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NetWare And Linux

Making your Linux server talk to NetWare servers and printers

As almost every office-LAN has a NetWare server, your desktop client must be able to talk to NetWare. This article tells you how a Linux box can access files on a Novell server and print to a Novell print queue.

Linux, by default, uses the IP network protocol for network communication. However, Novell NetWare uses the IPX network protocol. As the Linux kernel has a completely new network implementation compared to other operating systems like Unix, it supports a range of non-TCP/IP protocols including the IPX protocol. Kernels 2.x onwards have built-in IPX support. The Red Hat Linux distributed on our CD-ROM has it too. The Linux kernel supports the IPX protocol only. It does not, yet, support protocols such as IPX/RIP, SAP, or NCP.

The first step is to configure your IPX interfaces. novell.jpg (13939 bytes)

  1. Login as root
  2. Type ipx_configure--auto_primary= on --auto_interface=on
  3. Wait for a minute and type cat /proc/net/ipx_interface. You should see something like:

Network Node_Address Primary Device Frame_Type
000000E1 00A0C925164A Yes eth0 802.2

     4.Type slist. You should see a list of the NetWare servers on your LAN.

Known NetWare File Servers Network Node Address
D74_SERVER 00000D74 00000000001

If you don’t, wait for a few minutes and retry. If the slist command displays a message like: ncp_connect: Invalid argument, then your kernel probably does not support IPX. Check that you have actually booted off the appropriate kernel. When you boot you should see messages about IPX and ncpfs in system startup messages. If the slist command does not list all of your fileservers, then you may need to use the manual network configuration method. Type cat /proc/net/ipx_interface. You should see something like:

At this point, your Linux box is setup for IPX networking. Check if your kernel has support for NetWare NCP file system. The default Red Hat kernel has NCP file system support. You simply have to load the ncpfs module /usr/sbin /lib/modules/2.0.32/fs/ncpfs.0. You can also add the line to your local file to load it automatically at the boot time.

Once that is done,

  1. Login as root (only root can mount NetWare volumes).
  2. Type mkdir/netware to create a directory for mounting the NetWare volumes.
  3. Type ncpmount -S D74_SERVER -U user10 /netware. You will be prompted for a password for user10.
  4. At this point your server is mounted on /netware. The volumes are sub-directories under /netware. So the SYS volume would be /netware/sys and the DATA volume would be /netware/data.
  5. If you only want to mount a single volume, you can use ncpmount -S D74_SERVER -V sys -U user10
    /netware    . This will mount only the SYS volume to /netware.
  6. When you finish using the Net-Ware volume, you can unmount usingncpumount/netware.
    Tip:     You don’t need to manually unmount NetWare volumes when you shutdown.

When you want to share the mounted NetWare volume among other Linux users, you need to understand file permissions. The NetWare file system doesn’t support user IDs and group IDs for directories. So all files and directories on the mounted directory have the permissions as the directory where it was mounted. For example, if you type ls -ld/netware, drwxrwxr-x 1 root root 512 Nov 24 1960 /netware is what you get.

So, all the NetWare files will have the above file permissions.

If you want non-root users to mount NetWare volumes, ncpmount command must be Set Userid Root, so you would need to type chmod 4755 ncpmount

Simplifying mounting of volumes

There is another way of configuring NetWare mounts—by creating a .nwclient file in your home directory. This file contains details of temporary or user specific NetWare mounts that would be performed regularly. It allows you to store the details of mounts so that you can recreate them without specifying all details each time. Its format is quite straightforward:

# The first entry is the ‘preferred server’ entry and is
# used whenever you do not specify a server explicitly.
#
# User USER01 login to D74_SERVER fileserver with password ‘password’ D74_SERVER/USER01 password
#
# User CYBER login to the CYBER_DOC fileserver with no password.
CYBER_DOC/CYBER -

To activate these mounts you type ncpmount/netware to mount D74_SERVER with a login (say) TERRY under /NetWare directory. Note that this entry was chosen because no fileserver was specified in the mount command. Had we used ncpmount -S CYBER_DOC /netware, then it would mount CYBER_DOC with a login of CYBER under /NetWare directory.

Since the passwords for your Novell accounts are not encrypted, you should protect them by typing chmod 0600 $HOME/.nwclient.

Printing to NetWare print queues

Once you are comfortable accessing your files, you can try printing to a Novell print queue.

  1. Use slist to check that you can see your Novell server.
  2. Type pqlist -S D74_SERVER -U USER01 to list the print queues on D74_SERVER.
  3. Type nprint -S D74_SERVER -U USER01 -q DMPQUEUE/etc/passwd. This would print the /etc/passwd file to the DMPQUEUE print queue on the D74_SERVER by logging in as USER01. If you have created your .nwclient file, then you can use nprint -q DMPQUEUE /etc/passwd instead. The server and login ID are taken from the .nwclient file. Ensure that the queue names are in capitals.
  4. Check your Novell print queue from a DOS client using PCONSOLE. You should see a printjob called No Description in the DMPQUEUE.

Printing using nprint is tedious—first it requires you to print to a file and then submit using nprint. You can automate this by setting up a Linux print queue, which automatically sends it to the NetWare print queue. The following steps are a bit confusing and reading about Unix printing in the Printing HOW-TO would be beneficial.

The following steps tell you how to configure a NetWare print queue for Red Hat Linux.

  1. Copy Netwareprint.tgz from the CD-ROM to the /tmp directory.
  2. cd /;tar xzvf /tmp/netwareprint.tgz. This will replace /usr/bin/printtool, /usr/lib/rhs/rhs-printfilters/master-filter, and /usr/lib/rhs/rhs-printfilters/nwprint, with the latest versions.
  3. If you aren’t already in X Windows, start by typing startx.
  4. If the graphical control panel is not visible, start it by typing control-panel & in an XTerm.
  5. Click the printer icon in the control panel. You should see a list of printers currently configured for Linux.
  6. Click Add. A dialog box with various supported print queues appears. Select Novell Netware print queue.
  7. In Printer name, enter nwqueue.
  8. Enter D74_SERVER and DMPQUEUE for the NetWare server and print queue. Ensure that the queue names are in capitals.
  9. Enter the user name and password if needed. If you have a password, you must enter it here because it will not prompt you for a password during printing.
  10. In the filter type, select the appropriate printer type. If your laser printer supports postscript printing, please use Postscript printer.
  11. Click OK and you’ll see a new printer called nwqueue in the list of printers.
  12. Select nwqueue from the list and click Test Print from the menu. Use a DOS client with PCONSOLE to check the DMPQUEUE. You should see a new print job in the queue. In case it doesn’t work, try mounting a volume from the server D74_SERVER (on which the print queue resides).
  13. Now your printing should be set-up. To print /etc
    /passwd, type lpr -Pnwqueue /etc/passwd at your prompt.
  14. To print from Netscape, use the command lpr -Pnwqueue to print. Alternatively, you could always print to a file and use nprint to print it manually.

Utility commands

Recent versions of Volker’s ncpfs package include a range of user and administration commands. The tools are built and installed as part of the ncpfs installation process. Though each has a detailed manual page, here is a summary of each from the IPX-HOWTO.

ncopy (Network Copy): Allows efficient file copying using a NetWare function rather than a copy across the network.
nsend (Network Send): Allows you to send messages to other users on a NetWare server.
nwbols (List Bindery Objects): Allows you to list the bindery contents of a NetWare server.
nwboprops (List Properties of a Bindery Object): Allows you to view the properties of a NetWare bindery object.
nwfsinfo (Fileserver Information): Prints summary information about NetWare server.
nwpasswd (NetWare Password): Allows you to change NetWare users password.
nwrights (NetWare Rights): Displays the rights associated with a particular file or directory.
nwuserlist (Userlist): Lists the users currently logged into a NetWare fileserver.
pqlist (Print Queue List): Displays the contents of a NetWare print queue.
slist (Server List): Displays a list of known NetWare fileservers.

NDS and Linux

A Linux distribution by Caldera features a range of commercially supported enhancements including fully functional Novell NetWare client support. The base distribution is the well-respected Red Hat Linux. Caldera has added its Network Desktop products to it. The NetWare support provides a fully featured Novell NetWare client built on a technology licensed from Novell. The client provides full-client access to Novell 3.x and 4.x fileservers, and includes features such as NetWare Directory Service (NDS) and RSA encryption. If you work within a NetWare 4.x or NDS environment, then the Caldera NetWare Client is the only solution available. You can obtain much more information and ordering details from the Caldera Web server at www.caldera.com/.

Useful documents

To get more information on IPX and NetWare support, read the IPX-HOWTO. This document presumes that you understand how to build a Linux kernel with the appropriate networking options selected, and that you know how to use the basic networking tools such as ifconfig and route. If you do not, read the NET-3-HOWTO (NET-3-HOWTO.html). Some other Linux HOWTO documents that might be useful are: The Ethernet-HOWTO (Ethernet-HOWTO.html), which describes the details of configuring an Ethernet device for Linux; the PPP-HOWTO (PPP-HOWTO.html), which explains the available IPX support for version 2.2.0d and later of the Linux PPP implementation.

Latest versions of these files can be obtained from sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/IPX-HOWTO. In your Linux box, the HOW-TOs are located in the /usr/doc/HOWTO directory in a compressed format. To view these files, type zless IPX-HOWTO.gz.

Gopal Upadhyaya