Re: [CentOS] Connecting to a Novell Server

On Fri, 2007-01-19 at 08:45 -0500, Rob Lines wrote:

On 1/18/07, Paul subsolar@subsolar.com wrote: On Thu, 2007-01-18 at 11:50 -0500, Jay Lee wrote: > Mike Fedyk wrote: > > Rob Lines wrote: > >> I am trying to connect our centos 4.4 machines to our Novell Netware > >> 5 servers. > >> > >> The goal is to allow the centos 4.4 clients to connect to the server > >> and access shared folders. We are not looking for a single sign-on > >> style solution just the ability to connect. > > > > Check into using ncpfs with centos. If not, then see if netware can > > serve to nfs or smb/cifs clients. > ncpfs is only in the centosplus kernel I believe. I also found it buggy > and horribly slow.

    Yes, you need to be using the CentOS Plus kernel and build the
    NCPFS
    rpms from fedora so you can mount the volumes.

    It also does not hurt to have IPX enabled on Netware &
    Linux ... we have 
    IPX enabled yet because we still use DOS and the old moldy 2.x
    client
    still seems to work best for our use.

    I can see if dig out the information on what I did for the one
    C4
    station I setup

I definatly would like to see that info if you can find it.

The one question that I do have is what effect the move to the CentOS Plus kernel would have other than allowing us access to the ncpfs? The users are power users that mostly maintain their own machines and handle their own updates. What issues could come up by using the new kernel rather than the base one?

Thank you, Rob

OK here is what I've done so far ...

== Configure the CentOS Plus repository on the workstation ==

Edit the /etc/yum.repo.d/CentOS-Base.repo file and make the following changes:

Find the [update] section and add the following line: exclude=kernel kernel-smp

Find the [centosplus] section and change enabled=0 To enabled=1 Then add the line includepkg=kernel kernel-smp

Install the CentOS Plus kernel with the command “yum update kernel”, once the new kernel is installed reboot the machine.

== Compile and Install the networking utilities ==

Download the ncpfs source RPM from the fedora core 6 repository

Install the ncpfs source rpm and edit the following lines in the spec file change the line chmod 755 $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/usr/bin/ncpmount $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/usr/bin/ncpumount to chmod 4755 $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/usr/bin/ncpmount $RPM_BUILD_ROOT/usr/bin/ncpumount

Build the actual RPMs using the command “rpmbuild –ba SPECS/ncpfs.spec” after which you will have ipxutils and ncpfs RPMs under the RPMS/i386 directory.

Install ipxutils & ncpfs RPMs built above

== Enable IPX Networking on the System ==

Edit /etc/sysconfig/network and add the following lines IPX=yes IPXAUTOPRIMARY=off IPXAUTOFRAME=off IPXINTERNALNODENUM=0 IPXINTERNALNETNUM=0

Edit /etc/sysconfig/networking/devices/ifcfg-eth0 and add the following lines: IPXACTIVE_802_2=’yes’ IPXPRIMARY_802_2=’yes’ IPXNETNUM_802_2=’0xb0320002’ (the netnum needs to be the correct one for the facility)

Restart the networking subsystem with the “service network restart” command, and then test IPX connectivity by issuing the “slist” command. If the workstation has IPX connectivity you should receive a list of local servers.

== Building and Installing GUI client for Novell Netware ==

Download the source file gtknw2-0.3.tar.bz2 for gtknw2 from gtknw2.sourceforge.net and then untar the application with the command “tar jxvf gtknw2-0.3.tar.bz2”.

To build the application you will need the gtk2-devel package and it’s requirements besides the compiler and usual requirements.

To build the application, perform the following commands: cd gtknw2-0.3 ./configure make su –c make install

Keep an eye out for errors during the configure & make steps.

== Configuring the GUI client to auto launch at login ==

Login as the user you want the login front end to automatically launch for and go into “Applictions|Preferences|More Preferences|Sessions” configuration tool and click on the “Startup Programs” tab and add /usr/local/bin/gtknw2 to the startup program list.

I still have not figured out how to have it automatically log out of netware when the user does ... anybody with suggestions I'm all ears.

Paul