Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 09:55:23 -0500 From: "Mike Avery" <mavery@mail.otherwhen.com> To: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Can FreeBSD and Samba replace Netware? Message-ID: <199906151457.JAA11940@hostigos.otherwhen.com> In-Reply-To: <19990615123337.C1831@myhakas.matti.ee> References: <3765BA55.5F84D592@webzone.net>; from Mike Urban on Mon, Jun 14, 1999 at 09:28:37PM -0500
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On 15 Jun 99, at 12:33, Vallo Kallaste wrote: > On Mon, Jun 14, 1999 at 09:28:37PM -0500, Mike Urban <murban@webzone.net> > wrote: > > I am currently working with a situation in which I have a netware server > > that mostly just acts as a file server and a print server. It has > > several Windows 95 PC's connected to it that use it this way. We want to > > add intranet and email services to it, but there is no cheap way to do > > this with Netware. I have been considering the idea of completely > > getting rid of the Netware server and installing a FreeBSD server with > > Samba in it's place. > Better don't do it, that's my guess. Let the NetWare server do his work > and just add FreeBSD machine for email, althought I don't know what you > mean about intranet services. If you have firm plan to replace Netware > with FreeBSD, then better let the Netware server stay for some time so you > can play with samba and other tools you can need to replace Netware. Do it > in a smooth way, otherwise you can lose some services for some time; if > that doesn't matter then just do it :) As usual, it all depends..... My advice is to not change platforms unless you have a damned good reason to do so. People are used to what they have, and the cans of worms you open when you convert are often beyond your wildest imaginings.... conversions are often career re-defining moves, and should be handled with the greatest of caution. Here's one possible, and unsolveable, complication... if you are using NetWare 4 or later, and are using the bundled ZEN package, you won't have it's software installation and menuing abilities under any other OS I've seen. (If someone knows of comparable products, PLEASE correct me, especially for FreeBSD, .... I'd LOVE to be wrong this time.) The impact of ZEN on reducing the system managers efforts to get software installed, and to control lusers can't be overstated. However, if you are using NetWare 3.X or later, you can do email free from NetWare. POP3 and SMTP in any case. (Personally, I hate IMAP, so that suits me just fine.) As to EMail.... the answer is use David Harris' Mercury product. It's free, unless you want to purchase manuals. (You are under no obligation to do so, but it does support his efforts.) Look at http://www.pegasus.usa.com for the software. Mercury has some excellent tie-ins with Pegasus, but will work with any POP3/SMTP compatible client. To use the current versions of Mercury, you need to have a Sendmail server around somewhere. That can be at your ISP's office, or your own machine. Mercury isn't smart enough to do address resoloution, so it sends outbound email to what it calls a "smart mailer". Inbound mail is handled directly. That leaves the question of connecting to the Internet. This discussion assumes you have a small office, and don't have an existing Internet connection. With NetWare 3.X or 4.X, the easiest thing to do is bring up a FreeBSD box and configure it to route to the Internet. It can also act as your smart mailer. I'm doing this with NetWare 4.X, with good results on a 56k modem. If you are using IntraNetWare or NetWare 5.X, there are bundled options that let your NetWare server act as a router to the Internet. You can use NAT, IPX/IP conversion, or you can use it as a straight router if you have enough IP addresses.... your choice. There are lots of good documents at the novell support home page (http://support.novell.com) to let you do this. I've set this up for some clients, and they are very happy with it. They are more stable than their ISP (who is Ascend, Cisco, and FreeBSD based). What about an "intranet"? You have to define your terms here. I usually consider "intranet" to mean one of two things. Either it's a marketing term, empty of real content but usually meaning "a LAN without NetWare". The term is usually used that way by Microsoft marketing droids. It can also mean "a LAN with a web server". With IntraNetWare and NetWare 5.X, a web server is available, and you can download updates to it (and the whole package, for that matter) from Novell's home page. If you are using FreeBSD as a router anyway, you could just run Apache on the FreeBSD box... which is a good choice. While I wouldn't try to disuade anyone from installing the OS of their choice at the onset (within reason), I am always reluctant to suggest conversions. It's usually better to get all the mileage you can out of your current platform for as long as feasible. Mike ====================================================================== Mike Avery MAvery@mail.otherwhen.com (409)-842-2942 (work) ICQ: 16241692 * Spam is for lusers who can't get business any other way * A Randomly Selected Thought For The Day: Twenty Percent of Zero is Better than Nothing. -- Walt Kelly To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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