Sample Network Directory Structure
How can you design your file system to make network administration easiest? This section gives you some basic information and suggestions about organizing directories and files. See also Suggestions for Creating Volumes in Installation and Upgrade.
During installation, the following directories are automatically created.
SYS:DELETED.SAV contains the files that are deleted before they are purged.
SYS:ETC contains sample files to help you configure the server.
SYS:LOGIN contains the programs necessary for users to log in to the network, such as LOGIN.EXE. It has a subdirectory called NLS, containing subdirectories for each supported language for login message files.
SYS:MAIL may or may not contain subdirectories or files.
If you upgrade your server from a previous version of the NetWare® operating system, existing users will still have directories here for their login scripts, but their login scripts will become properties of the new User objects.
If you create new users after upgrading, the new users won't have directories in SYS:MAIL.
SYS:SYSTEM contains NetWare operating system files as well as NetWare utilities and programs for the supervisor. SYS:SYSTEM also has an NLS subdirectory, containing subdirectories for each supported language for message files.
SYS:PUBLIC allows general access to the network and contains NetWare utilities and programs for network users. Like SYS:LOGIN, SYS:PUBLIC has a subdirectory called NLS, containing the message files for utilities.
You can create HCSS directories specifically to contain files that migrate to optical disk. Migration begins when allocated space on the hard disk is filled to a set capacity. This feature can be used in place of or in conjunction with file compression and disk suballocation to manage volume space on a server.
HCSS directories can contain DOS program files, applications, batch files, and data files. In HCSS, directories and files are moved back and forth between hard disk and optical disk to optimize the server's storage capacity.
For more information about HCSS directories, see Migrating Data Using the High Capacity Storage System. See also High Capacity Storage System in Concepts.
You may want to put the workstation operating system files on the network to save workstation disk space or to make diskless workstations possible.
Since the workstation operating system files don't normally change, you can keep them on one set of backup diskettes and then skip these directories when you do network backups.
For information about loading operating system software on a network, see Loading Operating Systems and Applications onto the Network.
For ease of management, you should keep application files in a different directory than data files.
Since the application programs don't normally change, you can keep one set of application files on backup diskettes and then skip the application directories when you do network backups.
For more information about loading applications on the network, see Loading Operating Systems and Applications onto the Network.
When creating application directories, you should also consider issues related to ease of distribution, installation, and operational control for network applications. NetWare 4 provides the NetWare Application ManagerTM (NAMTM) software to assist you in setting up and managing network applications through Novell® Directory ServicesTM (NDSTM) from a single administrative console.
For more information about using NAM to manage applications, see Setting Up and Using NetWare Application Management Software.
Data directories can include work areas where groups or users keep work files. You can also create a directory to serve as a transfer point for copying files to and from other areas of the network.
A sample directory structure is shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4
Sample Network Directory Structure