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Submitted by davidkrotil on 22 September 2009 - 11:15am.

this is last thing I miss, when I migrate my customers to OES2 Linux. I have posted my request on http://www.novell.com/rms please do it too. Why ? Now you can´t make SLP service fault tolerant and quick as you could on NetWare. There isn´t possibility to cluster OpenSLP, while it response only on first bound network interface. Second bad thing is there isn´t any cache of discovered services, when you reload your OpenSLP daemon, it is blind. All services are kept in memory, you can wait many seconds to minutes or make manual registration of services, how handy.

Submitted by khurni on 22 September 2009 - 2:25pm.

Currently there's no real way to do this. I mean, you can have two OpenSLP DA running. The problem is that whenever the server restarts, it clears out its memory cache, so that when it comes back up the cache is empty and it has to rebuild it. It can take upwards of 3 hours to rebuild this list. In the meantime, your pc's (if they are coded to use THAT particular SLP DA) will get "no" results and fail to resolve.

IF you are lucky enough to give out the IP of your DA via DHCP you could change all your DHCP servers to then give out the IP of the DA that hasn't been rebooted.

Supposedly though, Novell is investigating a workaround. I would submit an SR, as well as an enhancement request so that you can be notified if something comes out. Hopefully soon!

Submitted by jbeeson on 23 September 2009 - 11:41am.

So from what I've read moving to OpenSLP on thr Linux platorm looks like a bit of a backwards step as I found it very complete with is Netware version. You have to re-boot a server to refresh SLP data as restart SLP daemon will not do that. Joys of open source?

Submitted by jlodom on 23 September 2009 - 1:30pm.

My understanding is that OpenSLP is more compliant to the SLP spec than the Netware version. I can attest to this, given some problems which MacOS 9.x used to have with the Netware DA (and Apple invented SLP, eventually abandoning it for Bonjour / ZeroConf). This is perhaps why Novell is not porting the Netware code.

Given that, I could really use an eDirectory-integrated OpenSLP variant a la the freeRadius and Kerberos support that is already in the tree. Your point about clustering is also well-taken.

OpenSLP might be more stable, however, given that services on Linux rarely take down the entire server when they explode, and can be restarted without a reboot. So, on a Linux server you may never have to stop the OpenSLP process even if other services are having issues.

It sounds like in the short-term you're going to want to create a virtual Netware cluster (maybe using XEN?) for the first DA for fault-tolerance, and then perhaps make your second DA a Linux box with OpenSLP.

Sorry I'm not being more directly helpful, but these are the factors that I'm considering in my own migration.

Submitted by skapanen on 27 September 2009 - 10:11pm.

Thanks for the comments,
this seems to be (still) a common issue for people moving from NW to OES2, so it isn't just me who has issues with this..

If you have good experiences about migrating SLP services to OES2, let us know.

If you feel that the OpenSLP that is offered with OES2 is not a good replacement for NW SLP, let us and Novell know it too! (reply here and make enhancement request.)

-sk

Submitted by ashmoore on 5 October 2009 - 5:23am.

The reason you don't hear about good experiences about moving from NW-SLP to OpenSLP is that there are none, its all about what you lose.
People are hanging on to Netware SLP because the OpenSLP solution doesn't work and is abandonware.
Wake up and listen to your customers Novell.

Submitted by ashmoore on 5 October 2009 - 12:15pm.

You miss the point though. You are taking OpenSLP in isolation - not compared to Netware SLP.
I am fully aware that OpenSLP works, indeed "just works" is a good way of putting it.
It "only just" works, meaning it has minimal functionality.
It is well documented how much is missing in OpenSLP compared to the feature set of SLP in Netware.
Most of us here are fed up of waiting just in case Novell might actually fix it in OES3 - it was supposed to be fixed by OES2.

As for it being abandonware....
The newest item in the tracker is from 2004.
The last closed bug is from 2005.
OpenSLP V2 has not made it past beta since April 2008 and the last stable release was in 2005.
Sure looks like abandonware from here

Submitted by stideswe on 5 October 2009 - 11:15pm.

Hello

I wrote a Cool Solution article about it ....
http://www.novell.com/communities/node/1657/slp-da...

This works extremely well (i.e. it has never gone wrong). It is mostly automated and contains very simple components that are easy to troubleshoot and maintain. It's all command-line too which makes it doubly nice.

We have used this since early 2007 and it works very well indeed. It is as applicable to OES1 as it is to OES2.

Simon

Submitted by Sgermanides on 8 October 2009 - 11:21am.

I checked with the project manager, and it looks like what we have in the works is a "cool tool" or "technology preview" to improve your experience with OpenSLP. That is slated for the Sp2 timeframe, with better support in Ponderosa.

And thanks to Simon Flood who's shared his best practice with the thread. I love reading the threads to see the variety of experiences.

-Sophia

Submitted by stideswe on 15 October 2009 - 3:44am.

I can see a lot of knockers out there complaining (and, believe me, Novell and complaining and me are very common themes in my daily life). But I cannot understand what it is that people are complaining about here?

What, in detail, are the problems you experience with OpenSLP? To me it just seems to work. And let's face it, SLP is important to get right to avoid really bad stuff from occurring but once the basics are set up it doesn't really make a lot of difference to end-users' productivity.

Am I missing something? NetWare SLP was convenient and so on but things like ActiveSync, the GroupWise client, Outlook connector are far more painful issues to deal with than SLP surely?

Simon

Submitted by ashmoore on 14 October 2009 - 11:00pm.

I give up,
Yes Simon, only you are missing something that everyone else here can see, how much more detail do you want, just read this thread and the comments on your cool solution.
Frankly, calling a customer with a problem a "knocker" is a telling view of why you see the cool solution as a "fix".
I'm glad it works for you, but the rest of us don't want to have to stick all of that cool solution spit, string and duct tape to replace something that used to be click and go - and should still be.

If it is such a great solution why is it not in the product already and why are Novell advising customers to keep Netware SLP?

Submitted by davidkrotil on 16 October 2009 - 5:04am.

Simon, it´s nice workaround, but SLP from its nature is dynamic, you degrade it to some static "it´s working in my environment" service. I think there isn´t technical problem, but some political. Some people in Novell think, that current functionality of OpenSLP on OES2 is OK and some people not. When we make pressure and if Novell is customer need oriented company, than they will change this and make this work as in NetWare environment.

Just my 5 cents.

Submitted by ashmoore on 16 October 2009 - 5:31am.

Sorry Simon, you totally miss the point.
We are running businesses here, not having religious debates about open and closed source.
My decisions are based on business needs - not my need to feel good about a technical solution. I have enough of those to sort out with deliberately adding more, I don't need to make Linux more difficult to use just to make my life interesting.

Linux is now in the real world of big businesses and needs to grow up and play with the big boys or get back into the closet. Most modern Linux developers and admins already recognize that. The ones that do not will get left behind or marginalized.

I am sure Novell would love your thought that customers who want an easy to use system should migrate to Microsoft - that is a great business case for them, to cease to exist.

I am now going to get back to bugging Novell to make OES the best it can be and compete in the real world because I want Novell to succeed.

Thank you Sophia for the news that this is being addressed and not ignored, many of us are no doubt looking forward to trying it out.

Submitted by kjhurni on 16 October 2009 - 9:19am.

Simon did refer to a nice article he took the time to write for a potential workaround.

I personally prefer Simon's approach vs. the Novell TID "official" approach (essentially both are doing the same thing, but Simon has a nicer way of automating the input of the file, whereas Novell's TID has you do this manually--which is very time consuming).

I would still urge everyone who wants this to change to continue to open an SR (if they have maintenance) and to submit an enhancement request.

http://www.novell.com/rms

Submitted by kjhurni on 19 October 2009 - 7:19am.

Found this to be interesting:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.network.protocols.s...

Submitted by davidkrotil on 20 October 2009 - 2:12pm.

Sophia has revealed something which is true, Novell is listening and see that current situation is not good. I got this weekend "official" information, that something is prepared for OES2 SP2 and full port of NetWare SLP functionality is planed for OES3. I hope, that I don´t revealed something, what I shouldn´t, but SP2 for OES2 is relative near, than I think is good to now, that OpenSLP ISN´T abadonware and we will get some real proof of that in 2 - 3 months.

Submitted by skapanen on 23 October 2009 - 2:26am.

I browsed through the SP2 beta docs and didn't see anything mentioned about SLP changes?