This section compares features and capabilities of Novell® Storage Services™ on the NetWare® and Linux platforms for OES.
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Feature Description |
NSS for OES NetWare and NetWare 6.5 |
NSS for OES Linux |
|---|---|---|
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Management interfaces |
Novell iManager |
Novell iManager |
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NSSMU for NetWare |
NSSMU for Linux |
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EVMS (evmsgui) |
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Utilities in the server console (nssmu, rights, flag) |
Utilities in the server console (nssmu, rights, nsscon, attrib, ravsui, ravview, nbackup) |
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Commands in the server console |
Commands in the NSS Console (nsscon) |
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Novell Remote Manager for NetWare (primarily for trustee management, file and directory purge and salvage) |
Novell Remote Manager for Linux (browse only) |
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Novell NetStorage |
Novell NetStorage |
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ConsoleOne® (DFS junctions, VLDB, and file system trustees and trustee rights) |
Not available (DFS junction support is not available for NSS on Linux.) |
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File system trustees and trustee rights to control access to directories and files |
Novell Remote Manager for NetWare |
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Novell NetStorage (via Web browser only, not WebDAV) |
Novell NetStorage (via Web browser only, not WebDAV) |
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Novell Client™. See
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Novell Client.
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Rights utility for NetWare. See
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Rights utility for Linux. See
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ConsoleOne |
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File system directory and file attributes to control functions available for directories and files |
Novell NetStorage Novell Client (NCP™) Rights Utility for Linux Novell Remote Manager for NetWare. See
ConsoleOne |
Novell NetStorage Novell Client (NCP) Rights Utility for Linux Novell Remote Manager for Linux. See
|
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Directory quotas management (requires the Directory Quotas attribute for the volume) |
Novell NetStorage Novell Client Novell Remote Manager for NetWare |
Novell NetStorage Novell Client |
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User space quota management (requires the User Space Quotas attribute for the volume ) |
Novell iManager |
Novell iManager Make sure to Linux-enable users with Linux User Management before you set the quota. User space quotas are available in OES SP1 and later. |
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Default mount location for NSS pools |
Not applicable |
/opt/novell/nss/mnt/.pools/ |
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Default mount location for NSS volumes |
Server root |
/media/nss/ |
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Default mount location for devices managed by EVMS |
Not applicable |
/dev/evms/ |
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File system type (as recognized and reported by the operating system) |
nss |
nssvol |
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File protocols |
NCP AFP, NFS, and CIFS |
NCP NFS and CIFS (Samba) require users to be Linux-enabled with Linux User Management. AFP is available only through third-party software. |
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Interface |
64-bit |
64-bit |
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Character format |
Unicode |
Unicode |
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Maximum device size recognized (physical or logical) |
2 TB |
2 TB |
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Maximum partition size |
2 TB |
2 TB |
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Maximum number of partitions (logical or physical devices) per pool |
No practical limit A partition must have more than 10 MB and less than 2 TB of available space to be recognized by NSS. |
No practical limit A partition must have more than 10 MB and less than 2 TB of available space to be recognized by NSS. |
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Maximum pool size (using at least 4 partitions of up to 2 TB each) |
8 TB |
8 TB |
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Minimum pool size |
10 MB |
10 MB |
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Maximum size of a volume |
Up to 8 TB, depending on the pool size and available space in the pool Volume quotas can be overbooked. For information about overbooking, see Section 13.1, Understanding NSS Volumes. For information, see Section 18.2, Managing NSS Volume Quotas. |
Up to 8 TB, depending on the pool size and available space in the pool Volume quotas can be overbooked. For information about overbooking, see Section 13.1, Understanding NSS Volumes. For information, see Section 18.2, Managing NSS Volume Quotas. |
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Maximum file size |
Up to 8 TB, depending on the volume size and available space in the volume |
Up to 8 TB, depending on the volume size and available space in the volume |
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Maximum number of files per volume |
Up to 8 trillion, regardless of how many name spaces are loaded |
Up to 8 trillion, regardless of how many name spaces are loaded |
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Maximum number of files open concurrently |
1 million |
1 million |
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Maximum number of volumes per server |
255 plus the sys: volume. You can mount NSS volumes beyond 256, but they are not visable or accessible through the normal Netware APIs. |
No practical limit on the number of NSS data volumes |
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Time to mount a volume |
Requires only a few seconds NSS uses a journaling file system and does not need to scan the entire file system to create a directory entry table (DET) and to load a File Allocation Table (FAT). |
Requires only a few seconds NSS uses a journaling file system and does not need to scan the entire file system to create a directory entry table (DET) and to load a File Allocation Table (FAT). |
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Volume name space |
Accommodates all name spaces (DOS, Macintosh, Long, and UNIX). In OES SP1 and later, you can use the Lookup Name Space attribute for the volume to specify the default name space to use when activating the volume. Directory names and file names are case insensitive. |
Accommodates all name spaces (DOS, Macintosh, Long, and UNIX). In OES SP1 and later, you can use the Lookup Name Space attribute for the volume to specify the default name space to use when mounting the volume. UNIX is the default name space, which is case sensitive. However, you can specify the Long name spaces on mounting the NSS volume to make its directory names and filenames case insensitive. For information, see Section 13.17, Mounting an NSS Volume on Linux to Support Case Insensitive File Names (Linux). |
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Minimum server memory required to activate a volume |
Requires only 4 MB available RAM to activate a single volume of any size and any number of files. Loads a file’s metadata into memory only as you access the file. |
Requires only 4 MB available RAM to activate a single volume of any size and any number of files. Loads a file’s metadata into memory only as you access the file. |
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File access time |
Same for each file, regardless of its location on the volume. |
Same for each file, regardless of its location on the volume. |
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Error correction and data recovery time on system failure |
Journaling file system logs changes. On system failure, replays the most recent transactions to confirm validity, then repairs errors or rolls back to the original condition, typically in 15 to 60 seconds, unless the volume is corrupted. |
Journaling file system logs changes. On system failure, replays the most recent transactions to confirm validity, then repairs errors or rolls back to the original condition, typically in 15 to 60 seconds, unless the volume is corrupted. |
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Repair of corrupted volume |
Ongoing journaling of the file system; if corrupted, use verify and rebuild functions. |
Ongoing journaling of the file system; if corrupted, use the ravsui utility to verify and rebuild the volume. |
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Time to repair corrupted volume |
From a few seconds to several hours, depending on the volume size. |
From a few seconds to several hours, depending on the volume size. |
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Multiple connection paths to storage media |
Yes, NSS multipath I/O |
NSS multipath I/O is not supported; use a Linux-based multiple path I/O solution. |
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Software RAID support |
RAID 0 (striping) RAID 1 (mirroring) RAID 5 (striping with parity) RAID 10 (mirroring RAID 0 devices) RAID 15 (mirroring RAID 5 devices) |
RAID 0 (striping) RAID 1 (mirroring) RAID 10 (mirroring RAID 0 devices) For OES SP1 and later, the following additional software RAIDs are supported:
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Volume encryption |
Yes |
Yes, for OES SP1 and later You must mount encrypted volumes only from NSSMU on the first mount after a system reboot so that you can enter the password. The nsscon utility does not support entering a password from the command line. |
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Data shredding |
Yes, up to 7 times |
Yes, up to 7 times |
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File compression |
Yes |
Yes |
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Data migration |
Yes |
Yes |
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Directory quotas |
Yes |
Yes |
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User space quotas (user space restrictions) |
Yes |
Yes, only for OES SP1 and later Make sure to Linux-enable users with Linux User Management before you set the quota. |
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Salvage or purge deleted files, directories, or volumes |
Yes |
Yes |
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Transaction Tracking System™ (TTS™) |
Yes |
Not supported |
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Read ahead blocks |
Yes |
Yes |
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File save time |
Offers the Flush Files Immediately attribute for NSS volumes to write files to disk on save instead of waiting for the next disk write cycle. This helps prevent possible data loss between disk write cycles. |
Offers the Flush Files Immediately attribute for NSS volumes to write files to disk on save instead of waiting for the next disk write cycle. This helps prevent possible data loss between disk write cycles. |
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File-level snapshot (make a temporary snapshot copy of an open file for backup) |
Yes; allows back up of a copy of a file that is open nonexclusively so that it is not necessary to deactivate the volume for backup |
Not supported |
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Pool snapshot (retain point-in-time version of a pool using block-level copy on write) |
Yes; allows backup of block-level changes only, without deactivating the volume. Uses a brief freeze-release process to capture information for last remaining open files. |
Not supported |
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Backup support |
Reviews only a list of files modified since the previous backup |
No APIs are available. |
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Backup systems support |
Novell Storage Management Services nbackup(1) and related utilities. For links to man pages, see Section 25.1, Using Novell Storage Management Services. metamig, for saving and restoring trustee information when using third-party backup systems for data. For information, see Section A.8, METAMIG (Linux). metamig also supports restoring trustee information for NCP volumes that use the ReiserFS and EXT3 file systems. In OES SP2 and later, NSS provides an extended attributes (XAttr) extension that supports listing, saving, and restoring the trustee information in the netware.metadata extended attribute. For information, see Section 23.22, Extended Attributes Commands (Linux). In OES SP2 and later, NSS provides O_NOATIME support for the Linux open API command. For information, see Section 23.23, O_NOATIME Option Support for the Linux open Command (Linux). |
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Distributed File Services for moving and splitting NSS volumes |
Yes |
Not supported |
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Novell Archive and Version Services |
Yes |
Not supported |
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Device maintenance support |
Activate and deactivate devices by pool. |
Activate and deactivate devices by pool. |
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CD and DVD device recognition |
Automatic process with full support for UDF, ISO 9660, and Macintosh HFS formats. Use CDs and DVDs as read-only NSS volumes. |
No; use Linux traditional file system options instead. |
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CD and DVD image files |
Activate as read-only NSS volumes. |
No; use Linux traditional file system options instead. |
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Operating system version detection |
Default process |
Default process |
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Cache balancing for NSS cache buffers |
Cache is limited to about 85% (by default) of the memory that is not allocated elsewhere. NSS on NetWare uses HighMem and recognizes up to 64 GB of RAM. You can set several tuning parameters for NSS on NetWare. For information, see Configuring the System Cache to Fine-Tune NSS Performance (NetWare). |
For OES SP1 and later, for file data, NSS uses the Linux cache page manger to gain access to all available memory in the system. There are some limits in place so that when copying large files, NSS does not starve other user applications for memory, which is also how it works in NetWare. However, for metadata, NSS is still limited to what is assigned from the kernel below 1 GB cache, typically 60% of the kernel memory limit. (This is the same method used in other Linux file systems such as ReiserFS, Polyserve, XFS, with the exception of EXT.) For OES, cache for NSS is limited to about 60% of the cache assigned to the Linux kernel memory, which has its own maximum of 1 GB. NSS does not use Linux HighMem. It does not provide autobalancing. You can specify a minimum cache buffer size. For information, see Configuring the System Cache to Fine-Tune NSS Performance (Linux). |
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Ability to access DOS partitions on the NetWare server |
Load dosfat.nss to treat the partition as a standard NSS volume |
No; use Native Linux options instead |