OES Linux equivalents for NetWare DOS based utilities.

  • 7010863
  • 03-Oct-2012
  • 06-Feb-2017

Environment

Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES 2) Linux
Novell Open Enterprise Server 11 (OES 11) Linux
Micro Focus Open Enterprise Server 2015 (OES 2015) Linux
Novell Client for Linux
Novell Client 2 for Windows
Micro Focus Client for Open Enterprise Server s for Windows
Disk Operating System (DOS).

Situation

System administrators may have gotten accustomed, or may have an historical need to use the former DOS based tools, like FLAG and NCOPY as that was part of Novell NetWare, or the DOS Client for Novell NetWare.

Historically, these utilities were located under the SYS:/PUBLIC/ folder on a NetWare server, mainly for backwards compatibility and use with older applications.

These DOS utilities as they have shipped with Novell NetWare, could still be used on OES Linux on 32-bit Windows XP machines with the Novell Client 4.91 installed. On Windows Vista or later versions, or on any 64-bit versions of Windows, these legacy Novell NetWare utilities are no longer functional.

Even though perhaps still functional, this is to be considered legacy software, and is, like the Novell DOS client for NetWare, no longer under support by Novell, and using these utilities is at own risk.

Resolution

On Novell Open Enterprise Server 2, Novell Open Enterprise Server 11 and Micro Focus Open Enterprise Server 2015, for a few of these utilities a Linux equivalent has been made available.

These utilities can be found under '/opt/novell/ncl/bin/'

Some of the more common DOS NetWare Client utilities and their Novell Linux Client counterpart :
FLAG.EXE         ./nwflag
NCOPY.EXE      ./nwcopy
RIGHTS.EXE     ./nwrights as well as /opt/novell/nss/sbin/rights from NSS
LOGIN.EXE       ./nwlogin   
LOGOUT.EXE   ./nwlogout

There are however a few additional utilities that can be found at this location, such as slpinfo and nwsend, and these utilities are also part of the Novell Client for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop with the Novell Client installed.

As these are Linux utilities, they are usable in a BASH script. However, as DOS batch and Linux BASH are separate scripting environments, the existing .bat files are to be converted to .sh files.

Cause

The utilities that were part of SYS:/PUBLIC/ on a NetWare Server, as in the era that DOS and Windows for Workgroups (and previous versions) were commonly used, local hard disks of the workstations were rather limited in size.
This was addressed by making most of the files the DOS Client for NetWare needed available on a server share accessible to all.

Even though the DOS Client is no longer under support, on NetWare these files were maintained, mainly for backwards compatibility, to facilitate environments that still used DOS.

As the DOS Client for NetWare required IPX as a client protocol and Novell Open Enterprise Server for Linux (OES) no longer provides or supports this protocol, the SYS volume (a NCP export on OES Linux) no longer contains these legacy applications.

Additional Information

These utilities are part of both the Novell Client for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop and of the Novell Open Enterprise Server Add-on. There is no need to install the Novell Client on an OES Server, which is not supported in any case.

Contrary to the NetWare DOS utilities, these utilities are not to be executed from a Windows workstation with a Novell Client installed, these utilities are to be either executed from the server console or trough a remote SSH, PuTTY session.
Also contrary to the DOS utilities, most of these utilities do not require the local path (like /media/nss/VOL ) but the network, NCP path. This is due to the fact that these utilities can be used for all NCP exports, not just NSS volumes.
More information on the usage of these Linux utilities can be summoned by adding --help of viewing the correlating man page.

As these utilities go over the NCP protocol, it is required to perform a nwlogin prior the usage of the utilities in /opt/novell/ncl/bin. These utilities can be used for all NCP exports, of both NSS as POSIX volumes.
The rights command that comes with NSS can be used as root, without nwlogin, but is only usable for the NSS volumes and their contents.

Using these utilities does not require a Novell Client to be installed when executed from an OES Server.
However, as they are also part of the Novell Client for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop as well, they can be performed from such a Client Workstation remotely.

The flag utility of the Novell client for Linux and it's packages that are part of the OES server does not have the code to change the owner implemented.
To change the owner of files and folders residing on a NSS volume the nsschown command line utility is available on OES11 and OES2015