Mounting a Novell Netware NWFS filesystem

[Greg Freemyer]

Resend, the below bounced the first time?

All,
I have a couple of old Netware drives I need to take a quick look at.
Just need to see how old the files etc. are on the drives so a
read-only mount is fine.
I've been told it is supposed to work, but looking at "man mount" I
don't see a way to specify the NWFS filesystem. Is there a standard
way to do this.
Thanks
Greg
--
Greg Freemyer
The Norcross Group
Forensics for the 21st Century

[Greg Freemyer]

Catherine,

Is there an easy way for me to determine if these are NSS volumes or
traditional volumes? I suspect traditional since my notes say the
computer had been running Netware 3.12. But I don't know when NSS
became common.

Also, I don't currently have SLES nor OES, but this may give me enough
reason to upgrade.

Thanks
Greg

If you are using Linux for Open Enterprise Server, NSS volumes are
supported, but NetWare traditional volumes are not. NSS requires Open
Enterprise Server; you cannot set up NSS volumes on straight SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server only.
1) Make sure that the NSS services are loaded and running. In YaST, click
System > Runlevel Editor > Expert Mode. The NSS module should be enabled. If
they are not there, you need to go to the Software Install and install them,
then enable them. Any changes you make do not take effect until you reboot
the server.
2) If NSS services are running, the devices should mount automatically on
reboot.
3) Use the Storage role in iManager or use NSSMU to mount and manage the
volume.
Storage-Related Plug-ins for iManager
http://www.novell.com/documentation/oes/nss_enu/data/agqw2v2.html
NSSMU for Linux
http://www.novell.com/documentation/oes/nss_enu/data/boswzl1.html
Catherine
Resend, the below bounced the first time?

All,
I have a couple of old Netware drives I need to take a quick look at.
Just need to see how old the files etc. are on the drives so a
read-only mount is fine.
I've been told it is supposed to work, but looking at "man mount" I
don't see a way to specify the NWFS filesystem. Is there a standard
way to do this.
Thanks
Greg
--
Greg Freemyer
The Norcross Group
Forensics for the 21st Century

--
Greg Freemyer
The Norcross Group
Forensics for the 21st Century
--

[Sandy Drobic]

Post by Greg Freemyer
Catherine,
Is there an easy way for me to determine if these are NSS volumes or
traditional volumes? I suspect traditional since my notes say the
computer had been running Netware 3.12. But I don't know when NSS
became common.

NSS was introduced with Novell Netware 5, so it has to be a traditional
volume.

Sandy

[Greg Freemyer]

Post by Sandy Drobic

Post by Greg Freemyer
Catherine,
Is there an easy way for me to determine if these are NSS volumes or
traditional volumes? I suspect traditional since my notes say the
computer had been running Netware 3.12. But I don't know when NSS
became common.

NSS was introduced with Novell Netware 5, so it has to be a traditional
volume.
Sandy

Thanks Sandy, that will help me select the right tool for this job.

Greg

[Pete Connolly]

Post by Greg Freemyer
Catherine,
Is there an easy way for me to determine if these are NSS volumes or
traditional volumes? I suspect traditional since my notes say the
computer had been running Netware 3.12. But I don't know when NSS
became common.
Also, I don't currently have SLES nor OES, but this may give me enough
reason to upgrade.
Thanks
Greg

HI Greg

If the original volumes were created under NW 3.12, they're most definitely
traditional volumes.

I've used SLED 10 with the Novell client in the past with good success, but
have yet to test opensuse 10.1/2 with it. Maybe it's worth a look - very
reliable and it's from the same company that produced the volume format...

http://download.novell.com/Download?buildid=2RE4wvXCwqQ~

HTH

Cheers

Pete

[Dominique Leuenberger]

Post by Greg Freemyer

Reply on 28-11-2006 9:28:33 <<<

Catherine,
Is there an easy way for me to determine if these are NSS volumes or
traditional volumes? I suspect traditional since my notes say the
computer had been running Netware 3.12. But I don't know when NSS
became common.
Also, I don't currently have SLES nor OES, but this may give me

enough

Post by Greg Freemyer
reason to upgrade.
Thanks
Greg

Greg,

I'm just not sure if you would see it from the remote linux box, but on
the netware server's console, you can type
volumes
and you should get a bunch of information.

But as you talk about NW3.12, there was no NSS available at all. NSS
was introduced with NetWare 5.x on additional volumes than sys, and 6.0
was (IIRC) the first version to support the sys volume as NSS too.

Regards,
Dominique

[Greg Freemyer]

Thanks all,

I did not find a Linux solution, but I found a Windows product
(Captain Nemo) that allows me to view the NWFS filestructure on the
drives. Since this is a one time need, I'm not going to pursue the
linux side of things at the moment.

Greg

Post by Greg Freemyer

Post by Greg Freemyer

Reply on 28-11-2006 9:28:33 <<<

Catherine,
Is there an easy way for me to determine if these are NSS volumes or
traditional volumes? I suspect traditional since my notes say the
computer had been running Netware 3.12. But I don't know when NSS
became common.
Also, I don't currently have SLES nor OES, but this may give me

enough

Post by Greg Freemyer
reason to upgrade.
Thanks
Greg

Greg,
I'm just not sure if you would see it from the remote linux box, but on
the netware server's console, you can type
volumes
and you should get a bunch of information.
But as you talk about NW3.12, there was no NSS available at all. NSS
was introduced with NetWare 5.x on additional volumes than sys, and 6.0
was (IIRC) the first version to support the sys volume as NSS too.
Regards,
Dominique

[Greg Freemyer]

Thanks for sharing. I've never heard of Captain Nemo, but it sounds like I should add it to my bag of tricks. :)
Catherine

It supports Netware 3.x, 4.x, 5.x volumes and EXT2 / EXT3 volumes.
I'm not sure about NSS volumes.

Did you find it? You can download a browse-only version for free at:

http://www.runtime.org/captain.htm

Or buy the full product for $90. (You need this if you want to copy
files out of Captain Nemo and onto one of your Windows drives. I
think Capt. Nemo is always read-only.)

Seems like a pretty valuable tool, especially if your an
interoperability specialist. All we did was install the software, put
the Netware drive in a USB enclosure and start looking around. I did
have lots of files newer than I thought on the drives, so I used the
full version to drag and drop a directories worth at a time onto my
Windows platform.

The only small issue I had was I would have liked a way to preserve
the file creation times, but they all got set to when I did the copy.
Fortunately the last modified date was retained, so that was good
enough for my needs.

Greg