NETX/VLM- What are they? 3

[butchrecon]

Can some one tell me what NETX and VLM are and how the interoperate with the Windows environment? I deal very little with Novell and see these terms pop up all the time. I am studying for my MCSE in Windows 2000 and knowing what NETX/VLM are would help out greatly. Thank You!


Jim

 

[DrGreen26]

Ok, netx and VLM, these are associated with an old Novell Client. VLM's are Virtual Loadable Modules, and I forget what NETX stands for. For the most part, the newer Novell client uses NLM's, Netware Loadable Modules...

Since you are studying for your 2000 MCSE, I do recommend that you make yourself well versed in both technologies. I am Certified in Novell but work a lot with Both platforms on a single network. Novell has its place in File, Print and Net Security (Not to mention that overall speed is very nice), Micrsoft is used for Small to Medium size application and Database servers, (Tends to not have the greates security), and Unix/Linux platforms work very well for large databases.

I would also recommend you get familiar with E-directoy which is a Novell product.. E-directory is NDS for nultiple platforms..Runs on SOlaris, Linux, NT 4/2000, TRU64, AS400 and soon AIX...

Interpret this how you will, but do try to learn a lot about the different platforms as it would enhance your skills and provide a brighter future career wise.

I am rambling, 11 years of this stuff will do it to you..

HTH


Mark C. Greenwood, CNE
m_jgreenwood@yahoo.com

CNE 4.11 and CNE 5 certified. BS Degree in MIS. Working in the industry for 8 years.

I work with NT servers, NDS for NT as well.

 

[butchrecon]

Thanks for the advice. I will learn more about Novell. Does any one know what NETX stands for?

 

[MDonato]

To add a bit to Mark's reply, NETX and VLM were used with the old ODI set of drivers from novell. The VLM client was added with NetWare 4.x and the advent of NDS. With a VLM client, you could load actual files with a .vlm extension and reference these in your net.cfg file to allow for greater functionality and control of the client. The common
way to use these clients was to load the Link Support Layer by loading lsl.com, then the ODI driver for your particular network card (ne2000.com or 3c90x.com or ibmfe.com ...) Next would be the binding of the protocol with the ipxodi.com file, and finally you would load either netx.exe or vlm.exe depending on which you were using. To make the whole thing work, you needed a net.cfg file which contained information about your odi NIC driver (irq, port address and so on) Also, you could place preferred tree and preferred server information and so on.....

To go back even further with netx.exe, there used to be drivers that you could load just ipx and netx to function, but I don't remember much about it (I seem to have blocked that from my memory for some reason).

Oh yeah, Microsoft's Client for NetWare in Win9x is based on the VLM client, but I never use it, I get more functionality out of Novell's Client32.

Well, I hope this helps, and good luck!

-Mike
Michael A. Dontato MCNE, MCSE, CCA
mdonato@site-technologies.com

http://www.site-technologies.com

 

[TheBoySmith]

In the good old days you had to create your ipx using wsgen.exe. You then used netx.com as the redirector. Next cam netx.exe. This was used will ipxodi etc etc. Netx.exe allowed connection to nds or bindery. Lee Smith
Xenon Network Services
Snr. Technical Support
LSmith@xenon-uk.co.uk