Novell Newbie 1

[NTZ]

I’m relatively new to Novell and I have a few questions to ask. My server is a Pentium running at 90 MHz and it is running 3.12 all of the questions relate to it. My first set of question relate to security risks with 3.12. Are there any security riskd with 3.12? Are there patches for those risks? Where could I get those patches? I’m connecting my network to an internet connection and I’m worried about the security of the data on the Novell server. I have a hardware firewall which I have configured, but their not 100% reliable.

Should I upgrade to a newer version of Novell? I’m mainly interested in file and printer sharing; would 4.0 or 5.0 help me? Would 4.0 or 5.0 allow me to add a virus checker to the server?

 

[cderow]

IMHO, I would upgrade to at least 5.0. If you are looking for an anti-virus program, we run Inoculan here and it works just fine. There are other solutions out there though. I hear Norton makes a good anit-virus program for Netware as well.

You can get all Novell patches at

http://www.novell.com.

Just go to Support and scroll down to Downloads. Or do a search through either the knowledge base or just a general search for patches. I don't know if Novell still supports NW3, but it's worth a shot.

As for security, depending on how you configured it, the firewall should be sufficient.

 

[Provogeek]

Novell doesn't support NW3.x anymore.

As far as a security risk? Only the workstations will be a problem. The server will be fine from Internet attacks, it may be old, but 3.x still rocks. The system only knows IPX, IP has to be encapsulated, and you can't even us it to attach to the server (unless you have the NetWare/IP product). So no one will be able to hack into it from the Internet.

However, they can compromise the workstation and access any network drives the workstation has mapped.

The hardware you have may or may not run 4.x (which is also no longer supported), but it will not run 5.1 very well, and 6.0 won't even install onto a P90. So if your looking to upgrade, expect it to cost no less than 8 thousand (depends on number of users).

This is one of those situations that you think about what do you want to do, how much work do you want it to be, how much do you want to spend to maintain it, and how much to you want to spend on downtime? Brent Schmidt CNE, Network +
Senior Network Engineer
KIS Computer Center -

http://www.kiscc.com

East Bay, California; USA

 

[NTZ]

Thank you both cderow and Provogeek. Although I still haven’t decided whether to upgrade or not I feel like I have a lot of information to help me deicide. It was great to here the Internet risks of Novell 3. Thanks Again.