myITforum.com : SMS FAQ: Experiences from the Field: SMS 2.0 and NetWare 4.11

Contributed by: John Waghorne
The following article details how John got SMS 2.0 to work with NetWare 4.11, including both 16 and 32-bit clients.

I loaded SMS & SQL on a new server which was my new PDC for the new domain (Bearing in mind the customer only has Novell) -NO PROBLEMS.
I enabled NDS logon discovery and Client Installation method as described in the white paper "Integrating SMS 2.0 with Novell Netware". I configured the DATA volume on the Novell server as a logon point, CAP and distribution point. - NO PROBLEMS
This created a CAP and SMSLOGON directory on the Novell server and within that SMSLOGON directory was SMSMAN. The container login script was modified automatically and the 32 bit clients could login to the NDS tree, get discovered (albeit very slowly - 24hrs) and everything worked fine. Everything except Remote Control (all the clients had previously had Intel LANDesk Manager on them and the Remote Control agent for SMS and LANDesk are very similar and can not coexist on the same client machine). I had to create an uninstall package with SMS Installer and push it out to all the clients to uninstall the LANDesk client so that the SMS Remote agent would install.
The 32 bit clients could now login to Novell NDS only via the Novell 32 bit client software and be managed by SMS. NEXT PROBLEM was that NDS logon discovery and Client Installation methods do not support DOS and 16 bit client logins via Novell. There is NO SMSMAN16 created in the SMSLOGON share (Only SMSMAN). DOS and 16 bit clients logging into NDS only, have to be supported within SMS by Bindery logon discovery and Bindery Client Installation.
OK - NO PROBLEM I thought. I will enable them. However when you enable Bindery logon discovery and client installation, this creates a new and different SMSLOGON and CAP directory by default and with no way of configuring or altering it creates them automatically in the Netware volume which has the most free space. GUESS WHICH ONE IT WAS ? The DATA volume which had already been configured for the NDS logon discovery. This conflict caused all sorts of funnies and what I had to do was to uninstall Bindery and NDS logon discovery and then reinstall Bindery first and then NDS discovery onto another NetWare volume (APPS). This then produced a SMSLOGON directory for DOS and 16 bit clients on the NetWare DATA volume containing SMSMAN16 and also modified the 3.12 system login script on the Novell 4.11 server (Viewed by SYSCON). This server had to have Bindery emulation mode configured within Netware 4. A separate SMSLOGON directory was created on the APPS volume for 32 bit clients when I enabled NDS logon discovery.
The SMS directory structure were now in place - NEXT PROBLEM - All the DOS/Windows 3.11 clients had to log into NDS in Bindery emulation mode with the Login /b command for them to run the system login script and get discovered. This was very time consuming because everybody ran the login.exe without the /b switch on boot up.
Eventually everybody logged in and got discovered and the client components loaded onto their PCs NEXT PROBLEM - All the 32 bit clients started to get a Novell warning message saying "This connection must be maintained for NDS use on the tree <treename>, It should only be removed after logout from the tree. Do you wish to logout from <treename>? (Yes/No)" - The only reference I could find on CNEnet for this was related to Word 97 and old 32 bit clients and suggested upgrading the Novell client. This I did from 4.11a to the latest 4.8.0 - This cured the warning message but introduced another problem.
NEXT PROBLEM - The 4.8.0 Novell client is the latest ZEN Works client and this is not compatible with the 4.11 version of NetWare they were using on their site. The main problem being that they were using Novell 4.11 policies to tie down the desktop and also they were auto creating the local account within NT Workstation at the client. Neither of these were support with the new client because it has been written for ZEN Works policies and not 4.11, therefore users logging into a NT Workstation client for the first time were being asked for their local NT login and password which did not exist because the policy was not working and the account had not been auto-created. This looked like a Show Stopper and I was almost resigned to defeat. As a last straw attempt I looked at all the clients between 4.11a and 4.8.0 to determine if there were any Netware 4.11 version clients that I could try. The only client after 4.11a that was not a ZEN Works client was 4.11b.

HEY PRESTO IT WORKED - PHEW


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