Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 10:42:14 +1200
From: physmsa AT cantua DOT canterbury DOT ac DOT nz (Mr M S Aitchison)
Subject: Re: Netware
To: raster AT dgs DOT dgsys DOT com, opendos AT delorie DOT com
Message-id: <199705062242.KAA29130@cantua.canterbury.ac.nz>
Precedence: bulk

Some things to watch out for:

1. Your Linux box might use the FULL NAME (hostname.domain.name) for
the netware server (Redhat's installation program does this by default;
very annoying).

2. You have to make sure everybody is using the same FRAME TYPE (e.g.
Ethernet_II), otherwise you don't see anybody.  On the OD system edit
\NWCLIENT\NET.CFG when Netware isn't running.

3. With SMC cards (and others that need a window of RAM in upper
memory) you must give EMM386 an EXCL=D000-D3FF (or some other range,
depending on the setup). Start by excluding all upper RAM
(EXCL=C000-F000 should do the trick) or take out EMM386 altogether,
until you have worked out exactly what RAM area the card needs.

4. Diagnostics:  to work out whether a network is running ok, or where
the fault lies, can be difficult.  But here are the first steps:

  (a) run the commands form STARTNET.BAT one at a time from the command
  line, so you can clearly see the error messages at each stage.

  (b) run the command: NET SLIST to list servers, which should at least
  include your own PNW server. This is usually the first, simple test
  to do, but its value is more in sites like mine where there are many
  Netware servers of all sorts/frame types  set up correctly already.
  Follow it with running NET without parameters, then make it view all
  types of server/tree.  If your Linux box has a strange server name
  this should pick it up.

  (c) There is a diagnostic program that comes with PNW, but I haven't
  found it much use if you don't see the other servers. Often ethernet
  cards come with some diagnostics within the setup program (EZSTART, 
  1STEP, EZSETUP, whatever); SMC often put a test including loopback
  in the manual installation option.

  (d) If you can get NCSA Telnet and ODIPKT (both free) run them on the
  OD system and see if you can TELBIN to the Linux box (using the IP
  number); this has reasonable diagnostics built in (just remember to
  edit CONFIG.TEL to search for a packet driver (hardware=packet and
  ioaddr=0); myip is set to somethoing reasonable; the CONFIG.TEL
  environment variable is set correctly, and make sure NET.CFG has a
  "Link Support" section with mempool 4096 and Buffers 6 1514 lines).
  That is quite a lot to set up, perhaps (and even then we're hoping
  the rest of config.tel is defaulting to something sensible), but it
  is worth it in the long run and telnet and ftp are good tools in a
  Unix/Linux environment.

  (e) If you get error messages at any of these steps that you cannot
  understand, or seem to say one thing (like "Network jammed, cable
  fault") that isn't true, let me know.  All the above is just to
  check the simple things; there are other wierd things that can be
  a problem in some situations, e.g. some supplied network drivers
  are buggy; some other software in the system, especially mouse
  drivers loaded high, can affect the network, and multitaskers are
  a big problem. Always start by running as plain-vanilla a system as
  possible, then build it back up when you know it works.

5. After the above tests you probably don't want the Personal Netware
Server running on the OD machine (saves a bit of RAM), so edit the
\NWCLIENT\STARTNET.BAT file to comment-out the SERVER line. But of
course you do want the client stuff you get with IPXODI and VLM.

Mark.