerless files, and it defaults to
"on". Under 3.x, ownerless files can not be extended, but fortunately
in most cases files they are rewritten rather than extended.

4 If using bindery based logins as I'm sure many educational sites are,
then the problem of mail directories being restored with the old IDs as
the subdirectory names has to be faced. Either they and the login scripts
can be recreated, or particularly if using Pmail, the directories will
need to be renamed to match the new IDs, and this will also need to be
done in the mac name space if using Pmail for the mac, as Don Hanley
from Syracuse University recently pointed out.

5 And then theres bindery based printing. Both queues and print servers
use subdirectories of SYS:SYSTEM based on the object ID and these will
no longer match. Given that the queue directory name is stored in a
property of the queue, there is more to sorting this out than simply
renaming the subdirs of SYS:SYSTEM to match the new IDs. I have not
checked out the consequences for NDS based printing but I would guess
it would restore correctly.

Clearly, if you are not using bindery emulation restoration problems are
diminished, but even for sites using only NDS logins, restoration via
replication is not the piece of cake Novell would have you believe, and
you are still dependent on an NDS aware backup.
- John Baird

--------

>What about the utility that Joe Flowers posted about a couple of months
>back? Didn't he have a way of backing up and restoring NDS? Does it
>suffer from this same flaw?

The utility was JCMD which allows you to execute DOS-type commands from
the console. It allows you to copy the contents of the NDS directory once
DS has been unloaded. This is of some use for backing up NDS in a single
server environment, but it doesn't lend itself to being automated
because you are working at the server console i.e. unload DS, load jcmd,
copy files, exit jcmd, load DS. Maybe Wolfgang Schreiber's RC util would
allow the sequence of commands to be executed via a workstation - I have
not tried it.

In a multiserver environment, JCMD is more problematic. To avoid potential
problems, you must ensure that synchronisation is not taking place when
DS is unloaded and the files copied from _NETWARE. When restoring these
files into _NETWARE, you have the potential problem that Joe D has refered
to often when restoring from backup, about placing info from an old epoch
back into the tree. I haven't experimented with this, so I dont know if
NDS would figure things out and correctly resynch or not.

We are planning to use JCMD when we upgrade a server in a few weeks. We
want to preserve the existing passwords, change the block size and enable
suballocation on SYS. The plan is to perform an in-place upgrade which
preserves the passwords, copy VOL3 from the RAID array to a spare disk in
the server, delete VOL3, use JCMD to take a copy of the NDS files, rename
SYS, do a 2nd install of 4.1 setting up a new SYS on what was VOL3 with 64
KB blocks and suballocation, use JCMD to copy the NDS files from the
in-place upgrade into _NETWARE on the new SYS, copy all files from the old
SYS. Will this work? Right now I dont know, but it sounds ok in theory and
we will do a test run next week. If anyone can point out gotchas I'd like
to hear them.
- John Baird

----------------

Based on experience, I fear I must take issue with some of the dire
projections in this thread about restoring NDS.

Our network:

16 4.02 servers (now upgraded to 4.1)
Each server on its own segment & partition, connected by T1 & frame relay
Each partition has a master and at least 2 read/write replicas
SMS-compliant backups of file system only (ie. TSA400.NLM on target servers)
Backup system: Intel Storage Express (1.52AE, based on ArcServe 5.01g)

I had the "opportunity" to restore two of our servers. Here's the steps:

Use PARTMGR to delete replicas on server to be replaced
Delete volume objects in NETADMIN
Down server
User PARTMGR to delete server object
Reinstall server from scratch with same name, same internal net #
Ensure all patches are loaded, including SMDR and TSA400
Use PARTMGR to place a r/w replica of the server's partition on it
Allow replica to sync
Using SMS, restore files from Storage Express

Result? Trustee assignments were valid. Bindery users logged in without
problems. The only downside was print queues: they must be recreated.
(Doesn't matter if they're bindery-based or NDS queues; according to
Novell, the object ID issue hasn't been resolved with print queues yet,
and they must be recreated after a restore. Might as well write that
step into your disaster recovery plan.)

What are the keys to success here?
1. Valid NDS replication
2. SMS-compliant backup of file system

So, I have confirmed faith in NDS replication and restoration. While
nothing is infallable, it seems to have worked in these situations. If
you only have one 4.x server, you'll have to backup NDS using TSANDS, as
well as the file system using TSA400. If you have multiple servers,
replicate.
- Chuck Martini

--------

A while ago, running NetWare 4.01, we managed to ruin both of our servers.
Each server held replicas of all partition - but then - they were gone. We
tried to restore the NDS by means of two tape backups (via SBACKUP.NLM) of
the servers' NDS which were drawn roughly at the same time - to no avail.
The servers didn't synchronize and serveral runs of DSREPAIR did more bad
than good.

We finally resolved the problem by restoring the "root" server from tape
only, thereby getting a synchronized read/write-replica back and restoring
the second server from this. We observed all the three problems John
mentioned above.

Conclusion is, tape backup is the last resort, applicable to one server
and if there is positively no replica available.
- Martin Mueller

----------------

J.6 Handling NetWare 4.x Page Faults

The following are some tips for dealing with pages faults on Netware
v4.10.

Most of the time, the cause of the page fault can be attributed to a
particular NLM or driver which may be loaded. As such, it is helpful
if you can isolate the offending module.

With NW4.1, there is a DOMAIN.NLM that is installed on the DOS partition,
which can be loaded in the STARTUP.NCF. When this NLM is loaded, it will
catch page faults which occur and isolate the process that caused it.
This makes it a lot easier to isolate the cause of server problems because
you can bring the server down when it is convenient, rather than having
to kick users off in the middle of the day.

Keep in mind that after a page fault occurs, even though the DOMAIN.NLM
has caught it, you should still bring down the server and restart it.
Using the DOMAIN.NLM just prevents the server from crashing and you can
down the server properly after-hours.

Note: You might notice some abnormal behavior by your server after the
page fault occurs, such as high utilization. I would not try to load or
unload any modules after a page fault occurs.

A suggestion from Novell tech support is to check the memory settings
for the server. In particular:

Set Read Fault Notification = On
Set Read Fault Emulation = On
Set Write Fault Notification = On
Set Write Fault Emulation = On

Almost all of the page faults most will experience are resolved when the
410PT1.EXE and 410IT4.EXE patches are applied.

[Thanks to Alex Lee this updated info]

J.7 NetWare 4.x block size, compression and sub-allocation

If you do turn off compression and sub-allocation, make sure that
you change the block size, since it defaults to 64K. Also note that
NetWare's caching scheme is most efficient with a block size of 64K,
hence the need for sub-allocation.

[Thanks to Rick Damiani this info]

There is a delay during decompression, at least on a 486DX2/66 server.
Once a file is decompressed, it stays that way until a certain amount
of time passes, then it is compressed again so if you access a compressed
file more than once in the delay before recompression, you only take the
performance hit once.

This is controllable via SET. You can have the server: (a) decompress
the file to disk on the first access, as described above, (b) keep the
file compressed on disk unless it is accessed _twice_ within the usual
compression period (also controllable via SET), or (c) always keep the
file compressed on disk. You can also modify this behaviour for individual
files and directories with the FLAG command.

[Thx S.M.D.]

If your server is low on RAM, it is unable to compress large files and
tells you so at the console.

Note: Once you have created a volume, there is no way to enable/disable
compression on the volume without re-creating the volume. You can flag
files to not be compressed on a compressed volume or set compression to
occur in 10,000 days to work around this problem.

NW 4.1 creates SYS: as being compressed by default. This can be a gotcha.
If you do not want this, be careful to specify this when volume SYS: is
being created. Compression works well for user volumes, especially if
a lot of user files that are infrequently accessed.

[Thanks to David Hanson this info]

Compression is a CPU-intensive task, and while it's normally scheduled
for the middle of the night, what do you do if you can't find any time
that's convenient to do it? For example, you may run a 24x7 operation, or
you might not want your CPU eaten up while doing backups. Decompression
is also a performance drag but if the server is reasonably powerful, your
users probably won't notice the difference. PROBABLY... On my NetWare 4.02
server, mostly for my own use, I don't do administration on it very often,
and so it goes and compresses NWADMIN and the large number of DLLs that go
with it. The next time I go to run NWADMIN, it takes a minute to launch...

Case History: We set up a 4.1 server for one of our clients. After a week
or two, he called up and said there was something wrong with his server,
because when he went into a file manager and tried to do a directory of
some of the stuff he'd put on the server, CPU utilization went way up and
the server just started dragging like crazy...yet it wasn't "repeatable".
He'd do it again and this time it would work fine. It turned out that he
had his file manager set up to read the first little bit of each file to
try to determine what was in it. Of course, after a while, files get
compressed if they're not used, and so he was forcing the server to go and
decompress a whole directory's worth of files just for a dir listing.
Once he'd done this to enough directories, they'd all be uncompressed and
things would work fine [Floyd: with zero compression benefit] for a week
(the default time before compression) and then it would show up again.

Suballocation is a wonderful thing, too, but if memory serves, it needs
more memory on the server to keep track of it. Still, I can't see any
reason not to use it, because if you're _that_ tight on memory, the
problem is a lack of memory, _not_ suballocation.

[Thx S.M.D.]

J.7.1 Alternative compression products

NetSqueeze, The Lan Support Group, (713) 789-0882, compresses files on
NetWare volumes according to rules you set up.

[Thanks to David Ro this info]

K. SOME USEFUL TEXTS & SOFTWARE

K.1 The Novell Companion

The author is Jon Johnston. I don't recommend the book to experienced
administrators with large networks, but it is a good read for somebody
new to LANs or NetWare who doesn't want to read the whole set of red
books. I have some disagreements with his recommendations, but I
understand them and the reasons behind them, and while I did find a few
errors in the book, I've seen a lot worse. Publisher is WEKA Publishing,
1-800-222-WEKA in the USA.

K.2 LAN Connectivity from New Rider Publishing

Not Novell-specific, but provides wide coverage of the various topologies,
etc., and includes sections on NetWare, Lan Manager and Banyan Vines which
are interesting reading. Basically, it's a Networking Technologies course
in book form.

[Thanks to David Gersic for these two titles]

K.3 Using NetWare 4

By Bill Lawrence, Que Books, ISBN 1-56529-069-0, $35,00

K.4 Novell's guide to NetWare LAN analysis

By Laura A Chappell & Dan E Hakes, Sybex/Novell Press, ISBN 0-7821-1362-1
$44,99

[Thx H.K.]

K.5 Novell's SDK CD-ROM

The SDK contains online documentation and eText versions of:
Netware Client API for C vol 1 and vol 2
Netware Programmers guide for C

[Thanks to Viswanath Vadlamani for this info]

K.6 EMS Professional Shareware NetWare CD-ROM

EMS Professional Shareware's 17th (Aug'95) edition of its NetWare
shareware CD-ROM has 2346 PD/Shareware/Free ZIP files and a database
describing these, as well as 563 commercial add-ons for NetWare
professionals. EMS can reached at 4505 Buckhurst Ct., Olney MD
20832-1830 Voice:+1(301)924-3594 Fax:+1(301)963-2708. Their eMail is
ems@wdn.com and their WWW is http://www.xmission.com/~wwwads/ems

[Thanks to Eric Engelmann for this info]

K.7 Shareware NetWare API Library

A shareware NetWare API library is available via anonymous FTP at:

ftp://oak.oakland.edu/SimTel/msdos/c/netclb30.zip

or any SimTel mirror site.

[Thanks to Adrian Cunnelly for this info]

K.8 Quickpath to NetWare 4.1 Networks

Quickpath to Netware 4.1 Networks, by Jeffrey F. Hughes and Blair W.
Thomas, Novell Press, Published by Sybex, Inc., 2021 Challenger Drive,
Alameda, CA 94501. Tel (510)523-8233 or (800)227-2346, FAX (510)523-2373
ISBN 0-7821-1634-5, Library of Congress Card Number: 94-74147. $29.99

[Thanks to Dan Sobel for this info]

K.9 Novell Application Notes

You can subscribe to receive Novell Application Notes at a cost, outside
the United States, of $135.00, by calling 303-297-2725, or writing to
Research Order Desk, Attn: Novell Program Admin, 1601 Park Ave. West,
Denver, CO 80216 USA

[Thanks to Larry Hansford for this info]

K.10 The NSE Pro CD

NSEPro is available from any Novell Authorized Reseller, or directly from
Novell by calling 1-800-377-4136 (United States and Canada). In all other
locations, call +1-303-297-2725. Credit card orders may be faxed to
+1-303-294-0930 (quoted from the NSEPro itself).

[Thanks to Dave Kearns for this info]

K.11 Netware 4 Administration

ISBN 1-56205-240-3. It's about $90 but appears to cover everything.

[Thanks to Tome Cole for this info]

L. ETHERNET FRAME TYPES: DON PROVAN'S DEFINITIVE ANSWER

L.1 Introduction

I'm often stopped on the street, metaphorically speaking, and asked,
"Hey, Don, what *is* it with these Ethernet frame types." I've
determined that the inquisitor generally wants the answer to one of
four questions, which I list here in rough order of increasing
inflamedness:

(1) Physically, what do the four Ethernet frame types look like?
(2) Politically, where do the four Ethernet frame types come from?
(Or, put more simply, "Why are there four?")
(3) If Ethernet_802.3 is so Yucky, should I stop using it?
(4) Which Ethernet frame type should I use for IPX?

L.2 The Physical Structure of the Four Ethernet Frame Types

Here is the physical appearance of the four Ethernet frame types,
listed in rough order of creation. I will ignore the purely
electronic aspects of the frame, including start bits and Frame Check
Sequence. Those are required by the physical hardware and are,
consequently, uniform for all four frame types.

=====================================================================

Novell Frame Type Designation: Ethernet_II
Common name: Ethernet
Layout:

Comments: 1. Used for TCP/IP as well as many other protocols.
2. Most common frame type in general, although
Ethernet_802.3 might possibly carry more
packets world wide.

=====================================================================

Novell Frame Type Designation: Ethernet_802.3
Common name: "Raw" 802.3
Layout:

Comments: 1. No protocol ID: Can only carry IPX packets.
2. Distinguishable from Ethernet_802.2 only because the
first two bytes of all IPX packets carried on
Ethernet_802.3 must be all ones, which makes no sense in
Ethernet_802.2.
3. The default frame type for NetWare software until
NetWare v4.0 was released.

=====================================================================

Novell Frame Type Designation: Ethernet_802.2
Common Name: 802.3 (the 802.2 header is implied by the 802.3 standard).
Also Known As: 802.3/802.2, to distinguish from "raw" 802.3
Layout:

Comments: 1. Used for OSI packets on 802.3 networks.
2. Numbers in parentheses are the values used by IPX.
3. The default frame type for the NetWare v4.0 release.

=====================================================================

Novell Frame Type Designation: Ethernet_SNAP
Common name: 802.3/SNAP or 802.3/802.2/SNAP
Layout:

6 b 6 b 2 b 1 byte 1 byte 1 byte 5 bytes Up to 1492 bytes
+----+----+---+------+------+------+---------------+----------------+
|Dst |Src |len| DSAP | SSAP | Ctrl | SNAP ID | Network Packet |
|Addr|Addr| | 0xAA | 0xAA | 0x03 | (0,0,0,81,37) | |
+----+----+---+------+------+------+---------------+----------------+

Comments: 1. Extension to 802.2, indicated by SAP value of hex AA.
2. Number in parentheses is the value used for IPX.
3. Used by AppleTalk. Almost never used for IPX.

=====================================================================

L.3 The Political Origin of the Four Ethernet Frame Types

Many people want to know why there are four Ethernet frame types.
Each one has a story, as I'll explain below.

L.3.1 Where did Ethernet_II come from?

The frame type NetWare software calls Ethernet_II is basically the
original Ethernet frame type. There were actually two earlier Ethernet
standards before the final one we know today. The first was strictly
experimental and ran at 3 megabit. The second was the 10 megabit
Ethernet we've come to know and love, but it had a few kinks which were
quickly ironed out in the DIX Ethernet standard (named for DEC, Intel,
and Xerox, the three companies that developed it). Because of the
earlier standard, the "new" one was often refered to as "Ethernet II",
although the actual packet formats were the same for both standards.
(The DIX standard had slightly different hardware signaling
specifications.) These days, the history has been long since forgotten
and no hardware has survived from the pre-DIX Ethernet days, so the
currrent standard is now commonly known as simply "Ethernet".

L.3.2 Where did Ethernet_802.2 come from?

With Ethernet happily deployed around the world, some dim bulb
decided to have it blessed by a standards body. The body was IEEE.
The result was the 802.3 specification. IEEE just couldn't resist
changing the Ethernet framing in a pointless, yet significant way.
They eliminated the two byte protocol ID (known in Ethernet as the
"Ethernet Type" or "E-type") and replaced it with a two byte length.
The protocol ID was then carried within the 802.3 packet in an 802.2
header, keeping in accordance with the overall IEEE 802 plan.

The 802.2 header made 802.3 consistent with the other 802 physical
layer protocols. This was intended to allow easy use of these
datalink layers by the ill-fated OSI protocol suite. Until NetWare
v4.0 shipped with Ethernet_802.2 as the default for Ethernet drivers,
OSI was the only significant use of the 802.3/802.2 protocol (except
for a few uses of the SNAP extension to 802.2, which in Novell drivers
is a different frame type: Ethernet_SNAP).

Ethernet_802.2 packets are distinquished from Ethernet packets
by having a packet length of 1500 bytes or less. Ethernet protocol
IDs are all larger than 1500 decimal.

L.3.3 Where did Ethernet_802.3 come from?

Ethernet_802.3 came from Novell. At some point in the development of
802.3, someone at Novell got a copy of the 802.3 specification. I
wasn't around at the time, so I don't know for sure what happened,
but apparently it didn't occur to anyone that a legitimate datalink
protocol would simply *have* to carry a network layer protocol
identification. (Without a protocol ID, the datalink protocol could
only be used for a single protocol, which isn't very practical.)

Anyway, to make a long story short, some Novell engineer implemented
802.3, but *without* the required 802.2 header. (Novell apologists
claim that at some point in the early days of 802.3, the 802.2 header
wasn't required. I'll believe that the requirement for 802.2 might not
have been clearly spelled out at some point, but I cannot believe that
anyone on the 802.3 committee thought 802.3 didn't need a protocol
descriminator, so I'm sure the intention was always for 802.2 to be
required.) Instead of an 802.2 header, in the Ethernet_802.3 frame IPX
simply sits right in the 802.3 packet as the only possible protocol.

Now normally you might think that having two protocols, IPX and 802.2,
both riding in the same place in the same type of frames would cause a
problem. Indeed, there have been isolated cases over the years of
nodes expecting 802.2 being confused by arriving IPX packets and vice
versa. But by a remarkable stroke of serendipity, IPX packets, which
until just recently always started with two bytes of all ones, look
ridiculous to properly implemented 802.2 code. (And, on the other
hand, 802.2 packets never start with two bytes of all ones, which makes
them invalid as IPX packets transmitted in Ethernet_802.3 frames.)
This has made the number of problems quite limited, and such
bugs in the packet handling code were generally fixed posthaste.

L.3.4 Where did Ethernet_SNAP come from?

802.2, being three bytes long, makes the network layer packet badly
aligned in an 802.3 packet. In addition, only seven bits are available
in 802.2 for discriminating between different protocols, so there can
only be 128 different protocols on an 802.2 network.

The solution to these problems, driven by the TCP/IP community which --
guess what? -- likes to have its packets aligned and requires several
protocols, was SNAP (which stands for something, I just can never
remember what)*, which in Novell LAN drivers is the frame type
Ethernet_SNAP. SNAP uses a single 802.2 protocol ID (hex AA) to
indicate a SNAP packet. The SNAP packet, carried inside the 802.2
packet, has a five byte header followed by the network layer protocol.
The five byte header is simply a five byte protocol ID. The first
three bytes of the protocol ID are an Organizational Unit Identifier (or
OUI) identifying the authority assigning the protocol ID. The last two
bytes are the protocol ID according to that authority.

This sounds a little complicated, but in practice the three byte OUI is
always zero and the last two bytes are always the Ethernet Type code
assigned to the protocol for use on standard Ethernet. (Well, ok,
there is one exception: AppleTalk, for reasons I cannot fathom, uses
some other OUI (presumably Apple's), but still uses the Ethernet Type
as the last two bytes. The punch line is that AppleTalk's auxilliary
protocol, AARP, uses an OUI of zero. Go figure.) In other words, when
SNAP is used, it typically ends up being eight extra bytes of datalink
header just to get back to the information that's normally carried in
the simple Ethernet packet.

Note: The RFCs have it that the acronym SNAP stands for SubNet Access
Point, but the word "subnet" muddies the waters.

L.3.5 Why does IPX run on all four frame types?

Good question.

L.4 Should You Use Ethernet_802.3?

You probably know by now that since the frame type Ethernet_802.3 does
not carry the required 802.2 header, it is not conformant to the
official 802.3 specification. You may also have heard about problems
on networks using Ethernet_802.3 frames. As a conscientious network
administrator, this may cause you to worry about using the
Ethernet_802.3 frame type on your network. Here are some guidelines
for deciding whether to switch away from Ethernet_802.3.

First of all, if you are installing a *new* network, then *don't* use
Ethernet_802.3. One thing's for sure: Ethernet_802.3 is obsolete.
New networks should use a more current frame type such as Ethernet_II.

So the only real question is whether you should convert an existing
Ethernet_802.3 network to some other frame type.

The first observation is that Ethernet_802.3 isn't generally dangerous.
The problems that have occurred because of Ethernet_802.3 frames are few
and far between, and generally involve older hardware or software. If
you haven't already seen any such problems, then you probably never
will. So normally there's no risk to keeping Ethernet_802.3 as a
existing network's frame type. In particular, if your Ethernet_802.3 is
fairly static and you do not plan any major upgrades or additions to it,
then you can continue with Ethernet_802.3 indefinitely without concern.

On the other hand, Ethernet_802.3 is an obsolete frame type, as I
say. So if you find a convenient opportunity, you may want to switch
a network away from it. For example, if you decide to upgrade all of
your client nodes from older software to an ODI driver or the VLM
client, that might be a good time to also switch to Ethernet_II since
you're already making modifications on every node.

One consideration that may be important to you is that IPX packets
with checksums cannot be transmitted on Ethernet_802.3 networks. In
order to take advantage of the data integrity provided by the IPX
checksum feature of the newer NetWare releases, you'll have to
upgrade your Ethernet_802.3 networks to Ethernet_II or some other
Ethernet frame type.

Note that a single Ethernet can carry both Ethernet_802.3 and
Ethernet_II traffic at the same time. Novell software treats the two
frame types as entirely different logical networks even though they are
being transmitted and received on the same NIC. A NetWare v3.x or v4.x
server with its IPX bound to two logical boards running the two frame
types will function as an IPX router between the two "networks".
(Notice that there *are* two networks, so they need two *different*
network numbers.) This allows you to upgrade Ethernet_802.3 nodes one
by one to Ethernet_II. The NetWare router will forward packets from
one "network" to the other, allowing the upgraded nodes to continue
talking to the older nodes and vice versa.

L.4.1 What frame type Joe D. uses

My place did that years and years ago, and it is not a big a problem as it
might seem. To change, schedule a weekday at 08:00-09:00 when the net will
be down and yet all the responsible people will be present to control
their boxes. The afternoon before "the day" change all server autoexec.ncf
files in preparation for a reboot the following morning. Have area people
update user net.cfg files for that same reboot time. Tell users about the
affair, and about the net.cfg modification. At 08:00 shut down servers and
printer boxes and whatnot. Wait for quiet wires (to prevent those
"server X claims network YYY is ZZZ" mistakes. Then start firing up
servers, then the tiny boxes, then the users. Real elapsed time is maybe
15 minutes, leaving 45 more to chase down boxed under desks, in forgotten
closets, etc.

My place is 20K students, 50+ NW servers on the backbone, nearly uncounted
small boxes. We've done this massive update thrice: once to kill all
Ethernet_802.3 traffic which was zapping machines and causing server
crashes, a second case to regularize IPX names and numbers (the Utah
Standard) and again to regularize the Appletalk mess. All occassions were
trouble free, created only positive comments from users, and the place was
better off for it.

We are a very tolerant networking outfit. But we simply forbid
Ethernet_802.3 packets on backbones. There is no reason at all to use it.
We also tell system managers to never use Ethernet_802.2 because it was
crippled at birth and has no benefit in its favor other than to support
some RPL situations. The result is greater functionality for everyone at
no cost, and that's the bottom line.

[Thx Joe D.]

L.5 Which Ethernet frame type should I use for IPX?

One thing we can all agree on: you should *not* use Ethernet_802.3
unless you are connecting an installed network that uses it. Refer to
my other note, "Should You Use Ethernet_802.3?", for a complete
discussion of Ethernet_802.3. For our purposes here, I assume
Ethernet_802.3 isn't being considered.

Novell does not, at least to my knowledge, explicitly recommend any one
Ethernet frame type for carrying IPX traffic, although perhaps the
default frame type of Ethernet_802.2 on the v4.0 LAN drivers might
provide a clue. My PERSONAL recommendation, however, is, "When given a
choice, run IPX on Ethernets exclusively with the Ethernet_II frame type."

While there are a couple of technical arguments I can make in support
of Ethernet_II, they really aren't important enough to mention. (But
I'm always asked what they are, so I'll explain them in a moment.)
The real reason I recommend Ethernet_II is that it's the true Ethernet
standard. With only a couple of exceptions, every significant protocol
uses Ethernet_II instead of either Ethernet_802.2 or Ethernet_SNAP.

[The exceptions? OSI runs on Ethernet_802.2, and the "new" AppleTalk
runs on Ethernet_SNAP, although the old AppleTalk runs on Ethernet_II.
(I quote "new" because the later version of AppleTalk is actually
fairly well established; it's basically just what you'd think of as
AppleTalk. Pure "old" AppleTalk networks are rather rare these days.)]

The practical effect of Ethernet being the principle framing standard
is that you are often using Ethernet_II framing already for some
other protocol. If you're running any other protocol (other than
OSI), using Ethernet_802.2 for IPX will mean having one more frame
type to worry about on that NIC. For example, if you're using TCP/IP
on a NetWare v3.11 server, the Ethernet_II frame type is already
loaded for IP. If you also run IPX over Ethernet_II instead of
Ethernet_802.2, you won't have to reload the LAN driver for a second
frame type.

Another practical consideration is old NetWare software. Pre-ODI
clients and 2.x servers can be switched to Ethernet_II framing using an
old, widely available, utility: ECONFIG.EXE. Pre-ODI clients cannot talk
Ethernet_802.2. I've heard rumors that some 2.x servers can be
configured to use Ethernet_802.2, but I have no idea how that's done or
where you get the software components needed to do it.

I rule out Ethernet_SNAP simply because IPX has never been normally run
on that frame type. There's no significant technical advantage for IPX
between Ethernet_II and Ethernet_SNAP, but Ethernet_II is by far the more
common of the two, particularly for IPX.

One thing's for certain: no matter which frame type you decide to use,
SPECIFY IT in your configuration files. Do *NOT* let the LAN driver
use the "default" frame type. The default can change from version to
version of the LAN drivers, but you don't want any given node to change
its frame type just because a driver was upgraded. To ensure that
doesn't happen, tell the LAN driver explicitly which frame type to use,
even if you think the frame type you've selected is the default.
(This is actually general advice: when configuring *any* software,
only allow the software to use default values when you really don't
care what the value is. Since the wrong frame type would break
communications, you really *do* care exactly which frame you're using,
so specify it.)

P.S. No, I didn't forget. The first minor technical advantage of
Ethernet_II is that in it the IPX packet is aligned to the proper word
boundary. The poor alignment of Ethernet_802.2 will cause a slight
performance penalty in some cases, although I've seen nothing to
indicate the performance penalty would ever be significant...or even
measurable, for that matter.

The second is that in Ethernet_II, the hex E-type 8137 is officially
assigned to IPX by IEEE. The Ethernet_802.2 SAP which IPX uses (hex
E0) is *not* officially assigned to IPX. E0 is in the range of SAPs
which are reserved for local definition. This means that there's no
official restriction against some other network protocol using a SAP
of E0, although in practice it is extremely unlikely anyone would
ever do such a thing.

[Thanks to Don Provan for this info]

Some added reading material about the subject from the Internet RFC
archives (anonymous ftp to nic.ddn.mil or mirrors thereof):
1. RFC-1011, "Official Internet Protocols" by Reynolds and Postel.
2. RFC-1060, "Assigned Numbers" by Reynolds and Postel.
3. RFC-1042, "A Standard for the Transmission of IP Datagrams over
IEEE 802 Networks" by Reynolds and Postel.

[Thx Joe D.]

RFC-1011 Official Internet... superceded by RFC-1600 same name
RFC-1060 Assigned numbers superceded by RFC-1700 same name

[Thanks to Henrik Olsen for this additional info]

A free booklet is available from Lantronic (1-800-422-7055) called
"Ethernet Tutorial and Product Guide".

[Thanks to Larry Hansford for this additional info]

M. OBTAINING CNE QUALIFICATION

M.1 What is a CNE

A CNE (Certified Netware Engineer) is an individual who has passed the
Novell tests to qualify as a CNE. Opinions differ as to exactly how
useful a CNE qualification is, but it has to be said that more and more
employers are looking for CNEs. Many companies offer training courses to
help qualify as a CNE.

M.2 How to get CNE qualification

Novell have appointed companies as training centres, where you can also
take the exams. Your local Novell office should be able to provide you
with a list of training centres.

M.3 Useful reading for CNE studies

There is a two vol. set comprising "CNE Netware Training Guide", New
Rider Press, ISBN 1-56205-305-1, $138 and "Novell's guide to Netware 3.12 networks" (Sybex) $35. These
are distributed by Bay Connection Co, USA (josepha@world.std.com,
fax 617-965-8113) both in the USA and overseas. BCC bundles each set
with free Netware Assessment Test and CNE-Quiz demo program to help
test the current knowledge.

[Thanks to J. Abramson for this info]

There is also a CNE test preparation program available at:
ftp://ftp.coast.net/SimTel/win3/network/cneendvr.zip

[Thanks to Michael Herrick for this info]

Netware Training Guide: Networking Technologies 2ed., New Rider Press,
ISBN 1-56205-309-4. Covers the certification tests for DOS, Microcomputer
Technologies, Service and Support, as well as Networking Technologies.

There are also more books to the Network Training Guide series: Netware 4
Update, and Netware 4 administration.

[Thanks to Greg Coldwell for this info]

M.4 CNE-related documents from Novell FAXBACK Service

Novell has CNE-related documents obtainable via the Novell Education
FAXBACK Service at 801-429-5363. The CNE testing process recently
changed. The certification tracks are more specialized, and the ECNE
is being replaced by the "Master" CNE.

Relevant FaxBack documents are:
1443 CNE & Master CNE Programs: Participant's Guide (7 pages)
1444 CNE & Master CNE Programs: Q & A (5 pages)
1448 CNE Matrix
1471 New CNE Program Progress Chart
1472 Master CNE Progress Chart
1473 Continuing Ed. Requirment for Current CNE's

[Thanks to Dave Ax for this info]

N. CD-ROM MATERIAL

N.1 How do I get to see a CD drive on my Netware v3.12 server?

Only SCSI CD-ROMs can be mounted by NetWare [Floyd: until recently,
see N.5 below].

The documentation for CD-ROM support failed to tell you that you need to
load an additional .DSK driver before loading CDROM.NLM. The NetWare
installation program is equally inept in this regard; there are several
such .DSK drivers on your SYSTEM_2 diskette, yet it does not copy any of
them to your SYS:SYSTEM directory.

For Adaptec ASPITRAN, the driver you want is ASPICD.DSK. For generic ASPI
interfaces, you want CDNASPI.DSK. For other implementations, try out the
.DSK drivers on SYSTEM_2, but you may need to contact the vendor of your
SCSI host adapter to get the correct driver. Future Domain has a BBS at
714-253-0432, in the short term, eMail can be sent to Virendra Rode at
virendra@nexus.chapman.edu

[Thx to V.K.R.]

N.2 100% CPU utilization when mounting a CD-ROM

When mounting a CD-ROM on a Netware server, CPU utilization may go
to 100% for a long time. This is a normal part of the behaviour of the
original 3.12 CDROM.NLM, but has been at least partially cured in later
releases. You should upgrade to the current release (NetWare 4.10 users,
as of this writing, have the current release; all others need CDROM3.EXE).

When you mount a disc for the first time, the server builds an index table
on SYS: in a hidden directory, SYS:CDROM$$.ROM. This index holds all
directory information for the CD-ROM and allows the server to do directory
searches on the CD-ROM much faster than it would be able to if it had to
physically access the disc each time as CD-ROM drives have seek times an
order of magnitude worse than those for hard drives. Also, this index is
read into memory when the CD-ROM is mounted, providing a further speed
improvement. The process of building this index appears to be very CPU-
intensive. The duration of this CPU hit varies depending on the power of
your CPU and the complexity of the CD-ROM; it may run anywhere from a
second or so to many (tens of) minutes.

When this process is complete, the system has an index ready for the next
time you mount the CD-ROM. By default, all subsequent mount requests for
this CD-ROM will be fulfilled by reading the index from the hard drive into
memory, making the process of re-mounting the CD-ROM fast and not nearly
as CPU-intensive.

[Thx S.M.D.]

N.3.1 CD-ROM software products for NetWare

SCSI Express from Microdesign International, WInterhaven Fl.

[Thanks to Frank Ramsey for this info]

N.3.2 CD-ROM hardware products for NetWare

Pioneer 604X "jukebox". Load 6 CD's at once, quad speed drive, less than
$1,000 US. Saves money as fewer SCSI cards/CD-ROM servers are needed.
Some performance trade-off when jukebox has to load a different CD-ROM.

[Thanks to Frank Ramsey for this info]

N.4 CD-ROM resources via the WWW

David Ro maintains two CD-ROM resources for the Network Professional
Association (NPA). One resource is a list of Network Support Resources
on CD-ROM, the other is a list of Hardware and Software Solutions for
CD-ROM networking. These resources can be found at:

http://bos_npa.silverplatter.com/cdref.htm
http://bos_npa.silverplatter.com/cdrom.htm

[Thanks to David Ro this info]

N.5 Mounting an IDE CD-ROM on a NetWare server

There is an updated version of the CDROM.NLM (and other related files)
available that allows an IDE CD-ROM to be mounted on a 3.12 or 4.1 server.

ftp://ftp.novell.com/pub/netwire/novlib/04/CDUP2.EXE

Note: Read the README carefully. This is a TEST release, not a final
release. Quite a few people have had problems (read ABENDS) when using
this on a 3.12 server. It does appear to function well on a 4.1 server,
however.

[Thx J.H.]

N.6 Mapping CD-ROM drives

Most Windows programs do not need search drives nor do they need specific
drive mappings, so it is better to use UNC notation instead.

For example, if your "cdsoft" executable was in SYS:APPS\CD, set the run
line as \\servername\SYS\APPS\CD\CDSOFT.EXE, with a working directory of
\\servername\cdvolume.

In a multi-server environment, where you wish to attach to a server, map
drives, launch programs, then undo it all, then look into WINFINITE, from
Winfinite Software, 22K Worlds Fair Dr., Somerset, NJ 08873 908-805-1931.

[Thanks to Dave Kearns this info]

O. NETWARE and VISUAL BASIC

O.1 Obtaining files demonstrating Visual Basic with Netware

If you are interested in seeing how Visual Basic can be used for
Netware programming, obtain the following files from your nearest
Novell FTP Mirror site.

novlib\11\nivb.zip Netware Interface for Visual Basic
novlib\11\nwtest.zip Netware Test for Visual Basic

Also, there is a Freeware Interface for Visual Basic for Windows
3.X that will allow use of the Netware SDK for Netware 4.X. It will
work with either the latest Volume released to current developers
(Vol 3) or the SDK you can purchase directly from Novell. It comes
with an extended Windows slist program that demonstrates how easily
the functions can be used. In reality this is an extension (with some
modifications) to the NIVB software released by Novell for the earlier
version of the SDK that was 3.X specific.

Currently Bindery, File Server Environment and Connection functions
are supported for all versions of Netware using a Bindery. 4.X NDS
support will be provided after the Bindery work has been completed.

A Userlist and Whoami for Windows will be available by Aug 1, 1995, with
source code. The NDS capabilities for NW 4.X are currently being alpha
tested in house and will be available by late 1995.

The Interface is located at:
ftp://ftp.shu.edu/pub/nw41/nw41bas.exe

You can also send E-mail to divito@Lanmail.shu.edu with a subject
line of 'retrieve interface' to retrieve it via E-mail.

[Thanks to Joseph DiVito for this info]

O.2 Visual Basic and Netware AppNotes

There are also two Novell AppNotes on the subject of using Netware
with Visual Basic (although this is _NOT_ supported by Novell...):

October 92 Interfacing Visual Basic for Windows and NetWare
July 93 A NetWare Interface for Visual Basic

The AppNotes can be obtained by contacting the Novell Research Order
Desk, FAX: +1 303 294-0903, Voice 800 377-4136, +1 303 297-2725. Address
as follows:

Novell Research Order Desk
1601 Park Avenue West
Denver, CO 80216-5199
AppNotes are $95/year ($135 outside US)

O.3 Visual Basic and Netware Books

Here are a few books which might help you out to figure the calls out:

Windows Development on NetWare Systems, Lori Gauthier and Sue Whitehead
1994, Windcrest, Blue Ridge Summit, PA 17294-0850 (McGraw-Hill) $34.95
Comes with a disk. This book also tells you how to "upgrade" to the
currently supported SDK calls.

NetWare System Interface Technical Overview, Novell 1990,1989
(Addison-Wesley), $32.95 (describes Novell's C Network Compiler APIs)

Visual Basic Programmer's Guide to the Windows API, Daniel Appleman
Ziff-Davis Press, 5903 Christie Ave, Emeryville, CA 94608, $34.95
Comes with a disk.

It should be mentioned that the APIs included with the NIVB are
_not_ current, and for this purpose, you should get the Novell SDK kit.
Also, Novell will not support NIVB, but you can sometimes get some help
from CompuServe, or from others on the Internet.

[Thanks to Tom Tregilgas for this info]

O.4 Apiary's Developer Suite for NetWare - VB 4.0 Edition

Apiary, Little Rock, Arkansas, will ship [it] by November 1, 1995.

"The Suite takes full advantage of 32-bit technology featured in MS VB 4.0
to implement a complete VB SDK for Novell's 32 bit NetWare clients."

"[It] provides all the tools needed to build high performance 32-bit
NetWare client applications for both MS Windows NT and MS Windows 95 in
VB 4.0. This includes not only drive mapping and printing services, but
also full access to NetWare Directory Services."

[Thanks to Gary Dowdy for this info]

P. SELECTED ERROR MESSAGES -- WHAT THEY MEAN

P.1 "Lan receive buffer limit reached"

Your server is probably running out of memory or you need to raise the
"maximum packet receive buffers" limit.

Also, you may want to set you "minimum packet receive buffers" to a large
enough number so that when you start the server up next time, it will
start with a large packet buffer pool.

This error normally indicates faulty cabling rather than anything else.
Look at the LAN driver statistics to see which one has errors on it.

P.2 "Primary Interrupt Controller Detected A Lost Hardware Interrupt"

Your server may have a device, commonly a NIC, configured to use an IRQ
above 8. Re-configure the device to use an IRQ less than 8.

>>>New info on this:

The above is wrong. The primary interrupt controller handles IRQs below
8; it's the _secondary_ one that handles IRQs 9 and up. Note that IRQ 2 on
an AT or higher is, in real life, IRQ 9.

Also, the vast majority of servers don't get these messages. A lost
hardware interrupt means that something generated an interrupt, but by
the time the system went to find out what it was, the system could no
longer figure out which device generated the interrupt. If the system
appears to be functioning normally, it's usually safe to ignore these,
and there's a SET parameter which you can use to turn off the display
(and logging - these things can really eat up your system error log)
of these messages.

[Thx S.M.D.]

P.3 "Loader cannot find public symbol..."

The NetWare Loader cannot find a needed NLM and/or cannot autoload it.
Make sure all relevant NLMs are present and are the correct (usually
newest) version.

[Thanks to Hansang Bae for this info]

Q. NOVELL AND WINDOWS 95

Q.1 Booting Windows 95 from NetWare on a disk-less workstation

Joe D. and his team have succeeded in getting Windows 95 to boot-up on
hard disk-less workstations connected to NetWare. A document summarizing
his efforts is at:

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/misc/win95boo.txt
For Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/misc/win95boo.txt

[Thx Joe D.]

Q.2 Upgrading to Windows 95

The following is excerpted from a recent post by Joe D.:

Win95 is DIFFERENT. With few exceptions you will need to reinstall
all Windows programs from scratch. One exception seems to be Quattro
Pro for Windows, where it is finally self contained enough to be run
with a single pointer ("shortcut" in Win95-speak).

I *strongly* recommend printing and reading the Win95 Resource Kit.

You may also glean hints from reading win95boo.txt (mentioned in Q.1)

Without doing lots of homework it is foolish to convert a production
server to use Win95.

To run VLMs you need autoexec.bat, and to do decent memory management
and other normal tasks then config.sys is used too.

My people have created a Win95 production delivery system on a production
NW 3.12 server, and we've doubled the number of application directories
(one for Win 3.1, one for Win 4.0). Each is booted differently at this
time. We can use VLMs provided we don't use Ethernet boot ROMs, but if
those ROMs are used then we must fall back to NETX.EXE. The problem is in
Win95.

We use QEMM/386 for memory management, but some machines don't work
properly unless DOS memory management is used; beware. Long name support
is NOT present unless one uses Microsoft's NW client, and I have no desire
to do that. Long name support will cost your server quite a bit of memory
and performance, to cache directories and to pay the penalty of each
directory cache block holding only half as many files as without the extra
OS2 namespace.

The load stream across the wire for Win95 runs to about 7.5MB here, so be
prepared for additional network traffic.

Printing works at both GUI and DOS box levels (to queue, via Capture in
login script, respectively), but it is not yet gotcha-free.

[Thx Joe D.]

Update:
-------

>What did [Joe D.] do to get Win95 working WELL on diskless workstations?
>How much RAM on the workstations, any swap files on the server, what
>applications are you running with it??

Clients are going to 32MB, up from 16MB, and of that 9MB is allocated
as a C: RAM drive. I need 9MB to handle certain situations, but I need
a RAM drive to service local storage requirements (read-only file server).
Windows swap file is on C: as well so basically all of memory is available
to Windows.

Just about everything works under Win95. MS Office, WordPerfect for
Windows and DOS (DOS 6.0b must run full screen), Borland C++ 4.5,
Autocad, Quattro for Windows, MS C compilers, engineering programs, etc.
Quattro Pro 5 for DOS does NOT, however, and does not run out of a DOS
box on any version of Windows.

I do not run MS Access data base, so I am free of those horrid locking
problems.

Clients are going to Pentium 90's, up from 486-33's. But the 486 machines
do run Win95 ok, within their memory constraints. 16MB is just too small
to run Excel and something else, limiting cut and paste operations. 32MB
is about right for this year, until the Win95 versions of packages chew
up more, as expected.

All Ethernet. The traffic gets a bit hectic but the NE-2000 clone boards
in clients work fine, and a pair of NE-3200's in the NW 3.12 server take
the load and still manage to get plenty of sleep. Two runs of coax in
this particular student lab.

Printing is not quite perfect for Win95, yet. WordPerfect objects to the
spelling of a print queue on the first go, but accepts it on the second
try. Within Windows we print to NW queues, and CAPTURE still operates
fine in the DOS boxen (Capture is run in the login script). VLM shells on
machines, even though some test Pentium machines had sufficient trouble
with their memory that we had to retreat to NETX and DOS mem management
for them.

We have discovered that a number of packages can be invoked ok from Win95
by creating the proper shortcuts. Some can be reinstalled to get .dlls
etc. into Win95, and then the guts removed to save disk space; editing
the Registry is needed to point to the directory used for regular Win 3.1
operation. Yes, we decided to run both Win 3.1 and Win95 for several
months until customers voice a firm choice. In any case, not every package
needs a Win95 installation but the vast majority will require significant
work.

Overall, Win95 seems to be about as stable and usable as Win 3.1. Finding
anything on the green screen is nearly impossible until one clutters the
desktop with shortcut icons, and then it's like Win 3.1 but with pretty
pictures rather than square icons. Your tastes may vary.

We decided to trash long name [LFN] support. That helps the file server a
lot. LFN support works only with MS shell components at present, and in
the end we found it to be nearly worthless. Yes, next year or two it
will be the rage to create filenames miles long with spaces, but all
programmers will have white hair from parsing such things.

You can give all this a test drive at the end of the week. Be sure to
thoroughly backup your system manager's DOS workstation because Win95
will eat its hard disk. Installing Win95 onto a file server for shared
access requires installation to be executed on a workstation, as folks
will discover.

Be sure to turn off all peer to peer work over IPX. That item has a very
nasty problem of making a Win95 station masquerade as a NW file server,
and users seeing it can be trapped in a black hole. See my comments in
the trade press on this snafu.

[Thx Joe D.]

Q.3 Status of the NetWare Requestor for Windows 95

There will be a full scale beta release of the Windows 95 requester for
Netware available to download in September['95]. As of right now, Windows
95 is not supported under Netware. For now, risk your enterprise with:

ftp://netwire.novell.com/pub/netwire/techfile/win95-a2.zip

[Thanks to Andre Besso for this info]

Q.4 Server install note

The drill is to install Win95 on a workstation, and then use NETSETUP to
install the shared image on a file server; the program runs only under
Win95. I again refer folks to classical doc win95boo.txt for further
hints; dir misc on netlab2.usu.edu.

ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/misc/win95boo.txt
Netscapers:
ftp://netlab2.usu.edu/sys/anonftp/misc/win95boo.txt

[Thx Joe D.]

The diskette version DOES NOT come with a network installer, you will
need the CD-ROM version for this.

[Thanks to Fred Salerno for this info]

Q.5 Long filename install workarounds

MS Office 95 is being very difficult about being installed on a NetWare
3.12 server without long (OS2) filename support. Hint: try executing
setup.exe /F where undoc'd /F means without long filename support.
I'll get there eventually, I hope, but right now MS is winning the
struggle.

MS docs: "make sure the long file name feature of Windows 95 is turned on
by setting the following entry in the Windows 95 system.ini file:

[nwredir]
SupportLFN=2"

[Thx Joe D.]

Q.6 Crippled MS NetWare Requestor stack

"When you do talk with MS, discover the well known fact that their stack
does not support Bootp. It has a crippled rendition of DHCP.
Good luck,
Joe D."

[Thx Joe D.]

Q.7 NetWare 4.x NDS and Windows 95

>I NEED MicroSoft's MAPLE product. I can not get my Windows 95 machine
>to utilize NDS. I can't run NWADMIN, therefore, I'm dead in the water.

Install Novell's VLM client and ODI drivers. Activate them in autoexec.bat.
For a long term solution please wait for Novell's announced 32-bit client.

[Thx Joe D.]

Q.8 Windows 95 WWW links

Microsoft's Win95 Page
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/maps/taskbar.map?418,9

Randy's Win95 Resource Page

http://www.cris.com/~randybrg/win95.html

NetEx Win95 Software Archive!
http://WWW.NetEx.NET:80/w95/windows95/

PCIX Win95 Info Page
http://www.pcix.com/win95/win95home.html

The Best Win95 Software
http://www.pcix.com/win95/software.html

Dylan Greene's Win95 Page!
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~dylan/win95.html
Dylan Greene's Windows95 Page!
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~dylan/windows95.html

A Ross Keele - Univ. of Sask
http://duke.usask.ca/~keele/

Process' Win95 Page!
http://www.process.com/Win95/

PC World's Here's How/Win95
http://www.pcworld.com/hereshow/windows95/

Pete Dyer's Win95 Page
http://www.halcyon.com/pdyer/contents.htm

IDirect/Stroud Win95 Page
http://www.idirect.com/stroud/cwsa.html

WWW VMS Win95 Page
http://wwwvms.utexas.edu/~neuroses/cwsapps.html

Countdown to Win'95 Launch
http://techweb.cmp.com:80/techweb/programs/genhtml/techweb/
techweb/win95/countdwn.html?INCLIB=twtimes.pl&until=19950824000000

(above 2 lines should be joined)

WINHQ Free Win95 Files from MS
http://www.windows95.com/apps/msfree.html

Windows Rag
http://www.eskimo.com/~scrufcat/wr.html

Windows NT and Windows 95
ftp://papa.indstate.edu

[Thanks to Floyd Maxwell for this info]

Q.9 Telling Windows 95 to back-off!

>It seems that for WIN95 to see the real mode NIC driver, the IRQ has to
>be less than IRQ 9.

Go into Win95, SYSTEM icon and tell it certain hardware resources
are excluded from consideration. IRQs and Ports are on this list. IRQ 2/9
is grabbed by Win95 unless you slap its hands. Once that matter is understood
by the green screen beast all is well. I happen to run Ethernet boards on
IRQ 2/9, VLM redirector with boot roms, and do so happily after the above
treatment.

[Thx Joe D.]

Q.10 Let's be clear...this is a _NOVELL_ list

Let's be clear about what I[/NOVELL] can contribute to the discussion
[of Win 95 server installs, etc.], and where you plus your Win95 Resource
Kit plus Microsoft's Tech Support have to take over.

I specifically dealt with a READ-ONLY file server, with clients having NO
HARD DISK but with a RAM drive C:. In the examples in my doc the user
directory was named \win95\user. The examples discuss what's particular
to a user in that area, and you should pay attention to what's are MS
"registry" files. You can create as many users as you wish, each with
individual accounts located anywhere you wish, and they contain material
similar to what I showed (but you can trim away great hunks after you have
things settled down). May I repeat, learn what's in the registry files,
because they hold the user and machine-specific information.

I did not discuss Windows 3.x, nor NT 3.x since folks know how to handle
the former and I don't want to spend more of my time on the latter (yes,
I have both). I did not discuss having a local hard disk and storing Win95
on a server, though my notes basically cover that arrangement by
implication. I did not discuss booting multiple operating systems, though
personally I boot amongst DOS 6, Win95, OS/2 and NT on my desktop.

I apologize for the notes being less than crystal clear and in strict
order and free of omissions. I have updated material with clarifications
and amplifications based on a second pass at installation, and I hope that
the combination will be sufficient to launch folks along the twisty
narrow safe pathway through this minefield.

With the benefit of hindsight I can say that one needs to rethink
arrangements when installing Win95. It is not an application invoked and
exited at will, sigh. Many (most?) Windows applications will need to be
reinstalled, but cleverness on your part can permit one final installation
to service both Win 3 and 4 (as we do at my place). DOS applications will
still run, but you will find creating "shortcuts" (icons with .PIF files)
the convenient way of dealing with many. First thing: create a DOS icon
as a shortcut to command "command.com." And, Plug&Play is your biggest
enemy to installation, so keep at it time after time after time until you
succeed.

I have discarded Microsoft's networking material and in my lab we run
ordinary VLMs. They work fine, thankyouverymuch, to the NW 3.12 file
server. Novell has said at Brainshare[95] this spring, and the trade press
has speculated, that NDS logins will be available real soon now (tm).
Yesterday's press release said basically the same thing. There are good
reasons to believe these statements.

I put the discussion on this list only because of the NetWare server and
client shell aspects. Beyond that the problems should go straight to
Microsoft or one of the Windows NEWS groups/listservers, not to this
listserver.

[Thx Joe D.]

Q.11 The best version of the Windows 95 Help File is...

If you have installed from the CD-ROM version, you should copy the file
\ADMIN\RESKIT\HELPFILE\WIN95RK.HLP or get it from Microsoft's web site:

http://www.windows.microsoft.com

This is the Windows 95 Resource Kit help file, the complete reference for
Windows 95 and system components.

[Thanks to Hans D. Jensen for this info]

Q.12 Integrating the Netware Client 4 DOS/Windows (VLMs) with Windows 95

Soon Novell will release a public beta of their Win95
32-bit client requestor, but until then here is what you can try...

This [info] contains the instructions to integrate the NetWare
Client for DOS\MS Windows (VLMs) v1.2x with Windows 95. This
solution is temporary. Novell will release a 32-bit client for
Windows 95 later this year (1995). When the 32-bit client is
released, it will be the recommended client for Windows 95.

This [info] provides step-by-step instructions to integrate the VLMs
with Windows 95. It is assumed that you are running the 1.20 VLMs or
later. The 1.20 VLMs are the VLMs that ship with NetWare 4.10. If
you do not have the 1.20 VLMs, they can be downloaded from CompuServe.
The updated VLMs are in VLMUP3.EXE in the NovFiles Forum. The entire
client kit can be downloaded from NovFiles. There are 6 files that
make up the client kit. The files are named VLMKTx.EXE (the x ranges
from 1 to 6). This client kit already has the updates from VLMUP3.EXE
applied.

Q.12.1 Installation Overview

Detailed step-by-step instructions are provided on the following
pages. Here is a brief overview of the installation/configuration
process for installing the VLMs on a new Windows 95 machine, and
upgrading an existing Windows machine on which the VLMs were already
installed.

Overview of installing the VLMs on a new Windows 95 workstation.
(Follow all steps in the detailed instructions beginning with step 1.)

1. Remove all network components from Network Control Panel in Windows 95
2. Reboot machine in MS DOS mode.
3. Install NetWare Client for DOS/MS Windows.
4. Reboot machine and add the Novell NetWare (Workstation Shell 4.0
and above [VLM] client in the Network Control Panel in Windows 95.

Overview of the configuration steps for configuring Windows 95 to run
with the VLMs after upgrading an existing Windows workstation that was
configured for the VLMs. (Follow all steps in the detailed
instructions beginning with step 8).

1. Perform the upgrade to Windows 95 with the VLM client loaded.
2. After completing the Windows 95 upgrade, open the Network Control
Panel. If the client listed is Novell NetWare (Workstation Shell 4.0
and above [VLM]) you are finished.
3. If the above client is not installed, remove all network components
and select Novell NetWare (Workstation Shell 4.0 and above [VLM]).

Q.12.2 Some FAQs on integrating NetWare Client kit (VLMs) with Windows 95

Q. When will Novell's 32-bit client solution for Windows 95 be released?
A. Novell's 32-bit client solution for Windows 95 will be called NetWare
Client32 for Windows 95. It will be released 60-90 days after Windows
95 ships.

Q. How do I login to a NetWare server from a Windows 95 workstation?
A. When using the VLMs, if you want a login script to be executed you
must login from a DOS prompt. To do this, execute login.exe from the
autoexec.bat or winstart.bat after the VLMs have loaded. The NetWare
Client32 for Windows 95 will ship with a Graphical login that will
enable users to login from the Windows GUI interface.

Q. Are Network Neighborhood and Windows Explorer functional with the VLMs?
A. Yes. You can use Network Neighborhood and Windows Explorer to
navigate through bindery servers. There is no NDS support within
Network Neighborhood or Windows Explorer. The NetWare Client32 for
Windows 95 will be fully integrated with Network Neighborhood and
Windows Explorer. NWUser will provide you with a GUI interface into
NDS servers.

Q. Can I use NWUser on a Windows 95 workstation?
A. Yes. You can use NWUser to map drives, capture ports, etc. However,
the permanent connection features do not work with Windows 95. You
should use login scripts to establish your workstations default
network environment (mappings, captures).

Q. How do I capture from Windows 95?
A. You can execute capture.exe from a login script or in a DOS box.
NWUSER can also be used to capture a port. Add Printer Wizard can be
used to attach to bindery based print queues or NDS queues in the
bindery context.

Q.12.3 Detailed Step-by-Step Installation/Configuration Instructions

1. Launch Windows 95 and open My Computer

2. Open Control Panel.

3. Open Network.

4. If there are any network components in the Network Configuration
property sheet, remove them. This is accomplished by highlighting a
component and clicking Remove. If there are no network components
installed, skip to step 5.

Windows 95 will make the required modifications and display a dialog:
Enter No.

5. The workstation now must be rebooted in MS-DOS mode so the VLM
client install can be run.. Click on Start, Shut Down. Click Restart
the computer in MS-DOS mode? and click Yes.

6. At the DOS prompt insert the NetWare Client for DOS/MS Windows
diskette #1, change to A: and enter Install. Enter the required
information in the NetWare Client Installation screen.

7. When the NetWare Client for DOS/MS Windows installation is
complete, reboot the machine. The following series of error messages
may be displayed when Windows 95 loads.

Cannot find a device file that may be needed to run Windows or a
Windows application.

The Windows registry or system.ini file refers to this device file,
but the device file no longer exists.

If you deleted this file on purpose try uninstalling the associated
application using its uninstall or setup program.

If you still want to use the application associated with this device
file try reinstalling that application to replace the missing file.

C:\windows\system\vmm32\vnetbios.vxd. Press a key to continue.

If these errors occur, press any key to continue. The next step is
to configure Windows 95 to run with the VLMs. Once Windows 95 is
configured to run with the VLMs, the errors will no longer occur.

8. Once Windows 95 has loaded, open My Computer, Control Panel,
Network once again.

9. The Network Control Panel should not have any network components
installed. If there are network components installed, remove them.

10. Click Add

11. Click Client

12. Click on Novell. You will see two options under Network Clients.

13. Click Novell NetWare (Workstation Shell 4.0 and above [VLM]), then
click OK.

14. Click on the Identification tab. You must type in names for your
computer and the workgroup it will appear in. You must also type in
a short description of your computer.

15. Click OK.

While Windows 95 is being configured you may receive dialog boxes
asking for you to insert a disk. If you are displayed a screen such
as this click OK.

These files were installed when you installed the NetWare client for
DOS/MS Windows. If the dialog states "The file filename' on Novell
Netware 4.x Windows driver disk could not be found.", enter the path
c:\windows\system directory in the "Copy files from:" box and click
OK. If the dialog states "The file filename' on Novell Netware DOS
driver disk could not be found.", enter the path c:\nwclient in the
"Copy files from:" box and click OK.

A dialog will be displayed when the configuration process is complete:
Click No. There is one more step that needs to be performed.

16. Open a DOS box, and modify the c:\nwclient\startnet.bat or
autoexec.bat to include the following commands:

F:login (servername\username is optional)

When you reboot the workstation you will be prompted to login while
Windows 95 is initializing.

In some cases, Windows 95 will insert lines in the autoexec.bat to
load the Novell ODI drivers even though the client is already being
loaded from another batch file such as the startnet.bat. Check your
autoexec.bat and verify that the ODI drivers are not being loaded
twice.

17. Reboot the machine. Click Start, Shut Down. Then click Restart
the computer and click Yes.

18. The machine will reboot. You will be prompted to login from a
DOS/text screen while Windows 95 is initializing.

Also, check out:

http://netwire.novell.com/ServSupp/client/win95/

Q.13 Windows 95 + SAPs .NE. NetWare file server !!!

Do not let Microsoft products advertize themselves via IPX SAPs because
in the case of print/file sharing they appear to be real NetWare file
servers (but are not). At my place it is a formal crime against the network
to do so, and we retaliate formally. There's nothing behind that facade
of "I'm a server, come to my place", and further it says it's one hop
closer to the wire than anyone else. Thus clients starting up get that
Win95 monster and the consequent black hole.

If they must share, then use NetBEUI (not routable) or RFC-NetBIOS
(routable).

[Thx Joe D.]

R. TEXT EDITORS -- "If a tree falls in a forest..."

In every walk of life, there is always a question that really has no one
right answer. In the case of text editors the odds of a flame war increase
with the urgency of the user's request to the list for "the best editor
for job xxx".

Here then are the elite of text editors...IMHO of course.

R.0 [Being FAQ editor has its advantages :)] Word 5/DOS from Microsoft

W5/DOS has been around a while, like since 1989 or so, but it is still
rather remarkable: first with "select then act" metaphor, native RTF
support, mouse welcome interface, style sheets & "templates" (glossary fn),
it also has a 100,000 word spell checker, 220,000 word thesaurus, column-
based operations, some math ability, ability to link documents, spread-
sheets & graphics, and supports postscript printing without kludges. It
also has a pretty good macro language, featuring intuitive command names,
ability to format macro source code or save to plain text, as well as
macro step mode. Finally, in addition to graphic preview and great online
help / tutorial, W5/DOS can handle up to 8 documents at once, each up to
8 MB in size, something that WinWord x.x only dreams of (yet promises).
Only the 622k .EXE is essential, with a 720k floppy setup quite useable.
Probably impossible to get ahold of (like Win 3.x now)...

R.1 QEdit from SemWare

QEdit is well known to most as fast and powerful yet small (EXE under 60k),
with the biggest limitation being no access to virtual memory. Thus
documents can be no larger than about 600k. SemWare Corp., Atlanta, GA
(800) 467 3692 or (404) 641 9002.

R.2 Multi-Edit from American Cybernetics

Possibly the best DOS-based multi-file editor with [if memory serves,] up
to 100 files open at once, undo up to 64k operations with full control,
load multiple files with wildcard from DOS prompt. Multi-Edit is very
extensible (much of it is written in its c-like language that can be
edited then recompiled) with numerous add-ons available, with one in
particular geared to c++ programming (Evolve?). American Cybernetics,
#112-1830 W. University Drive, Tempe, AZ 85281, 602-968-1945,
Fax: 602-966-1654, sales@amcyber.com.

R.3 Brief from Borland

The grand-daddy of professional editors, I was scared away the one time
I ran it. Many swear by it. Borland, 408-461-9000 or 800-841-8180 for a
directory of phone numbers, ftp.borland.com.

R.4 Edlin from Microsoft

Press the down arrow twice.

R.5 Copy con filename from Microsoft

GoTo R.4 for an example of "recursion"

R.6 DOS 5.x/6.x (QBasic) Edit from Microsoft

Type EDIT /? to learn more!

R.7 WinEdit from Wilson WindowWare

Windows hosted and shareware, from Wilson WindowWare, try it at:

http://oneworld.wa.com/wilson/pages/
or
ftp://oneworld.wa.com/wwwftp/wilson/

[kind of scarey site names...:-)]

R.8 MegaEdit from WinNET Communications, Inc.

Also Windows hosted and shareware, from WinNET Communcations, Inc,
(formerly Computer Witchcraft, Inc.) Box 4189, Louisville, KY 40204
(502) 589-6800, Fax: (502) 589-7300, CIS: 76130,1463, megaedit@win.net

R.9 Epsilon from Lugaru Software

This EMACS clone supports 100+ files, virtual memory (hma, ems), vertical
and horizontal screen splitting, 132*50 screens (& whatever your video
card supports), regular-expression search and replace, undo, and more.
Works on DOS and Unix.

[Thx J.P.]

R.99 VEdit, KEdit, HEdit, PE, awk, grep, hack, belch & others

After I recover from getting inundated with comments about other MUCH
BETTER editors, I will consider adding their voices to the multitude. But,
until then, many very worthwhile text editors will be deliberately
ignored...not :).

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