Netware 5.0 and 5.1 comparison

[glparker]

Hi, someone recently told me that there are major differences between Netware versions 5.0 and 5.1. Can someone please outline what the main differences are??

 

[ChipsAhoy]

Go to:

http://www.novell.com/documentation...umentation/lg/nw51/admnsenu/data/a2fesgz.html

It provides detailed documentation

 

[glparker]

Great thanks for that. After reading that info, it looks to me like 5.1 has most of what 5.0 has - but with a bit more stability. Am I right?

 

[Psychoid]

Hi.
5.1 is a more refined product (as any post .0 release should be) with more mature products and management tools (and the GUI actually works without taking a week to load).

As for stability, I really wouldn't say that 5.1 has much of an advantage over 5 since they are essentially the same core OS. It may appear more stable, though, because some programs work much better with 5.1. ArcServe was notoriously buggy when they released the version for NW5; it got slightly less buggy by the time 5.1 shipped.

5.0 and 5.1 both are descendants of an OS that is legendary for its stability and reliability, so I'd take either of them over an OS from *a-certain-other* vendor.

Likewise, NW6 builds on the strengths of 5 & 5.1 and adds much better web services and features. The core functionality, though, is still built on the rock-solid roots of previous versions of NetWare and NDS. ------------
Bill
Consultant / Network Engineer
CNE, CCNA

 

[glparker]

Hi,

Thanks for that. I accept the fact that 5.1 is a more refined product, but what I was told was that there are quite major differences between 5.0 and 5.1. Refinments/fine-tuning don't sound to me like "major" differences. I know 5.0 pretty well. Is it a steep learning curve if I upgrade it to 5.1?? Is the learning curve just as steep if I go from 5.0 to 6.0, compared to going from 5.1 to 6.0?

When you say NW6 adds much better web services and features, do you mean that it is a better OS for using as a corporate web-server, or do you mean that all the administration functions are "webefied", or do you mean that end-users can access files/folders/volumes/authentication via a web-browser? For example, if I had a NW6 server with a public IP address (or a NAT address), can my users authenticate to NDS and access their files etc via standard web-browser from home or from within the network?

 

[Psychoid]

Hi again.
My experience with 5.0 & 5.1 is that they are both kick-butt file & print servers. Obviously, 5.1 is better, but I wouldn't say that it was radically better.

The learning curve from 5.0 to 5.1 isn't that bad -- essentially the things that were introduced in 5.0 just work better. The learning curve from 5.x to 6.0 is slightly more complicated because of the web services. I admit that I haven't conquered them yet, but I'm getting there. Actually, I'm impressed that Novell doesn't just completely re-write their OS every 3 years; they introduce innovations without breaking everything else (usually). I can really only think of two times over the last 15 years that Novell radically changed the OS -- 1)the introduction of NDS in version 4.10 and 2)the introduction of real IP with NetWare 5.

As for the web services of NW6, I'll try to answer your questions.
1) NetWare 6 now comes bundled with Apache web server, which runs around 60% of the web sites in existence. I think that this is a big step for two reasons -- Apache is the defacto standard web server and NetWare's old web server was made by Netscape, which has ceased its development. I have a few clients who are running their corporate web sites on the NetWare Apache web server & we haven't seen any problems yet. Running side-by-side with Apache is the Tomcat servlet engine. I'm not a developer, so I can't speak of its merit; it does work, though, which is a big bonus.
2) The administration functions are "webified" more than they were with 5.1. I believe that Novell is heading in the direction of doing all administration through a web browser & scrapping ConsoleOne. I don't have any confirmation for this, though. I particularly like the Remote Manager because I can use it to completely manage a server from anywhere.
3) To answer your question about remote access, I'll tell you about what I just set up in my home & how I use it. Beware, though, because this might get lengthy.

I have a broadband connection with 1 dynamic IP address and an inexpensive firewall that does NAT for my internal hosts. I have a dynamic DNS account so I can get to my boxes when my ISP changes my IP address.

Because I only have 1 IP address, I have to set up my NetWare web services to use ports other than the usual 80 and 443 and have set up rules for my firewall to forward such traffic.

I have 2 servers -- a Netware 6 box running the web services and a Linux box running eDirectory and Apache.

The Linux box runs my wife's web site, so I'm not allowed to blow it up It also has eDirectory installed & I'm working on getting her web users to authenticate against eDirectory... but that's another story.

My NetWare 6 box has iPrint/NDPS, WebAccess, iFolder, NetStorage, and the administration tools -- Remote Manager, iMonitor, etc.

With the above setup, I can:
1) Send print jobs to my home printer via iPrint. We use this instead of a fax machine.
2) Using WebAccess, I provide a portal for our family members to login to eDirectory and get to my wife's web site. I plan to also give them access to iFolder & maybe Groupwise, which will also be available through WebAccess.
3) I use iFolder to keep my work & personal documents synchronized between my server & my laptop. This is nice for organizational purposes and prevents a disaster if my laptop ever crashes.
4) With NetStorage, I can open a web browser from anywhere, point it to my server, authenticate to eDirectory, & get to my files.
5) I can manage my NetWare server from anywhere with a web browser. This includes the ability to do SET commands, load & unload NLMs, view the console, etc.

If you've read this far, you must be tired, so go take a break.

Good luck


------------
Bill
Consultant / Network Engineer
CNE, CCNA

 

[glparker]

Thanks Bill.

I've taken my break as you suggested and now have a few questions:

1) I take it that your firewall translates your internal private IP addresses to that single public IP addr that your ISP provides you? Does your firewall perform some sort of DNS lookup to figure out what your public IP address happens to be?

2) You say you have a dynamic DNS account. Is your ISP handling your DNS or are you running Novell DNS or Bind on your linux box?

3)Does Netware 6.0's DNS handle dynamic updates?

4)The way I read it, you're running the Master NDS/eDirectory replica on the linux box. Do you have a read/write replica on the NW6 box? Why don't you put the Master on the NW6 box and the read/write on the linux box?

5)When you authenticate to your eDirectory remotely, will it try to apply Zenworks policies and application objects to your remote PC? Do you need to put something into the user's container's login script telling it not to run NAL/NALExplorer if they logging in remotely?

 

[Psychoid]

My firewall does address translation for my servers/internal hosts. It doesn't do any sort of DNS lookup, but allows such traffic from the internal network to go through.

I'm currently running BIND on my Linux box, but I will change over to NetWare DNS soon

NetWare 6 does dynamic DNS

I'm actually running the master on my NetWare box and a read/write on the Linux box. I did have it on Linux once just because I thought that was cool

I'm relatively certain that none of the web access components have anything to do with ZEN. The only exception to this might be Net Drive, but I'm not sure.

------------
Bill
Consultant / Network Engineer
CNE, CCNA