Win NT 4 to Novell NetWare 5.x

Novell has a utility called the NetWare Migration Wizard 4that let’s you migrate everything from a Win NT server to a NetWare 5.xserver. This is similar to the utility that let’s you migrate from NetWare 3.xto NetWare 4 or 5. It can be freely downloaded from Novell’s website (www.novell.com/products/migrationwizard), and is 9.63 MB in size.

Getting started

For the migration, you’ll need to setup NetWare 5.x on aseparate machine and install the latest Novell Client 4.7 on the Win NT serveryou want to migrate from. You’ll also need to install Service Pack 6 on the NTserver, else the migration utility won’t run. The Novell client puts its ownlogin screen in Win NT and let’s you login to both NT and the NetWare serversimultaneously. You can choose to login only to Win NT by checking on the"workstation only" checkbox on the login screen. We chose this option,as it was faster. After you’ve logged into the NT server, login to the NetWareserver from the NT console and run the Migration utility. It creates its ownprogram group in the Start Menu.

The migration utility is pretty easy to use. First you haveto give your migration project a name, which will then be stored in MS AccessMDB type of file. Next, you have to identify the destination Novell DirectoryServices (NDS) tree where everything will be migrated. This will be on theNetWare 5.x server you’re migrating to.

The migration wizard will then search for matching user namesin the NDS tree. It will ask you for a starting point in the tree for performingthe search. The starting point is basically the NDS Container object. It willthen display a list of all matching users in the Win NT domain and the NDS tree.If you find any in the list, then it’s better to first change their user namesso that they don’t get over written during the migration.

Next, the wizard displays a window that’s split into twopanes. The left pane contains all objects in your Win NT domain, while the rightpane contains all the NDS tree objects. Examples of these objects includeservers, workstations, users, directories, organizational units, and volumes.

To migrate, you can drag an object from the left pane to anNDS container in the right pane. The wizard gives you an option to see whetherthe migration will be successful before you do it. Once you’re satisfied, youcan proceed with the migration, and it will copy all the objects to the NDStree. Since the wizard copies everything, it doesn’t affect the Win NT serverin any way. So the users on your network will not get affected during themigration process.

Unfortunately, the migration process doesn’t copy user passwords. So the last step in migration involves changing all user passwords toone password. You can leave the space for the password blank or provide adefault one. After the migration, all users will have to change their passwords.All other object rights that were defined in Win NT are translated into thecorresponding rights in the NDS tree. So if you had different user groups in WinNT, they all get transferred in the NDS tree with the same rights.

The clients

Just as in any migration, you’ll have to change all theclients on your network to the Novell 32-bit client for NetWare in this one aswell. Alternatively, you can also install the Microsoft client for NetWarenetworks. Both clients come bundled with their respective operating systems. Ineither case, if you have a lot of users on your network, this will be a timeconsuming process. Plus, if you’ve had to change any of the NT user names thatwere causing a mismatch in the NDS tree, then the respective users will have tobe informed. Apart from this, users will also have to be informed to changetheir passwords.

Anil Chopra and Sanjay Majumdar