As you plan your NSS implementation, the following file system guidelines should be noted:
For a complete discussion of the issues involved in the coexistence and migration of Novell Storage Services for OES 2 that might affect your planning, see the following sections in the OES 2 SP3: NSS File System Administration Guide for Linux:
Discusses pool snapshots, NSS volumes and features, file access, and management tools
Migrating NSS Devices from NetWare 6.5 SP8 to OES 2 Linux
Includes guidelines for moving NSS pools and volumes between NetWare and OES 2 servers and instructions for moving both clustered and non-clustered devices from previous versions of NetWare and OES 1.
The NetWare File System (NWFS) was used in NetWare 3.x through 5.x as the default file system, and is supported in NetWare 6.x for compatibility. It is one of the fastest file systems available; however, it does not scale and is not journaled. An Open Source version of this file system is available for Linux to allow access to its file data. However, the open source version lacks the identity management tie-ins, and therefore, has little utility.
NWFS is not supported on OES 2 and should, therefore, be moved—probably to the Novell Storage Services (NSS) file system.
Novell recommends against including NSS on the system disk (the disk containing the /boot and / partitions) unless your server configuration requires it. If this is required, you must carefully follow the instructions in Installing with EVMS as the Volume Manager of the System Device
in the OES 2 SP3: Installation Guide.
For a broad explanation of Linux User Management (LUM), see Linux User Management: Access to Linux for eDirectory Users
in the OES 2 SP3: Planning and Implementation Guide. For information specific to NSS, see Planning NSS Storage Solutions
in the OES 2 SP3: NSS File System Administration Guide for Linux.
You cannot install the Linux operating system on an NSS volume. OES 2 requires a Linux traditional file system volume for the operating system, such as Ext3, ReiserFS, or XFS.
You can move an NSS volume that was created on NetWare cross-platform to an OES server. However, you should not move an NSS system (SYS:) volume from NetWare to OES unless you intend to use it as a data volume (or not at all) while it is mounted on the OES server.
If you move an NSS system pool cross-platform, any volumes it contains function as data volumes on the OES server, including the SYS: volume.
You can move storage devices containing NSS volumes between NetWare servers and OES 2 servers. When you move an unshared device to a different server, you must decommission its volumes in eDirectory for the current server, then recommission them for the new server. For shared NSS pools and volumes, Novell Cluster Services provides this service automatically.
NSS volumes that were originally created on NetWare can be moved cross-platform to an OES server. But only volumes that were originally created on NetWare can be moved back from OES to NetWare.
NSS pools that are a source pool or a destination pool for NSS pool snapshots on NetWare cannot move cross-platform if you want to keep the pool snapshots. A pool snapshot is no longer available if you move its source pool or destination pool to an OES server. The snapshot no longer works even after you move the pools back to NetWare.
Before you move an NSS pool cross-platform, make sure you delete any of its snapshots stored on other pools and any snapshots for other pools it might contain.