[ILUG] novell 4.11 and linux clients

[Jak]

Ahh yes, this frustrated me for many a day in the past. I needed to specify
the full context of the login username. You seem to have done all the right 
things, perhaps your context needs further addition.

I spent many an hour googling, losing hair and making uninspired guesses.
I eventually found some enlightenment at 
http://www.its.monash.edu.au/novell/netware-linux.html

This is what I did.
First sort out IPX something like
	ipx_configure --auto_interface=on --auto_primary=on
	( some initscripts will have this sorted )

Then ncpmount using full user context
	ncpmount -S server -U user.lots.of.other.bits /mnt/nds

You should find the context by looking under the Advanced tab on the Novell 
login client on the windows machines. You may need to enable this option on 
the properties of the Novell client in the Network section of Control Panel 
in order to view it. There is also a browse feature on
the advanced section, where you can navigate the various contexts on
you network. Using the examples quoted in the document I referred to above,
the context looks like
	.fred.earth.sci.monash
	fred.earth.sci.monash
	.cn=fred.ou=earth.ou=sci.o=monash
	cn=fred.ou=earth.ou=sci.o=monash
so the user you specify to ncpmount would be -U fred.earth.sci.monash

There are lots of other options to ncpmount to play with, but this much should
get you up and running. If you still have problems, turn on the view scripts 
option on a windows client machine, and note the username/server/context
used in a successful login : NDS can redirect you to a different server for
example.
Unfortunately, the laptop I used to do this myself had a disk failure, so I 
am working from ( usually suspect ) memory.
I remember the .nwclient file is useless for NDS, but I can't remember why.
I have a very vague recollection of some file permissions issue with the 
mount point.

I never found any free GUI style client for NDS logins, but maybe Novell sell 
one.
	Regards,
			Jak.


>Hello!
>
>I have a mixed network environment, Novell NetWare and Debian GNU/Linux
>file servers, Windows & linux clients. The Samba fileserver works
>as expected, linux and windows users can browse the shares etc.
>The problem is with the novell server & linux clients.
>I followed everything as written down in the IPX-HOWTO and NAG/2
>(the same content). I configured the kernel for IPX support,
>installed the essential packages (eg.: ncpfs). I tried to mount a share
>on the Novell fileserver from the linux client as follows:
>ncpmount -S SERVERNAME -U user ~/novell - it says theres no such user
>in NDS (-601)
>When I tried to use
>ncpmount -S SERVERNAME -U user.tech ~/novell , it says the the password
>what I gave after the password prompt is invalid (-691). I changed the
>password to make sure I just type the right password. But got the same
>error message. Any ideas? After tried the username and the username.context
>I gave up. But it should work somehow and I don't know why it doesn't.
>If somebody had the same problem tell me how solved this, please. 
>groups.google.com just pointed to a list of Novell problem numbers and
>to messages which told me to use the ncpmount as I wrote down above.
>Bye,
>Ago