Xref: utzoo comp.os.msdos.apps:1596 comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc:8351 comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc:5409 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!mahendo!wlbr!news From: mcc@wlv.imsd.contel.com (Merton Campbell Crockett) Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.apps,comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc,comp.protocols.tcp-ip.ibmpc Subject: Novell NetWare Questions Keywords: Novell, NetWare, LAN, TCP/IP Message-ID: <1991Apr7.185014.25384@wlbr.imsd.contel.com> Date: 7 Apr 91 18:50:14 GMT Sender: news@wlbr.imsd.contel.com (news) Organization: Contel Federal Systems Lines: 79 Nntp-Posting-Host: wlv.imsd.contel.com Again, I'm at the electronic water fountain looking for information to help clarify my thoughts. This time the subject is Novell NetWare. We have a small Novell NetWare LAN for our offices used by system engineers to prepare drawings and parts lists for systems and by pricing personnel to derive system costs. Originally it was based on AST Premium 286 workstat- ions running MS-DOS 3.3 with 3COM 3C503 Ethernet cards (IRQ 5) using thin wire ethernet. Because AutoCAD was heavily used, it was impossible to have NetWare software installed simultaneously. Additional printers were acquired for each of the workstations that ran AutoCAD. Effectively, the LAN became nothing more than an expensive "sneakernet". Workstations that weren't used for AutoCAD used the LAN to, primarily, share printer resources. The LAN was upgraded two weeks ago. The server and the system engineering systems were upgraded to AST Premium 486/25 workstations with 4 Mbytes of memory running MS-DOS 4.01 with Tiara Ethernet cards (IRQ 2). The Novell NetWare 386 version 3.10 was installed on the systems by the vendor perform- ing the upgrade. The system engineer who had been, more or less, maintaining the LAN left the week our new workstations were installed. The network was basically opera- tional at the time of his departure except we were unable to enter any com- mands on the server's console--always returned ??? and an error message of command not found or something similar. On Friday, the server failed. I happened to be in the cubicle where it was installed to get a document that I had printed and noticed that it was going through its boot sequence. The AUTOEXEC.BAT file had not been configured to run SERVER automatically, so I entered SERVER and was greeted by an error stating that volume SYS failed to mount because of a FAT mismatch. It took a while to locate the NetWare documentation set--the key manuals had been placed in the box with the manuals destined for an East Coast office. The manual suggests that VREPAIR be run to correct the problem. Unfortunately, VREPAIR if it is present on the server is probably on the SYS volume which is not accessible from MS-DOS and the NetWare distribution disks--original or backup--can't be found. Is there any way of starting SERVER to force it to mount either the primary or mirror SYS volume so we can find out what the damage is and recover from this error? The second part of my inquiry involves upgrading to version 3.11 of NetWare- -our upgrade kit arrived last week. This seems to be a good time for the upgrade considering that our LAN is currently unusable. Could we use the upgrade procedure to recover the files on our server? Version 3.11 also seems to provide a TCP/IP which was not present in earlier versions. Those of us that needed Internet and DDN access had been using MS-Kermit or other communications programs to access Unix and VMS systems through our COM ports to provide this accesss. Reading the new documenta- tion suggests that one of our systems could be defined as a router and pro- vide direct access to our in-house ethernet backbone. Is there an SMTP product available that can use Novell's new NetWare prod- uct? I didn't find any mention of SMTP in the documentation. As our IP address space is limited, it would be desirable to have an IP address as- signed only to the router and then have it act as a mail exchanger between SMTP and whatever mail services that are provided by Novell. There also appears to be a capability to encapsulate IPX frames in TCP/IP packets. Has anyone used this capability to tunnel through a TCP/IP net- work? It would seem to be an ideal solution for integrating our East Coast office into our local LAN. It would allow us to use two 56 Kb X.25 circuits that currently exist between the East and West coasts with Internet and DDN connections as backup instead of telephone circuits which were originally planned to be used. (The X.25 circuits are connected directly to corporate LANs on the East and West coasts and support TCP/IP and DECnet communication links.) A secondary reason for these questions is that I have been asked by another engineering group to take a look at a system they are upgrading for a DoD customer which includes an existing LAN supported by Novell's NetWare and LAN WorkPlace for DOS. Thanks for any information that you can provide. Merton Campbell Crockett