I looked at all the WiFi and Ethernet products at J&R Computer World and found only ONE that mentions Linux, and it is 10/100 MBPS Ethernet PCI ST100S Netware ODI for DOS Linux

Here is the support question I submitted to

http://www.startech.com/support

http://www.startech.com/item/10PACK100BT-10-Pack-of-ST100S-10100-PCI-Ethernet-Cards.aspx

I want to do an Ubuntu Install, use your ST100S 10/100 MBPS Ethernet PCI, and connect it to my Westell modem running Verizon DSL and working fine with my Windows machine. 2 questions: 1) Can I easily do the unstall in Ubuntu. 2) WILL MY WESTELL MODEM BE ALTERED IN ANY WAY, by the install,.. am I in danger of losing all internet?
Can you suggest any other product or USB Wifi that well help me connect an Ubuntu Linux install to Internet through my Westell 327W Verizon Modem?

If I can make it work, I will spread your Company’s name and praise in many Ubuntu Forums!

P.S. – Ubuntu looks so promising to me that it is hard to believe not one single WIFI or Ethernet product mentions ANYTHING except XP Vista Windows3 etc.

http://yosemitefoothills.com/WalmartPC/WalmartLinuxPC-2512.html

The additional Ethernet port was obtained by installing a $12 Startech ST100S 10/100 Mbps Ethernet PCI Card from amazon.com. This card uses a RTL8100C chip and works with the 8139too Linux driver already being used by the motherboard Ethernet interface.

White Paper which I Presented in Hyderabad region for QAI (STC 2009).

Abstraction:

One of the biggest trends in IT today revolves around consolidating multiple physical servers to virtual environments. Virtualization not only reduces the hardware and the maintenance cost, without effecting the performance of the applications but it also helps in simulating a high level testing infrastructure which otherwise would have needed a big infrastructure. With the growing use of virtualization, the big challenge that emerged for the testing world is to test the virtualized operating system. As the market still in the process of finding the best framework for testing the virtualized operating system or an application which is hosted on a Virtual Machine(VM), which can validate the functionality as well as the performance of the Virtualized OS/applications. This paper will describe the best practices that can be used while testing the virtualized OS or an application. On a whole this gives you brief idea on virtualization and the best practices while testing the applications which are hosted on a Virtual Machine (VM).

Virtualization:

Virtualization essentially lets one computer do the job of multiple computers, by sharing the resources of a single computer across multiple environments. There are several ways to implement virtualization. Two leading approaches are full virtualization and Para-virtualization. Full Virtualization & Para virtualization: VMWARE and XEN respectively will support these two types of virtualizations

Full Virtualization:

Full virtualization is designed to provide total abstraction of the underlying physical system and creates a complete virtual system in which the guest operating systems can execute.

Pros and Cons of Full Virtualization:

Pros:

No modification is required in the guest OS or application.
The guest OS or application is not aware of the virtualized environment so they have the capability to execute on the VM just as they would on a physical system.

Cons:

Full virtualization may incur a performance penalty. The VM monitor must provide the VM with an image of an entire system, including virtual BIOS, virtual memory space, and virtual devices

Para Virtualization:

Para-virtualization presents each VM with an abstraction of the hardware that is similar but not identical to the underlying physical hardware. Para-virtualization techniques require modifications to the guest operating systems that are running on the VM’s. As a result, the guest operating systems are aware that they are executing on a VM

Virtualization Challenges:

 Speed
 Performance
 Security, Resource isolation
 Functionality

What is a Virtual Machine (VM)?

A virtual machine is a tightly isolated software container that can run its own operating systems and applications as if it were a physical computer. A virtual machine behaves exactly like a physical computer and contains it own virtual (i.e., software-based) CPU, RAM hard disk and network interface card (NIC).

Hypervisor (Virtual Machine Manager):

In Computing, a hypervisor is a virtualization platform that allows multiple OS’s to run on a host computer at the same time. The virtualization software (i.e. hypervisor) presents an emulated hardware environment that guest operating systems operate upon. This emulated hardware environment is typically referred to as a virtual machine monitor or VMM.

Hypervisor Classifications:

 Hypervisors are currently classified in two types:
 A Type 1 (or native or bare-metal) hypervisor is software that runs directly on a given hardware platform (as an operating system control program). A guest operating system thus runs at the second level above the hardware.
Examples include VMWARE ESX and XEN
 A Type 2 (or hosted) hypervisor is software that runs within an Operating System environment. A “guest” operating system thus runs at the third level above the hardware.
Examples include VMWARE Server(Formally called as GSX), VMWARE Workstation

How virtualization can be integrated and utilized for Testing:

In a world of multiple operating systems, each with various versions, no application has the luxury of supporting single OS. Every application needs to ensure that it will function correctly on all the OS configurations used by today’s heterogeneous IT environments. Because dedicating physical test systems for each target environment is out of most development teams’ budgets, virtual machines (VM’s) are the right solution at the right time.

Having one machine to hold all types of OS, will enable us to do testing an application on multiple platforms will reduce the effort utilization and cost of hardware. The ability to host two or more operating systems side-by-side means that programmers can test new releases of software without the need for dedicated test machines. If beta software corrupts a given operating system, a parallel operating system running on the same computer can still be used for Testing. In addition, virtualization can help extend support for legacy applications and operating systems to new hardware. By running both legacy and new operating systems on the same PC or embedded controller (e.g. Windows 95 and Vista), engineers can reuse legacy applications and reduce the need to port programs to different operating systems. Another problem with dedicating a physical computer to each environment is that setting up your target environments can be quite time-consuming. In this situation, virtual machines can save you time. If you need to duplicate a particular environment, you can create a library of virtual hard disks that are pre-loaded with specific sets of software. You and other members of your development and test team can clone the disks that you need and quickly replicate a particular environment in a virtual machine. This type of setup can save lots of time when you need to start over with a clean installation, or duplicate the same environment in several virtual machines. During the Testing phase, if the Testers have any problems with beta releases, they can directly share the VM to the developer on which they are seeing the issues, so that they can check in the fixes for all the issues without having the much discussion with Testers.
Are we really utilizing the hardware effectively? If a System was equipped with Dual core processor, are we really making use of the Dual core? Answer is simply “no”. So the main benefit that we can get with the virtualization is better utilization of the hardware. This can be achieved through better utilization of care. As the hardware functional support is increasing day by day we are not in a position to utilize the hardware effectively. So to avoid these, virtualization is the better solution to make use of hardware effectively.
Virtualization tools, lets users snapshot the system at a last known good version. We can create a rollback that allows us to restore the system to that previous good state within minutes. The alternative has to re-image the computer or re-build the environment, which can take hours. This is a tremendous time saver. The ability to snapshot, and restore a working image within minutes, rather than wait hours for a rebuilt system, is particularly important. You’re often looking at bugs where you have to spend a day or two to set up the environment just to reproduce a bug, so the time you spend having to rebuild again and again—that’s a time waster. That is loss of productivity. Snapshots also support in training environments because administrators need only to return to the snapshot to recover the original state of any training machine. For example, when a bug causes a system crash, the developer has to work backward to identify the point where the system crashed. “People often initially set breakpoints too far into the process and the system crashes again. Since a developer can easily be crashing the system several times a day, being able to restore quickly and then re-run the debugging session while the problem is still fresh in their minds is a great benefit. When you’re troubleshooting a complicated bug, it’s good to stay in that groove. Another example, Start with an operations on a system and once you are successful in that, then take a snapshot of it and do the second step, even if you are not successful with the second step, nothing to worry, just we need to restore the snapshot, which saves lot of time in rebuilding the complete system and the completed initial tasks/first steps. Once the VM is restored, that allows us to start something different for second step directly.
With Virtualization we have the ability to test dozen different scenarios simultaneously to ensure a consistent user experience. This enables to complete the testing tasks in less amount of time, which means the time spent for completion on test cycles is very less. Even if we have multiple beta build for bug fixes will not take much time to regress them. With this we can release the product/applications within the target dates.
Manual configuration of a test infrastructure will increase the test cycle time. Virtualization can reduce the time for setting test infrastructure by which we can achieve better productivity in less amount of time. Setting up the test infrastructure has become a serious bottleneck. Which increases the test cycle life time, applications can’t be tested with the timeframe (deadlines). Which causes the unstable products may come into the market. While a huge product / application under testing, setting up the lab with manual configuration requires huge IT support, enough capacity to support required testing, must be co-located with the test teams and it’s very Expensive, hard to manage. Virtualization will help in reducing the efforts for setting up the lab for test environments, In which, once the VM ready to use, use the same for as many times as it required just by taking the snapshot of the same.
Virtual Machine (VM) are isolated from other VM’s, this is because of the physical server network capabilities. So even though one VM is crashed will not affect the other VM’s. Taking snapshot of a VM will help to restore and use it easily. Data is not going to be leaked across the VM’s, as they have independent network connections for each VM. While testing the application tester concentrate on data leakage from the application, but from virtualization point of view there is no problems found as of now with data leakage from virtualization tools, but if testers concentrate on this than that would be really great and if they find any issues that will help virtualization leaders to concentrate on the same. Once the applications are hosted on the virtualization, they are going to be accessible with the allocated IP addresses.
Another befit with virtualization was each VM is going to be saved as a single file. So it’s easy to save, copy, move and restore the VM’s.
Let’s have a look on how virtualization can be used for different Testing Types
Functionality Testing: Deploy a variety of destination environments for functionality testing, using minimal hardware. Set up a library of test environments in virtual machines for rapid deployment. Just copy the .vhd file, attach it to a virtual machine, and boot up. (You can create a “base” virtual machine with the operating system and applications you want, and then copy its .vhd file to use for other virtual machines. When you do this, it’s important to run a tool called Sysprep (From Windows) on the base virtual machine. That way, when you start a virtual machine that uses a copy of the base virtual machine’s .vhd file, the guest operating system will be assigned a new SID, GUID, MAC address, and so forth when it starts up. This way you won’t end up with network conflicts between different virtual machines that use the same copied .vhd file.)
Configuration Testing: Configuration testing, in which testers needs to test the application on different combinations of software and hardware. To do this huge amount of physical resources are required to host multiple OS’s, browsers and other software. Virtualization allows you to create multiple VM’s to test the application on different platforms or OS at a time by this hardware utilization would be more effective.
Performance Testing: performances are the greatest concern while approaching Virtualization. Verifying the Virtual Machines performance against Physical servers is mandatory, we also in need of exploring how different virtualization technologies perform. The first aspect you should test is I/O performances: physical raw partitions, proprietary file systems, remote SAN systems, and local virtual IDE or SCSI disk subsystem. All of these configurations should be tested and compared with each other and against physical machines I/O performances.
Another important aspect that we need to test is network performance because the virtual network adapter devices handle the traffic in different ways.
Load and Stress Testing: Load is usually conducted to understand the behavior of the application under a specific expected load where as stress test is normally used to break the application. Double the numbers of users are added to the application and the test is run again until the application breaks down. The best way to stress test or a load test is to use the standard tools for physical machines stress and load testing.
Examples for different Virtualization platforms
Server Virtualization:
VMware ESX 3i
VMware Server 1.X
Xen Enterprise
Microsoft Virtual Server R2
Microsoft 2008 Viridian
Virtual Iron
Client Virtualization:
VMware Workstation 6
VMware Virtual Player
Microsoft Virtual PC 2007
QEMU
Application Virtualization
Altris AppStream
Altris SVT
Microsoft SoftGrid
Hardware Virtualization
Intel VT
AMD-V

Reference materials:
Online reference.
Author’s biography:
Kalyan Ch working as a Sr. Software Engineer for Applabs for more than 3 years, and have total 6 years of experience in Testing different web applications, Products like Novell Netware and virtualized Netware and SLES OS.

VMware NetWare Tivoli Slow backup performance tuning parameters for NSS and TSAFS.NLM on an EVA 4400

Before i cover what works for me i have posted below the official tid on this issue since different people will have differing environments/versions/setups to myself and will find this useful:

There are many issues that can affect backup/restore performance. There is tuning that can be done on the server and NSS volumes. These are only ballpark figures. The server must be benchmarked to find the optimum settings.

These two parms must be set in c:\nwserver\nssstart.cfg. Make sure there are no typos or NSS won’t load. Nssstart.cfg is not created by default.
/AuthCacheSize=20000
/NumWorkToDos=100
These parms can be set in AUTOEXEC.NCF. Note: If these are placed in this file they must start with NSS. For example – nss /ClosedFileCacheSize=2000. They can also be placed in the C:\NWSERVER\NSSSTART.CFG and there they would be used without the NSS in the beginning.

/ClosedFileCacheSize=200000
/MinBufferCacheSize=20000
/MinOsBufferCacheSize=20000
/CacheBalanceMaxBuffersPerSession=20000
/CacheUserMaxPercent=70
/AllocAheadBlks=63
/NameCacheSize=200000
/NoCopyBuffersOnXlatch
/ReadAheadBlks=:64 — on NetWare 6.5 boxes. A line must be added for each volume. This sets a count for the number of 4k blocks to read with each request. In this case, 256k at a time.
These settings are ballpark figures. They may need to be adjusted depending on how much ram the server has.
Setting these too high can cause excessive memory usage and can affect other apps as well as performance. The “closed file cache size and the name cache size, if set too high, can cause NSS.NLM to take excessive amounts of memory. These can help performance but experience shows that there are usually several problems that add up to one big problem. Setting these two parms too high can actually degrade performance. If the server has about 2 gig or less, then the default of 100000 should be used.

1.
Make sure you have the latest updates for the tape software.
2.
Faster hardware can make a big difference.
3.
The type of data can make a huge difference. Lots of small files will slow down performance, especially if they’re all in one directory. The backup will spend more time opening,scanning and closing files rather than reading data. If there are more large files mixed in with the smaller ones, then performance can increase because more time is spent reading data rather than opening files, which is what increases throughput.
4.
Background processes like compression, virus scans and large data copies will slow performance down.
5.
Virus scanners also can be an issue. They usually hook into the OS file system to intercept file opens so they can scan the files prior to backup. The virus scanner can be configured to run at some other time than the backup. This can also compound the problem if the files being scanned are compressed. The virus scanner can decompress them before scanning for viruses, which will slow things down even more. A good way to see if this is happening is to enable the NSS /COMPSCREEN at the server console during the backup to see if files are being decompressed.
6.
Lots of open files will slow down performance. These are usually seen with the error FFFDFFF5. This means the file is open by some other application. If the tape software can be configured to skip open files until the end of the job rather than retrying to open them immediately, then performance can be increased as some tape software solutions, by default, will retry to open the locked file multiple times before moving on.
7.
Backing up over the wire is slower than backups local to the server especially if most of the files are small files, 64k or less. If there is any LAN latency performance can take a significant hit. The wire is much slower at transferring data than reading the data directly from the disk. One thing that may help is to

set tcp nagle algorithm=off
set tcp delayed acknowledgement=off
set tcp sack option=off

on both host and target servers.

tsatest can be used to determine if the lan is a bottleneck. There is more information about tsatest below.

8.

- Make sure you have the latest disk drivers and firmware updates for your HBAs. There have been issues where performance was increase greatly because of later firmware/drivers.
- Use the tsatest.nlm utilitiy on different lan segments to see if there is a problem. This tool now ships with tsa5up19.exe.exe. Tsatest can be used to test the throughput on the wire and on the server itself to see if the lan could be a bottleneck. Tsatest is also useful because it does not require a tape drive, so the tape drive can be eliminated as a possible problem as well.
-Make sure you have the latest tsa files.

-Raid5 systems with a small stripe size can also be a problem. Check the configuration of the disk storage or san. If using a raid system, a larger stripe size can help performance.

-Creating one large LUN on the raid rather than several smaller ones can result in significant performance loss. It’s faster to have multiple luns with the volumes/data spread out over them.

-Make sure you have the latest bios/firmware updates for your server.

-There have been issues where full backups are fast and incremental/differential backups are slow. This can happen because of the tape software doing its own filtering on inc/diff backups rather than letting the tsafs.nlm do it. There is a parm in tsafs.nlm that can help this:

LOAD TSAFS /NOCACHINGMODE

This will disable the read ahead cache for tsafs.nlm so that files are not cached unnecessarily during inc/diff backups. You can re-enable this cache when doing full backups:

LOAD TSAFS /CACHINGMODE

This is a load time parameter so you could create a script that would load/unload tsafs accordingly.

Tsafs can also be tuned as well. Once tsafs is loaded, typing tsafs again at the server console will show what most of the parameters are set for. If most of the data consists of small files, then make a best estimate as to what the mean file size is. That will help in determining what the best size of the read buffers should be. Tsafs could then be tuned to favor smaller files with the:

tsafs /ReadBufferSize=16384

That would set the read buffers for tsafs to 16k. If the mean file size is 16k or less, that would enable the tsafs to read the files with less read requests. Setting the nss cache balance to a lower percent would give tsafs more memory for caching files. If the mean file size is 64k or thereabouts, set the tsafs /readbuffersize=65536. The read buffers in the tape software could also be set to similar values.

tsafs /cachememorythreshold=5

may help as well. There have been problems with memory setting this value too high. 10 would be a good place to start. The recommended setting is 1 for servers that have memory fragmentation problems. If the server has more memory, then even a setting of 1 would give tsafs more memory to cache file data.

- On servers that have 4 or 2 processors, the tsafs /readthreadsperjob=x can be set to 2 or 4. On machines with only one processor, set the /readthreadsperjob=1. Setting the /readthreadsperjob too high will result in performance loss.

-Tsatest is a good tool for finding out where potential bottlenecks are. This is an nlm that can be loaded on the target server for a local backup, or from another NetWare server over the wire. It’s a backup simulator that requires no special hardware, tape drives, databases, etc. By loading tsatest on the target server, the wire and tape software can be eliminated as potential bottlenecks. Throughput can be gauged and then a backup can be done over the wire to see if the lan could be slowing things down. For a complete listing of tsatest load line parameters, type tsatest /?. Usually it’s loaded like this:

load tsatest /s= /u= /p= /v=

individual paths can be specified as well. By default, tsatest will do full backups. An incremental backup can be specified by adding the /c=2 parameter to the load line. The sys:\etc\tsatest.log file can be created with the /log parameter. This file can be sent to Novell for analysis.
Backup/restore performance can be reduced when backing up over the lan. Sometimes up to 1 half of the performance can be lost due to lan latency alone. Tsatest is a good way to determine if that’s happening. Tests can be run on the target server itself and then the target server can be backed up over the wire from another NetWare server. The results can be compared.
For a good document on tsatest read:

http://developer.novell.com/ndk/doc/samplecode/smscomp_sample/tsatest/tsatest.html

Our renewed tivoli on netware problems arose when we started to migrate our users to the 9 new virtual netware 6.5 sp8 servers i built on a couple of eva 4400’s at our two sites. The virtual netware 6.5 sp8 servers are running on HP DL380g5’s with 32 gigs of ram. Each virtual server has 4 gigs of ram dedicated to it.

Utilising my previouse experience with tivoli and the problems it causes i changed the tsafs parameters. To do this you first need to unload tivoli on the netware servers via the command line :

type > unload dsmcad

enter confirmation on the tivoli screens

now you need to unload tsafs which is originally loaded via smsstart.ncf

type > smsstop.ncf

now that both tivoli and tsafs and related services are stopped navigate to the file

\\SYS\SYSTEM\smsstart.ncf

change the file from:

LOAD SMSUT.NLM
LOAD SMDR.NLM
LOAD TSAFS.NLM

to:

LOAD SMSUT.NLM
LOAD SMDR.NLM
LOAD TSAFS.NLM /NoCluster /NoCachingMode /noConvertUnmappableChars /CacheMemoryThreshold=10

now to restart backup services

type > smsstart

next restart tivoli, change the commands if you’re not using a newer version of tivoli and also remove the second line if you dont use the web interface:

type > dsmcad -optfile=dms.opt
type > dsmcad -optfile=dsm_gui.opt

CacheMemoryThreshold is set to the default of 10 on the servers, however they barely use any memory as u can see in the memory usage charts for the server below, i might try increasing to 25 to see if it speeds up backups. There’s under a million files on each server at the moment however they are only running at 40% load since we haven’t finished moving all the users onto them yet.

The changes i’ve listed above were made at the end of work yesterday, i changed the tsafs load parameters on the server shown below and it seems to have done the trick, backup times reduced by 11 hours! Copies of the backup schedule reports are below the memory diagram for those interested in speed increases and time reduction.

Tuesday Night/Wednesday morning
10/14/2009 11:21:00 — SCHEDULEREC STATUS BEGIN
10/14/2009 11:21:00 Total number of objects inspected: 814,790
10/14/2009 11:21:00 Total number of objects backed up: 20,070
10/14/2009 11:21:00 Total number of bytes transferred: 596.97 MB
10/14/2009 11:21:00 Data transfer time: 1,043.65 sec
10/14/2009 11:21:00 Network data transfer rate: 585.73 KB/sec
10/14/2009 11:21:00 Aggregate data transfer rate: 12.99 KB/sec
10/14/2009 11:21:00 Objects compressed by: 0%
10/14/2009 11:21:00 Elapsed processing time: 13:04:12
10/14/2009 11:21:00 — SCHEDULEREC STATUS END

Wednesday Night/Thursday morning
10/15/2009 00:36:48 — SCHEDULEREC STATUS BEGIN
10/15/2009 00:36:48 Total number of objects inspected: 821,288
10/15/2009 00:36:48 Total number of objects backed up: 15,844
10/15/2009 00:36:48 Total number of bytes transferred: 562.12 MB
10/15/2009 00:36:48 Data transfer time: 510.50 sec
10/15/2009 00:36:48 Network data transfer rate: 1,127.53 KB/sec
10/15/2009 00:36:48 Aggregate data transfer rate: 72.26 KB/sec
10/15/2009 00:36:48 Objects compressed by: 0%
10/15/2009 00:36:48 Elapsed processing time: 02:12:45
10/15/2009 00:36:48 — SCHEDULEREC STATUS END

Rights Required for Novell Subcontainer Administrators to be assigned in Edir via console one or Imanager.

For security reasons, you might want to create one or more subcontainer administrators with sufficient rights to install or upgrade additional OES NetWare servers, without granting them full rights to the entire tree. A subcontainer administrator needs the following rights to install or upgrade a NetWare server in the tree:

• Supervisor right to the container where the server will be installed
• Read right to the Security container object for the eDirectory tree
• Read right to the NDSPKI:Private Key attribute on the Organizational CA object, which is located in the Security container
• Supervisor right to the W0 object located inside the KAP object in the Security container

These rights are typically granted by placing all administrative users in a Group or Role, and then assigning the above rights to the Group or Role.

Some of the products that can be selected to install along with OES NetWare require schema extensions of their own. Currently, only an administrator with rights at [Root] can extend the schema of an eDirectory tree; a subcontainer administrator does not have sufficient rights. One way to work around this is to have a root administrator install an OES NetWare server with all products selected. This would takes care of extending the schema for every possible server configuration. Subcontainer administrators can then install or upgrade subsequent OES NetWare servers without worrying about schema extensions.

An easier method for extending the schema for OES products and services is to run the Schema Update task in Deployment Manager. This task extends the schema for the OES products you select for both the NetWare and Linux platforms.

By default, the first three servers installed in an eDirectory partition automatically receive a replica of the partition. To install a server into a partition that does not already contain three replica servers, the user must have either Supervisor rights at the [Root] of the tree or administrative rights to the container in which the server holding the partition resides.

Whilst this worked fine in our organisation for months, for some reason, despite no schema changes or user trustee changes, it has suddenly stopped working, i’ll post more if we find out anything. Anyone else notice the fall in novell’s share price over the last few years?

At the server system console prompt type either:

To stop the Netware server and exit to the local operating system type DOWN and then hit the enter key at the server system console prompt. If prompted to confirm overtype the pre-entered ‘N’ with‘Y’

To stop the Netware server and reboot the physical server type RESTART SERVER and then hit the enter key at the server system console prompt. If prompted to confirm overtype the pre-entered ‘N’ with‘Y’

If your license key is expiring and you need to replace it or you just need to register a license key after a fresh install of Kaspersky then there are two methods.

You can register the key using the ConsoleOne Kaspersky Anti-Virus snap-in or you can create a local or group task in the Admin Kit that will deploy the license after an existing license expires.

I personally prefer the ConsoleOne method as I know it works really well.

Using ConsoleOne

Open ConsoleOne and select the Kaspersky Anti-Virus 5 snap-in.

Navigate through your NDS tree until you find the correct server.

Right click on the server and select ‘Properties’

In the ‘General’ tab select the ‘Register license key’ button

Select ‘Add key’ and browse to the location of your license key. Select the key and click ‘Apply’

If you have a key that is about to expire you can also delete it here after you have added your new key. In theory I think that you could also leave the new key as a second key which would automatically take over if the first key expired.

Finally stop and restart Kaspersky on the Netware server. To do this connect to the console and at the system console type stop klabav and once it has stopped type start klabav

The new license key should be evident in the ‘serial no’ field in the Kaspersky Anti-Virus Module screen on the Netware server console

Using Admin Kit

If you are familiar with Admin Kit then the task is a simple one.

Create a group task within your Netware Group or within whatever group your Netware servers reside.

Select ‘Next’ at the ‘New Task Wizard’ prompt

Name the task and click ‘Next’

Select ‘Kaspersky Anti-virus 5.7 for Novell Netware’ and ‘License key installation’ from task type

Select the ‘Browse’ button and locate your license key. Click ‘Next’

Schedule the task to run ‘Manually’ and click ‘Next’

Finally, click ‘Finish’

This new Group Task should now be visible to all the Netware servers.

Open the Properties page of a server and select the ‘Tasks’ tab. You will see the task listed. To run it simply right click it and select ‘Start’

When you start up ConsoleOne, the application usually selects a random read-write replica to connect to.  You cannot specify which replica to connect to, but you can tell ConsoleOne to connect to the Master replica by using the forcemaster option.

In various Novell TIDs the syntax is shown as either -forcemaster or /forcemaster or .  YMMV, and it may be dependant on your version of ConsoleOne, so try them both out.  Example syntax is:

C:\1.2\bin\ConsoleOne.exe -forcemaster

C:\1.2\bin\ConsoleOne.exe /forcemaster

Years ago we inherited a few thousand users, a few aging server rooms and a couple of schools that were located on another of the universities campuses. Although i took over the 3com/Cisco network and upgraded to the latest equipment (at that time 2950’s) and our advanced configs, the server team never took over the home drive servers at the site which today are still managed by another department. To cut a long story short the other department wants us of their servers so I’ve built a half dozen new virtualised 6.5 sp8 servers and we’re migrating the data over. Whilst i was doing work on the user’s i decided to split our users up into smaller Subcontainers, diving them by the last digit of their usernames. Couple of things to watch out for in the Subcontainers:

1 – Login scripts – the Subcontainers need login scripts – go to properties then login scripts and add an include for the parent container – this way each Subcontainers can have its default login script inherited from the parent container meaning only one script to update, thus avoiding mistakes maintaining multiple copies of the same code. If you need Subcontainers specific login script changes add them after the include statement

2 – Inheritance levels for applications- check you are inheriting all relevant applications at the new container depth. Open console one and select tools – Zenworks Utilities – Application Launcher Tools – Show Inherited Applications
If you are missing applications available at the parent container then select the Subcontainer and view properties – zenworks – launcher configuration. Now change the mode to view objects effective settings and note down the set application inheritance level (user) value. Change the mode to View/Edit object’s custom configuration and enter the new value for the set application inheritance level (user). The value will be previously value plus one per sub container.

3 – Moving users – easy to script – just use the getrest command and have the output be used by move_obj with delays between moves. e.g.

display just site2 staff that are not logged in and ending then logs to a file on c drive
getrest .*.faculty.staff.site2.org na eq “none” /j /u /yc /l=c:\site2staff.log <- use the file for move_obj

I moved a few thousand users into relevant Subcontainers over night without errors

To move actual data just use jrb utils !

It seems Netwares newest server, Netware 6.5 sp8, allegedly the last release of Netware, and this time they mean it, though they really meant it when they said Netware 6.5 sp6 was the last release, has problems with Vmware. In this case Vmware esx 3.5 u4.

We identified an easily repeatable error where the inclusion of a virtual floppy drive causes abends on Netware 6.5 sp8 Vmware servers after a “restart server” or a “reboot server” command is issued ! As of this time neither Vmware or Netware have released tids on the problem or seem aware it exists, though this does raise the question of what kind of an idiot would still be adding floppy drives to Vmware servers ?

We have been tightening up security at our place recently which has prompted me to do a couple of simple scripts to find out who has local admin rights and another one to take them away. I again have used a couple of tools to get the job done one is isadmin.exe by Bill Stewart which just checks that locally logged on users group access to see if they are members of the administrators group. The other is blat which is a utility for sending smtp emails by command line. I then pipe the output to a text file and get the contents emailed to me and then just use filters to filter the email into either a box for admin users or a box for non admin users.

That script is:

:script for discovering admin privledges

If exist c:\%nwusername%.txt (exit) else goto :check

:check

echo off

(drive letter):\admin\isadmin.exe > c:\%nwusername%.txt

{drive letter):\BLAT\BLAT C:\%nwusername%.txt -TO (emailadress.co.uk) -SERVER (email server) -F (emailaddress.co.uk)

The bits in () you will obviously need to personalise for your environment.

Once that has reported the results to me any users who have admin permissions then also get added to a script that removes them from the Administrators Group. Again its faily simplistic:

If exist c:\delusr.txt(exit) else goto :script for removing admin Privledges

:Script for removing admin Privledges

echo off

net localgroup administrators %username% /delete > c:\delusr.txt

echo %username% has been deleted from %nwusername% admin account >> c:\delusr.txt

(drive letter):\BLAT\BLAT C:\delusr.TXT -TO (emailaddress.co.uk) -SERVER (email server) -F (emailaddress.co.uk)

So hopefully that will complete the removal or admin rights, I shall wait a week or two then change the text file the first script looks for so that it runs again and hopefully will get no reports of people still with admin rights.

Now of course admin rights are generally given to users because of funky old applications that cant handle tightened permissions so I expect that may be a bit of running around trying to find ways of fixing broken apps.

One thing I must say again is how brilliant notepad++ is for creating and editing any kind of script file. If you need to write scripts I would recommend at least trying it out.

Here at the office we have a group in charge of assigning and maintain user and group rights and permissions to our various systems.  It’s nice not having to worry about that aspect of server administration. 

But I have an urgent need to have some eDirectoy group rights assigned to a specific directory on every Netware server in our Enterprise.  The group that controls user access is saying that they can’t meet my timeframe for getting these rights assigned, so I had to come up with my own solution.

My solution was to use Wolfgang Schreiber’s  lrights.exe utility to script assigning the rights command line style.  The syntax is:

LRights <path> <rights> /name=<trustee>

For example, to assign read and file scan rights to the .mygroup.OU.O user:

lrights \\server\volume\directory R F /Name=.mygroup.OU.O

This utility was written to support long path/file names, unlike Novell’s rights.exe utility.

De uitdaging

In een omgeving waar het systeembeheer helemaal in jou handen ligt ben je verantwoordelijk voor het 360 graden beheer van de Novell & Windows servers, de KA-omgeving, de connecties tussen vestigingen en met klanten. Je bent bezig met het pro-actief bewaken, oplossen en voorkomen van storingen binnen de infrastructuur en systemen en bent in dat kader bekend met ITIL.

Naast het beheer ben je ook verantwoordelijk voor het installeren, de uitrol en het configureren van (nieuwe) componenten in de infrastructuur en het configureren van netwerken (WAN/LAN), routeringen, internet, firewalls en de hardware (werkstations en KA-printers) gekoppeld aan het netwerk.

Check www.werkenbijtnt.nl/ict

Wat zijn de verantwoordelijkheden van de Novell Systeembeheerder?

• Dagelijks pro-actief beheer uitvoeren in een interessante en snel veranderende omgeving;
• Informeren van gebruikers over wijzigingen en updates van software.
• Daadkrachtig optreden bij escalaties en jezelf blijven ontwikkelen op nieuwe technieken
• Installeren server software en beheren van licenties;
• Controleren van back-ups en virusprotectie.

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• Minimaal MBO+ werk- en denkniveau
• Minimaal 3 jaar relevante werkervaring in systeembeheer
• Ruime, aantoonbare en actuele kennis van het Novell, GroupWise, ZenWorks en andere Novell tools.
• Sterk ontwikkeld analytisch denkvermogen
• Sterke affiniteit met ICT, dataprocessen en informatiesystemen
• Servicegerichte instelling
• Goede communicatieve en schriftelijke vaardigheden.

 Wat bieden wij?

• Afhankelijk van ervaring minimaal € 2.500,00 tot maximaal € 3500,00;
• 40 urige werkweek;
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• Telefoon en laptop;
• Een uitdagende maar ook een veeleisende functie;
• Ruimte voor persoonlijke ontwikkeling;
• Enthousiaste en gemotiveerde collega’s;
• Vaste standplaats Waddinxveen;

 Interesse?

 Heb je interesse in de functie klik hier.

Voor meer informatie over de selectieprocedure kun je bellen met Gijs Aanen (ICT Recruiter TNT Professional Recruitment) via telefoonnummer 06-10971448. 

Euromail

Euro Mail is een fullservice print- en mailbedrijf en bestaat sinds 1989. Het bedrijf met het hoofdkantoor in Waddinxveen heeft tien vestigingen in Nederland. Bij de tien vestigingen werken in totaal 220 mensen. Euro Mail kent drie hoofdactiviteiten: het voorbereiden, verwerken en verzenden van direct mail, transactiemail en het uitvoeren van fulfilment projecten.

 TNT

TNT N.V. biedt onder de merknamen TNT Post en TNT Express wereldwijd een breed scala aan post- en expressdiensten. TNT heeft vestigingen in meer dan 60 landen, is in meer dan 200 landen actief en staat genoteerd aan de beurs van Amsterdam. TNT Post is een begrip in Nederland en in toenemende mate daarbuiten. Elke dag levert TNT een logistieke topprestatie met meer dan 161.000 mensen wereldwijd waarvan 60.000 in Nederland bij TNT Post. Hiermee is TNT Post de grootste particuliere werkgever van Nederland. De markt verandert snel door de toenemende digitalisering en concurrentie. In deze markt wil TNT Post een zeer innovatief en betrouwbaar bedrijf blijven om de huidige belangrijke positie bij haar klanten te behouden en verder uit te breiden.

 * Acquisitie naar aanleiding van deze advertentie wordt niet op prijs gesteld.*

We’ve been experiencing issues with some of our Backup Exec 9 remote agents losing their connections to media server during backup.  The Backup Exec server job logs report the following generic error:

Final error: 0xa000fe30 – A communications failure has occurred.

To help troubleshoot this problem, I decided to enable debugging on the Backup Exec remote agent. To do this, on the Netware server that is running the Backup Exec remote agent:

1.  Make a backup copy of the sys:\system\bestart.ncf file

Zenworks Configuration Mgmt (Zen 10 SP1) d 20 til 24 April.

This Novell ZENWorks 10 Configuration Management training teaches network administrators how to use Novell ZENWorks 10 to effectively manage and administer network users and corporate assets across a wide range of platforms. Students attending this course will learn how to use Novell ZENWorks 10 with Novell eDirectory, Microsoft Active Directory , and in stand-alone mode.

1. Create a file with the name “NSSSTART.CFG”
2. Enter any NSS Startup commands that you want to modify after NetWare Server has booted.
3. Each NSS command should be proceeded by a forward slash (/) and ended with a space.
For example: /xxxxx /xxxxx /xxxxx
4. Place the file in the same directory as SERVER.EXE

Example: /nss /StorageAlarmThreshold=value Lets you set the threshold for a low storage space warning. The default is 10. The range is 0 to 1000000

Source: Novell Doc.

Note: This is just for my reference

Resolving Critical Server Issues

The purpose of this document is to help network administrators become more proactive in resolving critical server issues (abends and hangs). In the past, recommended procedures for handling server crashes have not been clearly set down in writing. By creating this document, Novell Support hopes to minimize miscommunication when dealing with customers and educate them as to how they can best help Novell resolve server issues. This document provides a standardized way to obtain valuable feedback to questions that will help prioritize the issue, gain some historical perspective on the problem, and improve resolution time.

Introduction
What is an Abend?
Server Hangs or Lockups
Steps for Troubleshooting NetWare Servers
Appendix: Memory Images (Core Dumps)

What is a Critical Server Issue?
For the purposes of this AppNote, we define a “critical server issue” as a situation in which the server ceases operation unexpectedly. The server may simply stop running or become unusable, thus preventing any work from being done by clients connected to the server or with applications running at the server. Such conditions are generally described as server crashes, hangs, or “abends.”

Few events strike terror into the hearts of network administrators as much as a server going down unexpectedly. But with sufficient troubleshooting information and a few advance precautions, you’ll be better prepared to handle server problems proactively.

This AppNote presents recommended guidelines and procedures for customers to follow when resolving critical server issues. It begins with a discussion of server abends and lockups and their possible causes. It then gives some troubleshooting steps to follow to identify and resolve these types of server problems. An appendix gives instructions for capturing a server memory image for analysis by Novell.

By creating this document, Novell Support hopes to minimize miscommunication when dealing with customers and educate them as to how they can best help Novell resolve server issues. This document provides a standardized way to obtain valuable feedback to questions that will help prioritize the issue, gain some historical perspective on the problem, and improve resolution time.

What is an Abend?
The NetWare 3 and 4 operating systems continually monitor the status of various server activities to ensure proper operation. If NetWare detects a condition that threatens the integrity of its internal data (such as an invalid parameter being passed in a function call, or certain hardware errors), it abruptly halts the active process and displays an “abend” message on the screen. (“Abend” is a computer science term signifying an ABnormal END of program.)

The primary reason for abends in NetWare is to ensure the stability and integrity of the internal operating system data. For example, if the operating system detected invalid pointers to cache buffers and yet continued to run, data would soon become unusable or corrupted. Thus an abend is NetWare’s way of protecting itself and users against the unpredictable effects of data corruption.

There are two basic types of errors that can cause abend messages to be generated:

- Errors detected by the CPU
- onsistency check errors (detected by the operating system)
- CPU-Detected Errors

When the server’s CPU detects an error, the processor can interrupt program execution by issuing an interrupt or an exception.

Intel defines an interrupt as “an asynchronous event typically triggered by an external device needing attention.”

Paging and Segmentation Exceptions

NetWare 4 takes advantage of Intel’s segmentation and paging architecture. Each page of memory can be flagged present or not present, read-protected, write-protected, readable, or writable. These changes in NetWare 4 intoduce new exceptions that are not seen in NetWare 3. One good example is the “Abend: Page Fault” error.

Exceptions caused by segmentation and paging problems are handled differently than interrupts. Normally, the contents of the program counter (EIP register) are saved when an exception or interrupt is generated. However, exceptions resulting from segmentation and paging give the operating system the opportunity to fix the page fault by restoring the contents of some of the processor registers to their state before interpretation of the instruction began. NetWare 4 provides SET parameters to enable and disable page fault emulation, giving you the choice between continuing program execution or abending.
Intel defines an exception as “a synchronous event which is the response of the processor to a certain condition detected during the execution of an instruction.”

Exceptions are classified as faults, traps, or aborts based on how they are reported and whether restart of the failed instruction is possible.

Here is a list of exceptions and interrupts:

1. Divide Error
2. Debugger Call
3. Nonmaskable Interrupt (NMI)
4. Breakpoint
5. INT 0-detected Overflow
6. BOUND Range Exceeded
7. Invalid Opcode
8. Device Not Available
9. Double Fault
10. Invalid Task State Segment
11. Segment Not Present
12. Stack Exception
13. General Protection
14. Page Fault
15. Floating-Point Error
16. Alignment Check
17. Maskable Interrupts

the types of exceptions that are related to abends are the nonmaskable interrupt (NMI) and the processor-detected exceptions.

For more complete details about exceptions and interrupts, refer to Chapter 9 of the Intel486 Microprocessor Family Programmer’s Reference Manual.

Consistency Check Errors

Consistency checks are internal tests which Novell software engineers have placed in the NetWare operating system code. The primary function of consistency checks is to ensure the stability and integrity of internal operating system data. Numerous consistency checks are interlaced throughout NetWare to validate critical disk, memory, and communications processes. The abend errors that result from failed consistency checks are code-detected errors, as opposed to CPU-detected errors.

As an example of a consistency check, imagine a function called XYZFreeMemory that is used to release a portion of memory so it will be available for other programs. To guard against possible problems, the programmer includes a check to see whether the pointer passed into the function points to a valid memory buffer. If this check fails, the system will generate an abend.

A failed consistency check is always a serious error because it indicates some degree of memory corruption. Consistency check errors might be caused by a corrupt operating system file, corrupt or outdated drivers and NLMs (NetWare Loadable Modules), bad packets formed at the client, or hardware failures. These errors can also be associated with defective memory chips, static electricity discharges, faulty power supplies, or fluctuations in commercial power (see NetWare System Messages manual, page 1).

Analyzing Abend Messages

Before NetWare displays an abend message on the file server screen, several steps occur depending on whether the error was CPU-detected (exception generated) or code-detected (consistency checks). The type of information provided on the screen is identical in both cases:

(Line 1) Date and time the system halted
(Line 2) Abend message
(Line 3) Operating system version
(Line 4) Current running process
(Line 5) Current stack dump

For ease of reference, we’ll refer to line numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 in the sample abend message screens below.

Note: In the NetWare 3.12 operating system, EIP was added to the information on exceptions generated by the CPU.

Line 1: Date and Time. NetWare first posts the date and time at which the system was halted.

Line 2: Abend Message String. The text of the abend message itself will help you determine whether it is a CPU-detected abend or a code-detected error. In many cases, it’s easy to tell whether the message contains only information provided by the CPU or information from the operating system.

Here is an example of a CPU-generated abend:

(1) System halted Friday, July 22, 1994 3:32:42 pm MDT
(2) Abend: Page Fault Processor Exception (Error code 00000000)
(3) OS version: Novell NetWare v4.02 June 8, 1994
(4) Running Process: Server 03 Process
(5) Stack: 02 72 00 00 D7 BB 02 F8 AC B9 EE 00 C0 B9 EE 00
60 70 2B 00 78 B9 EE 00 58 92 05 F1 D0 FF 08 00
94 B9 EE 00 97 D6 00 F1 D0 FF 08 00 00 00 00 00

Press “Y” to copy diagnostic image to disk. Otherwise

Power off and back on to restart.

Notice the text of the message on line 2, “Abend: Page Fault Processor Exception (Error code 00000000)”. This information is provided to the operating system by the CPU. The error code in the message is used to help determine additional information about the exception. Error codes are produced only for some exceptions.

Under certain conditions, exceptions which produce error codes may not be able to report an accurate code.

Here is an example of a code-generated abend:

(1) System halted Tuesday, October 4, 1994 9:59:08 am PDT
(2) Abend: SERVER-4.00-3128: SubAllocFreeSectors given invalid FAT chain end that was already free.
(3) OS version: Novell NetWare v4.02 June 8, 1994
(4) Running Process: Console Command Process
(5) Stack: 3C 9E 0D F8 AB 57 27 00 01 00 00 00 20 00 01 00
01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 10 B7 B5 0E A0 3E 56 00
01 00 00 00 15 20 01 F8 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 81

Press “Y” to copy diagnostic image to disk. Otherwise

Power off and back on to restart.

Notice how this abend message is different from the CPU-detected abend above which was generated by an exception. The message in line 3 refers to a consistency check found in the NetWare 4 operating system code (“SERVER-4.00-3128″), along with a short description of what that check was. In this example message, the error was found in the SubAllocFreeSectors routine which checks the FAT chain to see if it is a valid SubAlloc block.

Line 3: Operating System Version. This line identifies the version of the NetWare operating system running in the server.

Line 4: Running Process. This line indicates which process was running at the time of the abend. A “process” is a thread or path of execution that runs in the operating system. It can be an internal OS process or a process belonging to an NLM. Internal server processes can be referred to as OS worker threads. These are processes that take on a wide variety of tasks, such as handling packets, processing NCP requests, and performing work from the work-to-do list. Some of these tasks can be scheduled by other NLMs and carried out by file service processes. NLMs can also have their own dedicated threads.

Although the server message indicates which process was currently running at the time of the abend, you can’t assume that the running process is the cause of the abend. It may or may not be involved.

A good example of a case in which the running process is not the cause is when a process (call it Process A) receives an invalid pointer from a corrupt memory area and then tries to use this pointer. The memory area possibly became corrupt because some other process (Process B) issued a write over a valid structure or pointer. The running process simply tries to execute this pointer, which results in the abend. So even though Process A is identified as the running process in the abend message, the problem actually lies with Process B.
Another example is when the running process is passed invalid information from another NLM. File service processes fall under this scenario because they carry out work for other NLMs and service incoming packets that can pass invalid or corrupt information to the server process to execute.

Note: In abend messages, file service processes are identified as “Server XXX Process” where XXX can be any number between 0 and 100.

stack: an area of memory set aside for the temporary storage of values in a computing environment.

Line 5: Stack. The 30 hexadecimal bytes displayed at the bottom of the abend screen represent part of the CPU’s stack at the time of the abend for the current running process. All three lines of the stack dump may be useful to technical support people in diagnosing the cause of the abend.

Server Hangs or Lockups
In the computer industry, people describe a machine that suddenly stops working with a variety of frightful terms. They say the computer has crashed, frozen, hung, or locked up. For the purposes of this discussion, we’ll distinguish between full and partial server lockups.

When a full server lockup occurs, no processes are allowed to run. No one can log in to do work on the server. Connections that are currently logged in or attached are dropped. Nothing can be done at the server console or other NLM screens, and there may be no response at all from the server keyboard.

The Nonpreemptive Environment
Because the NetWare opera-ting system is nonpreemptive, it allows threads to access and control the CPU as they choose. The underlying assumption is that NLM processes will cooperate with each other and not monopolize the processor. In this type of environment, threads need not worry about being forced off the CPU unless they monopolize it. However, they can and should relinquish control frequently to allow other threads a chance to run.

After a partial server lockup, users might still be able to log in to the server and accomplish work. In some cases, you may be able to toggle to different server or NLM screens and do work. Partial hangs may eventually clear themselves up, or they may lead to a full system lockup.

One possible cause of a server lockup is a server or NLM thread which becomes caught in a tight loop and does not relinquish control of the CPU. The cause for this type of lockup can be related to either software or hardware problems.

Another example is a process which locks up resources (volumes, cache buffers, and so on) by blocking access to these resources. Other processes waiting on the release of these resources will not run until they are available. Again, the cause for this type of lockup can be software or hardware.

Server lockups can also be caused by some of the same problems that cause abends: corrupt operating system files, corrupt or outdated drivers and NLMs, bad packets formed at the client, or hardware failures.

Here’s a sample case that involved the use of outdated software. The customer was using the BNETX NetWare shell on the client for packet burst communications with a NetWare 4.02 server. (The BNETX shell was developed for use with the original pburst.nlm and was intended for use only with NetWare 3.11.) Because BNETX was out of date, the client was not communicating properly with the server. This miscommunication caused the server to hold resources and not release them for long periods of time. The longest period of delay time experienced was two hours. During that time, all any other processes could do was wait for the server resources to be freed up.

In diagnosing the cause of a server lockup, it is sometimes useful to generate a memory image file (or core dump) that lists the entire contents of server RAM. The steps for doing this are outlined in the Appendix of this AppNote.

Steps for Troubleshooting NetWare Servers

Like any sophisticated piece of software, the NetWare operating system is very complex and dynamic. In a network, a large number of components work together to form a functional whole. Each component has one or more specific relationships to other components in the system. A network is dynamic because it is subject to change. These characteristics of a network can make it difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of problems.

By following the troubleshooting steps outlined below, you can eliminate some of the obvious problems and provide more accurate information for the support technician if needed.

Server Troubleshooting Steps

1. Gather information about the problem.
2. Understand the problem and identify probable causes.
3. Test possible solutions.
4. Use debugging tools, if necessary.
5. Resolve the problem.

Step 1. Gather Information About the Problem

When faced with a critical server issue, you should gather the following facts:

A. All error messages that are generated.
B. Complete hardware configuration of the server.
C. Disk and LAN driver information for the server.
D. Listing of current NLMs and NCF files on the server.
E. The most recent changes made to the system.
F. Events that occurred prior to the crash.

A. Error Messages. All error messages need to be gathered and analyzed near the time of the system crash. There are many places to gather error information. One of the first is the abend information screen. Another is the server console screen where some console message might still be displayed.

After the server is brought back up, the system error log is a good place to look for date and time information. Another often overlooked area is the volume error logs.

B. Hardware Configuration. List all hardware components that make up the server. Find certification and testing information on these components.

C. Disk and LAN Drivers. Put together a complete listing of LAN and disk drivers running on the server, along with their date and version information.

D. NLMs and NCF Files on the Server. Put together a complete listing of NLMs running on the server, along with their date and version information. Also obtain a listing of both the startup.ncf and autoexec.ncf files to show how the NLMs were loaded.

E. Recent Changes to the System. Network administrators should maintain a log for each server to record both hardware and software changes. These records can help determine if the system has a history of stable operation, and whether or not this is a problem seen before on this system. This information could be very important in resolving the problem.

F. Events Occurring Prior to the Crash. Gather a sampling of what activities were taking place on the network at the time of the abend or hang. These might include events such as system maintenance (backups, database rebuilds, and so on), installation or changes in software or hardware, system failures, errors and warnings. Also make a note of user activities (high workload, atypical activities such as month-end closing, and so on).

Using CONFIG.NLM. To help in the gathering of this information, Novell Support provides an NLM called config.nlm. Config.nlm creates a text file called config.txt in SYS:SYSTEM. This file contains a list of all modules loaded on the server at the time config.nlm is run. It also contains the contents of the startup.ncf, autoexec.ncf, config.sys, and autoexec.bat files for the server. A directory of SYS:SYSTEM and your local drive is also placed in config.txt.

Download this NLM from the NSD area of NetWire. The self-extracting file is named config.exe. (For more information on config.nlm, refer to Technical Information Document TID021808 entitled “CONFIG.NLM”; the Research Index at the back of this AppNote issue gives availability information on Novell technical bulletins.) To run this module, you must have the latest clib.nlm loaded on your server. (Updates to CLIB can be found on NetWire in libupx.exe.)

Step 2. Understand the Problem and Identify Probable Causes

Understanding the problem comes by answering questions about the information and facts gathered in Step 1. Some of the types of questions you might ask are the following:

Can I draw any conclusions from the information gathered?

What information from the server error log file, volume error log file, and other audit-type files, could relate to the abend message or hang?

Is the hardware configuration different from one that has been certified and tested?

How are the drivers and NLMs loaded for this hardware configuration?

Are the drivers and NLMs on the file server up to date and current?

Have all the tested and approved patches been applied to the operating system?

When did this problem occur? For example, did it occur while trying to boot the file server, and if so, at what point did the failure occur?

What can I still do at the server? For example, if the system is in a hung state, can I toggle to different screens? Is the server partially or totally locked up?

Once you have a good understanding of the problem, try to identify some probable causes by drawing conclusions from the information gathered and forming one or more hypotheses.

As an example, suppose you just finished adding a new network card to the server and the server hangs next time you bring it up. After going through the information-gathering suggestions listed above, you arrive at two possible causes:

Hypothesis 1. Since you’ve just added a new network card, there’s a pretty good chance that this is the cause of the problem.

Hypothesis 2. The server might be experiencing file corruption resulting from a power outage or drive failure.

The above questions and hypotheses are just a few examples of many that could be determined from the information provided. Step 3. Test Possible Solutions

There are several methods or techniques you can use to test your hypotheses. Following are some of the most common ones.

Apply Known Patches and Fixes. Over half of the server abends and lockups reported to Novell Support are resolved by patches that have already been written. This should be one of the first areas to check in testing possible solutions to a problem, as it can save you many hours of troubleshooting previously resolved issues.

Be sure to apply all approved and tested operating system patches, regardless of the problem. A self-extracting EXE file for each operating system is available on NetWire and on the NSEPro CD-ROM. Novell uses the following naming convention for these files: The first three digits represent the OS version, followed by PT or IT (which stand for Passed Test or In Test), and a revision number. For example, 311PTD.EXE, 312PT1.EXE, 401PT1.EXE, and so on.

Component Swapping. One technique that is often used is swapping or replacing the suspected faulty component with a similar component that is known to be good. This method is most effective when you are familiar with the expected behavior of each component and already have a good idea of what could be causing the problem.

It’s vital that you swap out only one component at a time. This technique is effective for both hardware and software problems.

Divide and Conquer. To make it easier to isolate a problem, remove components from the system. For example, unload unneeded NLMs and hardware components to simplify the system. Discuss the Problem with Others. A good way to gain valuable feedback about a problem is to discuss possible solutions with other experienced CNEs and Novell support engineers.

Step 4. Use Debugging Tools

If you have not been able to gather enough information to make conclusions about the abend or hang, the use of additional debugging tools such as network analyzers, along with a memory image from the server, can help in resolving server abends or hangs.

Network Analyzers. Network analyzers (such as Novell’s LANalyzer, Network General’s Sniffer, and so on) are great tools for gathering troubleshooting information. In many cases, knowing about the behavior of protocols and packets on the network can help speed up the resolution of the problem.

Memory Image File. If the problem still exists after you have taken all of the above steps, there is another useful tool available to you. That is to create a memory image or “core dump” of the server and send it to Novell Technical Support for analysis. This memory image provides a snapshot of your server at the time of the abend.

Note: Before sending in a memory image, make sure all the tested and approved NetWare patches have been applied to the server.

Although a memory image shows what was occurring at the time of the abend, it does not provide much of a history. Often, though not always, the memory image provides enough information for Novell engineers to correctly diagnose your problem. Sometimes they can learn enough from the memory image to duplicate the issue on an identical machine in Novell’s server lab.

The Appendix of this AppNote contains information on how to obtain a memory image file and how to send it to be analyzed.

The Information Sheet. To assist in the problem resolution process, an Information Sheet is included with this AppNote. Fill in the information requested and send it in along with your server memory image and LANalyzer or Sniffer trace. If you can recreate the problem and describe exactly what steps led up to the abend, record this on the Information Sheet as well. This information will help speed up resolution time, reduce the chance of miscommunication, and keep the technical representative focused on the problem.

If Novell’s engineers are able to correct the problem, and if the problem has been caused by a software bug in the operating system, they will debug the program and send you a patch for the problem.

Step 5. Resolve the Problem

Once the problem has been isolated and you have proven your hypothesis correct, it is time to resolve the issue. For software issues, you can resolve problems with patches, workarounds, new drivers, and so on. For hardware, repair or replacement are the options.

The troubleshooting steps outlined above can be used for most abend errors on a NetWare server. If these steps do not resolve the problem, contact your Novell Authorized Dealer or Novell Technical Support for assistance.

Note: I added this document is just for my reference

1. Map a drive to the SYS: volume on your Managed Server
2. Run the install program from your PC
3. Reply to the prompts to select install directories
4. From the Netware console, add a search path SEARCH ADD SYS:/MSHSM/ or whatever directory you used
5. Enter MSSTART to start up the MS-HSM NLM(you use MSSTOP to stop MSHSM)

Apart from that we will be having the “setup” file under GUI folder is going to be used to install the HMS on Windows client machine. This will display you all the feature for Migrations/demigrations/Deletions and lot more on a Netware server from Windows.

Leggendo vari post su internet, riguardo ha nuovo S.O. di Casa Microsoft mi sono fatto molte domande, non è questa la sede per palare se sia meglio o peggio oppure un “Windows Me il ritorno”, che poi non era male su un P4 ha 1.7 dal 2001 girava ancora sino a ieri. Senza essere mai formattato!  Mi è sorta questa domanda “Chi conosce oggi che cos’è l’Informatica?” Credo sia sconosciuta hai più, soprattutto hai più giovani, anche se usano la tecnologia: usare è una cosa, fare, produrre gestire… altra.

L’informatica non è moda, l’informatica non è oggetto, l’informatica non è un sopramobile, e soprattutto il PC non è un elettrodomestico, non è un reparto del CDS-Euronics o di altri rivenditori di prodotti elettrodomestici, che dovrebbero scriverci rivendita di prodotti Hardware e Software e affini.

Informatica definizione da Wikipedia (http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Informatica):

“L’informatica è una scienza interdisciplinare che riguarda tutti gli aspetti del trattamento dell’informazione mediante procedure automatizzabili. L’etimologia italiana della parola “informatica” proviene dalla lingua francese, dalla compressione di inform (ation electronique ou autom)atique, e sicuramente Philippe Dreyfus, che per primo utilizza nel 1962 il termine informatique (informatica) voleva significare la gestione automatica dell’informazione mediante calcolatore (naturale o artificiale). é composta di hardware e software”

L’informatica seria non è quella dei negozi di “informatica” che rivendono solo hardware, e il software nemmeno lo vendono o non sanno cosa sia, non conoscono nemmeno cos’è un comando Ole , quella della vox populi vox dei,  “mi hanno detto che non va, si fa cosi ecc., lo abbiamo letto su internet in un forum”, tutti sembrano sapientoni, ma scommetto che nessuno di quelli, che oggi anche si trova ha occupare posti di lavoro che non dovrebbe occupare, nemmeno conosce il sistema binario e l’algebra di boole.

Un prodotto software può essere meglio o peggio di un vecchio o nuovo prodotto, ma in passato hai tempi in cui nessuno nemmeno sapeva cosa era un server o una rete e non conoscevano nemmeno il protocollo TCP/IP, Apple Talk, NWlinkIPX, NETBios, i livelli OSI, l’NDIS ecc con Windows NT/Unix Netware si aveva la certezza che solo su hardware compatibile le performance dichiarate, non c’era plug and play … e le periferiche andavano settate a mano ha conoscenza, del sistemista o assemblatore, esisteva la HCL (hardware compatibility list). La libertà di assemblare e vendere prodotti non compatibili a basso prezzo o con driver di periferica non certificati e non testati ha prodotto un effetto di vendita e diffusione, ma a danno di performance e ottimizzazione dei driver di periferiche bios e Hardware che poi portano decadimento delle prestazioni. L’assemblaggio di sistemi non equilibrati o non necessariamente ottimizzati per il S.O. porta ha decadimento delle performance, alcuni produttori di hardware si ostinano ha vendere prodotti non conformi come configurazioni e riempiono di utilità software, non ottimizzato, il Pc specialmente il notebook.

Microsoft ha tentato in vano con WHQL di certificare il driver,  ma  l’hardware, le schede madri chi le certifica, il Bios? In commercio ci sono molti prodotti non certificati come modem ISDN e 56k schede di rete ecc schede video con compatibili con le specifiche PCI,  chi le conosce? Scometto nessuno dei rivenditori di pc e di coloro che fanno assistenza. Driver scritti male che occupano 8 mega di ram per non fare niente…. Overclockcare la GPU??? ma… ( ATI Catalist… in primis)

In passato venivano commercializzati periferiche dichiarate compatibili sulla carta alle specifiche ACPI ma solo con un aggiornamento Bios rilasciato successivamente alla commercializzazione del prodotto, un esempio che posso citare è Scheda Madre Soyo molto diffuse in quegli anni 1998 al 2001. Non avevano il supporto ACPI pienamente compatibile e in base all’IRQ settato si riconfigurava il S.O. (ACPI per impostazione di specifiche utilizza IRQ 9 ma in realtà non era utilizzato ed il S.O. ACPI Compliant come Win98, non lo riconosceva completamente ed ha detta di molti guru era colpa di MS. Ma guarda caso che le specifiche ACPI le ha create proprio MS, Intel Hp Phoenix ed altri produttori nel 1996 trasferite poi nel PC98 Designer Guide con le nuove Schede ATX.

Ancora oggi questo assemblaggio errato di componentistica e specifiche e in voga, un esempio lampante il mio Notebook ha il processore Intel T5600 con supporto per la Virtualizzazione Hardware ma non è attivo, il produttore ha risposto che al momento non è disponibile nessun aggiornamento al riguardo, il Notebook è stato prodotto/acquistato nel marzo del 2007 il processore Intel è di produzione 2005-2006, credo che il produttore abbia avuto il tempo di aggiornare le periferiche e i bios a seconda delle configurazioni vendute, non è la serie consumer ma quella dedicata ha professionisti e imprese, le configurazioni sono soggette al cambiamento ok, ma al meno mi aspetterei dai produttori di un certo livello come HP Acer e Asus ed altri un migliore supporto post vendita con bios aggiornati e non alle versioni Beta, almeno per quanto riguarda i prodotti professionali.

Per molti poi l’Informatica è:  e-mule, Torrent Mp3 e divx, ipod. copie pirata ecc.

Quando ti presenti da un cliente e gli prospetti un progetto informatico non sa nemmeno di cosa parli o non ha le conoscenze basilari per giudicare con obiettività la proposta. Perché? Il mondo che lui vede dell’informatica è soltanto quello del pc di casa con annesi e connessi e come tale è. Non hanno la minima conoscenza di cosa sia un sistema informativo come si costruisce come si mantiene  in efficenza e le tecnologie che ci stanno dietro, ben diverse dal pc di casa.

Le figure professionali dell’informatica sono essenzialmente quattro:

• Analista
• Programmatore
• Sistemista
• Operatore (Utente)

L’unica che riguarda la massa generale è Operatore…  

Alla domanda che lavoro fai? Come rispondereste voi? Ad oggi sono un factotum chiedimi quello che voi… se faccio grafica pubblicitaria, abbigliamento professionale, posso fare anche siti web… non sono pubblicità?…. Allora posso vendere pure PC e dare supporto… tanto c’è internet… prodotti software ecc.?

Forse allora ho capito perché in Italia non si riesce ha creare professioni e professionalità, in questo settore.

I performed a Groupwise 6.5 to 7.0.3 upgrade this weekend on the domain and post office servers, and wrote a quick script to backup the agent configuration files.  It’s not a pretty script, but I wrote it in about 10 minutes and it worked on all my Netware servers.  I call this script part I since it only deals with files affected by my upgrade, which are all located on the sys volume.  I upgrade the gateways in two weeks, so I’ll backup the configuration files in the domain directories then.

You need to set SERVERNAME, SERVERVOL, BKUPLOC and BKUPDIR. If I’ve missed any files, please let me know and I’ll add them to the list.

@echo off
REM script to backup Groupwise configuration files from Netware server
REM replace SERVERNAME with the name of your Netware/Groupwise server
SET SERVERNAME=\\grpwise4
SET SYSVOL=sys
REM replace SERVERVOL with the name of the volume to write the backup files to
SET SERVERVOL=vol1
REM SERVERPATH is combination of server and volume name in \\server\vol\ format
SET SERVERPATH=%SERVERNAME%\%SERVERVOL%
REM SYSVOLPATH is combination of server and volume name in \\server\sys\ format
SET SYSVOLPATH=%SERVERNAME%\%SYSVOL%
REM APACHEAPTH is sys:\apache2 Apache2 web server directory
SET APACHEPATH=%SERVERNAME%\%SYSVOL%\Apache2
REM NOVELLPATH is sys:\novell directory
SET NOVELLPATH=%SERVERNAME%\%SYSVOL%\Novell
REM TOMCATPATH is sys:\tomcat\4 directory
SET TOMCATPATH=%SERVERNAME%\%SYSVOL%\tomcat\4
REM BKUPLOC is the directory to save backup files to
REM this script has no error checking, so the directory's existance will probably matter
SET BKUPLOC=gw65bkup
REM BKUPDIR is the full path to the backup directory
SET BKUPDIR=%serverpath%\%bkuploc%
REM Create the backup directory
md %bkupdir%
REM copy sys:\system\ config files
md %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\*.mta %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\*.poa %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\*.waa %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\*.cfg %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\*.ncf %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\*.xml %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\*.bin %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\autoexec.ncf %bkupdir%\system
REM copy important Apache files
md %bkupdir%\apache2\conf
copy %apachepath%\conf\*.* %bkupdir%\apache2\conf
REM copy important Tomcat files
md %bkupdir%\tomcat\4\conf
copy %tomcatpath%\conf\*.* %bkupdir%\tomcat\4\conf
REM copy important Webaccess files
md %bkupdir%\novell\webaccess\conf
copy %novellpath%\webaccess\*.* %bkupdir%\novell\webaccess
REM copy important Groupwise NLMs from sys:\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\dbcopy.nlm %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\ex*.nlm %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\gw*.nlm %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\ldap*.nlm %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\tsa*.nlm %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\scc*.nlm %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\vs*.nlm %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\wvc*.nlm %bkupdir%\system
copy %sysvolpath%\system\xg*.nlm %bkupdir%\system