Date: Wed, 10 Jul 1996 20:41:21 -0700 (PDT) From: Jim Dennis <jim@starshine.org> To: bala@cst.com.au (Bala Periasamy) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Novell 3.12 on FreeBSD Message-ID: <199607110341.UAA00346@starshine> In-Reply-To: <199607110212.MAA05875@skeg.cst.com.au> from "Bala Periasamy" at Jul 11, 96 12:12:35 pm
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> > We have our backup device on FreeBSD. We also run a Novell 3.12 file > server for the Admin. Can any one tell me how to backup the novell on > to the backup device ( connected to the freebsd machine)? > > Is there a Netware client for FreeBSD? > > thanx > bala I'm going to say this as gently as I can: You're dreaming! Even if you had a FreeBSD Netware client (let's say that someone took the Linux ncpfs or the Caldera bindery/NDS client and got it running under FreeBSD (no small feat since they both rely on kernel support for IPX)) -- you still wouldn't be able to do proper Netware backups. Merely being able to copy files off of a Netware server doesn't constitute a *backup*. By the same token you wouldn't use the 'cp' command to perform a *backup* of your Unix filesystems since you'd lose all the meta information about the file's ownership, permissions, and possibly location and other more subtle meta-info (like the syschg and other UFS flags). In addition you might create files with expanses of nul's where the original was created as a 'sparse file.' Now take that problem (what you know about Unix meta info), double it, then go to the next order of magnitude. That's about the extent of the problem if you just copy files off a Netware server and just copy them back. Naturally it's possible that mere copies are sufficient to your needs (i.e. you are just trying to ensure the integrity of a single user's files which are not shared by others on the server or for which there are not trustee assignments (access control settings)). It's just very important that you distinguish between that and a "backup of the server." Given that limitation, you have some alternatives that I know of. Only one of them is free. You could install a TCP/IP suite of NLM's on the Netware server (including an NFS server or FTP daemon) -- Novell markets about three different packages that do different parts of this; FlexIP is another product in this category. You could come up with a third machine running DOS, OS/2, Windows, NT, or Linux. You'd configure it as a "gateway" between the Netware system and the FreeBSD box. For DOS or Windows you'd also have to come up with a TCP/IP package to install on it -- with Win '95 or NT you have the basic network support -- but you'd want to obtain some applications level tools (like ncftp, or an NFS client) and you'd have to write or obtain scripts to support it. With Caldera, or any other Linux/ncpfs, you could set up your gateway with cron jobs, web/CGI triggers, netcat (listen mode) or any number of other ways. Of these, only the Linux/ncpfs option is free. Although it works -- it doesn't offer very robust or high performance. Caldera is a commercial package -- but much less expensive than any NLM solution that I've heard of. Caldera is also less expensive then NT or OS/2 and compares pretty favorably to DOS/Windows solutions (except that it's *much* more stable and rich than DOS/Windows). If it was me -- I'd go for the Caldera option. In fact, when it was me -- I did.
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