NDS Tree issues

[chetjohnson]

We recently experienced a severe crash which destroyed data on our server. The severity of the crash included multiple port failure on one of the RAID controllers. To add insult to injury we lost the boot partition of the system.

During the post crash reconstruction we took the opportunity to install a fresh version of Netware 5.1. The main server came back on line and we restored from Tape all the files with minimal impact (half day loss of data). However, our second server (GroupWise and internet access) does not recognize the tree. We cannot get it to attach to the primary server.

Any suggestions?

Chet

 

[TheLad]

Have you just got the two servers in your NDS? Did you remove the crashed server from the tree and then reinstall the newly built server back into the tree? If you have just installed the new server with the same tree name then your servers will not talk as they are not physically in the same directory. -----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[chetjohnson]

We created a totally new server and tree. The server that crashed was the primary server.

We had no way of logging in and communicating to the secondary server. We attempted to reconfigure the secondary server to change the replica information, but have been unsuccessful.

Primary server is Netware 5.1, secondary server is 4.11 running BorderManager 3.5 and GroupWise 5.2.

I know it has to be something obvious, but cannot pin it down.

 

[TheLad]

Then you have done exactly what I said you shouldn't do. Now, you have two seperate servers in two seperate NDS trees. They may be called the same tree name, but they are two entirely seperate directories.

Basically, you are in big trouble here. You will probably have to rebuild your 4.11 server back into the "new" tree.

As I said before, you cannot just rebuild a server giving it the same tree name as an existing tree - it just does not work like that. You have to install the new server into the existing tree. If you don't have any replicas on your 4.11 server, a rebuild of that server is the only option as all of your NDS data on that server has been lost. -----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[gcvan]

I hope it is not to late to help you here. If you have not progressed to far with new information going into your rebuilt 5.1 server then there is hope for you. Novell has pretty good intructions in their knowledge base on how to remove a dead server from your tree and the procedures for reinserting the rebuilt/replaced server into the tree.
This involves creating a dummy tree and a temporary server. I have had to do this a couple of times over the last 4 years when servers have failed due to hardware problems. In both cases I was successful. Novell's TIDs (Technical Information Documents) are free and a good source when problems like this arise.
Naturally, it is very important to have good backups.
Good luck.

 

[marsd]

This is why nds and novell's proprietary solutions are so buggy and require several gigs of tids.
The nds software is badly written IMO and ties you into a model where disaster recovery is more difficult than it needs to be.

 

[TheLad]

So marshd - what is your preferred operating system? I wonder why if NDS is so buggy as you put it, Microsoft have created a poor copy of NDS and called it AD? -----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[marsd]

No offense..
Try ldap, it's nds without all the bells and whistles,
even if it takes a little work and doesn't have the neat systool integration that nds has off the bat. Also it has
an open api and is fairly easy to snap web interfaces
on to to handle admin tasks.

I like netware and was a netware admin for a small shop for three years for 3-6 machines, ranging from a dedicated proxy/firewall using Border Manager 3.5(5.1), to an ancient db/file server for accounting.

However many times I would have issues with upgrades that
were so bugged out that I could only do them when nobody
relied on that particular server.(very rarely of course)

NDS tree/tool versioning is a huge hassle for upgrades and
there are hundreds of little gotchas, including licences
of course and the broken way novell allows you to install without a solid dependency system till you have to hunt
for the issues.

The OP's problem is familiar to me..being able to transparently perform an install and then realizing
that you can't do it that way is very familiar to
netware admins. You must first hunt through the support connection CD's and online tids till you have whatever
info is available on the process and then prepare for
issues to arise regardless. Only with netware have I ever
had a depth of preparation like this fail.

To answer your question:
Free BSD or Linux performs all critical internet services.
I still like netware in LAN, provided the user base is
small-medium. I've never used MS products as servers for
anything crucial.

 

[TheLad]

I work for a company that has 375 servers in their NDS. Yes, there are issues (or challenges as we call them) but nothing that we can't sort out ourselves.

We have recently upgraded all of our servers to SP5 and DS 85.27c and out of our 375 servers, we had 1 problem that was easily fixed.

Novell provide one of the better online Support websites and that is there so that if any customer gets issues, they can search the website and get a fix 99% of the time. I have very rarely come across problems installing NetWare as I have always installed NetWare on decent supported hardware. You will only get issues if you use hardware that is not properly supported.

Having supported NetWare in large organizations for 5 years or more now, I have a good in-depth knowledge of how to problem-solve certain problems, however you learn to do this over time and with all operating systems. For your situation, LDAP maybe a preferred path to take, in my current environment, NDS is definately the daddy. -----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[marsd]

I disagree with your analysis, but I do agree that
novell has an excellent support site..why?
Because they need it. No insult intended, but it's true.

They have a gigantic repository of complicated fixes for
versioning skew, crypto issues(very annoying), licensing
issues and the tie-in with nds means that for every overt
fault there is probably a subtle dependency in nds somewhere that may break during a failure.
(ex:Corrupted cache volume caused by an abend..nds objects representing the cache volumes must be recreated...)

As I said I prefer nds for administrating users and as
a file and db server netware is hard to beat.
Otherwise up through 5.1(my last administered flavor),
the tcp implementation and services were lacking, nat
was broken in many different ways, and the http and dns proxies both suffered from debilitating, brain dead,
coding injuries that made continual patching necessary.

 

[TheLad]

God help you if you start supporting Microsoft products then! You'll tear your hair out! -----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[marsd]

yeah, I keep away from that, no hair to spare