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Reading Is Fundamental

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NetWare 3.2: No Network Amateur, Sneak Previews, May 1, 1998 Integrating NetWare And Windows NT, Workshops, June 15, 1998 NetWare For Small Business 4.11: Perfect For Running Small Shops, Workgroup Computing, June 15, 1998 NOS Wars­Is NetWare 5 Too Little or Just Too Early?, Reviews, December 1, 1998

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Just don't skimp on that research, because the road to NetWare 5 is complex: Expect to spend 80 percent of your time preparing for the upgrade and only 20 percent actually doing it. The best place to start is by reading the guidebooks listed in "Reading Is Fundamental" . Because so much good information has been written about the migration to NetWare 5, this article concentrates on tips we've discovered while earning our NetWare 5 stripes at Syracuse University. We began exploring NetWare 5 early in its beta cycle and upgraded a number of the university's older NetWare servers to NetWare 5 shortly after the OS shipped.

One important note: If you support Macintosh users via NetWare, you simply cannot come along for the ride, at least not yet. Novell has dropped native support for Macintosh clients in NetWare 5 and has contracted Prosoft Engineering (www.prosofteng.com) to provide Macintosh support. By the time you read this, Prosoft may have released AFP (AppleTalk File Protocol) and ATPS (AppleTalk Print Services) NLMs for NetWare 5.

Travel Insurance It's always a good idea to have insurance before you begin a project of this size and complexity. Start by using an SMS (Storage Management Services) -compliant backup utility to make a few full backups of the server. If the upgrade fails, you can restore your old system from tape.

Also, do some housecleaning. If you're upgrading a 3.x server, delete old bindery objects, such as users, groups, print servers and queues. Run Bindfix to check all the records in the bindery and clean up unnecessary mail directories in the SYS volume. If you're upgrading a 4.1x server, run DSRepair using the unattended full repair option. Also from DSRepair, get a report on NDS synchronization status and, using the advanced options, check external references. If any problems are reported, fix them now.

Run Vrepair on all of your volumes, including the SYS volume. Running Vrepair on the SYS volume is easier if you preload Vrepair and any of the V_namespace files you need prior to dismounting the SYS volume. To find out which V_namespace files you need, type volumes at the console prompt and record the namespaces that are listed for the SYS volume. Preload the namespace files that are needed by typing load V_namespace at the console prompt. Replace namespace with the actual namespace name--MAC, OS2, LONG, or NFS.

You'll need to apply SP 6 (Service Pack 6) or later to all NetWare 4.11 servers, and DS410N or later to all 4.10 servers residing in the same tree as your new NetWare 5 server. These updates ensure directory services compatibility between the different versions of the OS. Complete this step before you begin the NetWare 5 upgrade. Novell recommends upgrading the server that holds the master replica of the root partition, then upgrading all other servers holding replicas of the root. After you apply SP6 to the master of the root and have rebooted the system, type load setupnls and follow the on-screen instructions to extend the schema for compatibility with the new licensing model used by NetWare 5.