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NetWare 5.1

author-image
PCQ Bureau
New Update

Though this is only a 0.1

upgrade in version, the result actually contains lots of new features. The

latest release of NetWare bundles a lot of goodies, most of which are aimed

at smoother administration and better Internet connectivity. For smoother

administration, the operating system now has a browser-based management

tool. Better Net connectivity is achieved through lots of bundled software,

and some new features.

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We received an evaluation set

consisting of five CDs which had the OS, online documentation, Oracle 8i

with a five-user license, and IBM WebSphere. One of the CDs has complete

online documentation for the OS.

The operating system uses a

Java-based program called the NetWare Deployment Manager to help you prepare

your network and servers for installing NetWare 5.1. Though we used a PII

client machine, the CD took a while to load and perform its operations, but

the information provided was good. It clearly lists the steps that you

should perform to either install or upgrade to NetWare 5.1.

Memory requirements have gone

up, and NetWare 5.1 recommends that you upgrade to at least 128 MB for basic

installation. Requirements are even higher if you plan to use the other

applications bundled with it. Installation is easy, except that you need to

load DOS drivers for the CD-drive on your NetWare server. The rest is a

breeze. It automatically detects all hardware devices on your server and

loads the necessary drivers. The initial installation uses the typical

NetWare command line blue-colored interface, but the rest is GUI-based.

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The server has a lot of new

components to select during the installation. By default, it installs Novell

Distributed Print Services, the NetWare Enterprise Web server, and an FTP

server. Additional components include a news server, and IBM WebSphere Web

application deployment server that requires at least 256 MB RAM. It also

includes a NetWare Web search component for indexing of Web data, and DNS

and DHCP services. There’s the Novell Internet Access Server for remote

connectivity, and a WAN traffic manager. The next component is an

interesting one. It’s called the Multimedia server, and lets you place

audio/video files on your NetWare server for access through a browser. More

on this later.

All components are configured

during installation itself. It assigns port numbers to all your intranet

services ports like 80 for the default Web server, 443 for the secure Web

server, 119 for the news server, etc.

DNS and DHCP services are

bundled together and managed through a separate management console that you

need to set up. The console can also be invoked through the NetWare

Administrator utility, and is pretty extensive, with a lot of configuration

options. Unfortunately, the help files in the DNS/DHCP management console

are not as detailed. For example, they don’t mention which module to load

at the server console for enabling a particular service. An option to load

or unload these modules from the management console itself would also make

life much easier. NetWare 5.1 supports Dynamic DNS. This allows automatic

updating of A records and pointer records—two important DNS parameters—for

IP address ranges, predefined by the administrator. In regular DNS systems,

these parameters had to be manually updated, which would often cause

configuration errors. Dynamic DNS takes care of this. Similarly, the DHCP

service in NetWare allows you to specify multiple IP address pool ranges and

subnet masks.

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We now come to the really

neat part of NetWare 5.1—its multimedia server. You can store audio/video

files in a specific directory on your NetWare server, which all users can

access from their machines. It supports all the popular file formats

including WAV, MP3, and Real Video, and uses the Real Time Streaming

Protocol (RTSP) to stream audio/video over the network. So you’ll need a

player that supports this protocol at the client end. Currently, Real Player

from Real Networks supports this, and can be freely downloaded from their

Website at www.real.com. Obviously, the

performance of the server depends on the traffic on your network and the

number of clients accessing it. From the server end, you can regulate data

being streamed to a client, and control the number of clients that can login

simultaneously.

The FTP server works with the NDS and works

very well. You can control FTP access at container level or user level. So

for example, you can control access by a complete group, or to specific

users. It also has some really good security features. For example, if a

user tries to login with an incorrect password more than once, he gets

marked.

The Web Manager feature in

NetWare 5.1 is also good. It lets you manage most of the new services in

NetWare through a Web browser. This includes the NetWare Enterprise Web

server, news, FTP, and multimedia servers. Besides these, you can also

configure the NetWare Management Portal, and even the Novell Directory

Services. The interface is easy to use, and allows most of the configuration

options. In case of NDS, you can view all the users and groups on your

network, create and delete users, change passwords, etc. It works over a

secure connection and a different port number, so you have to use HTTPS

instead of HTTP in your Web browser to access this. Access is restricted by

username and password.

Two things that we couldn’t

check out were Oracle 8i and IBM WebSphere server. You need at least 512 MB

of RAM on the server to be able to put these into action. Overall, 5.1 is

more than a small upgrade, and offers a lot of new features, making it a

good choice for intranets and for deploying Web applications.

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