NetWare News

Another one bites the dust

2007-10-31T08:25:00.001-07:00

Back in the day, when Ethernet was only 10 mbps and Arcnet was all the rage for NetWare networks, Network Computing was THE magazine to read. All of the big names in NetWare wrote for the mag at one time or another and none of it was fluff - it was always relevant. Sadly, NC is no more. At least the paper copy won't hit my mailbox every month any longer.

In these days of instant news, instant analysis and instant gratification, the monthly magazine - especially the monthly tech magazine - no longer seems relevant. Just another dinosaur headed for the tar pit. But we should pause and remember. We should remember the pioneering efforts of those who went before.

NC lingers on in an abbreviated on-line version, some of it's regular features have moved to Information Week, but it won't be the same. Still, it's to the credit of editor Art Wittmann and his crew that they held out this long in the face of the decimation of the technology press. Au revoir, NC, arriverderci, auf weidersehen.

down.

NetWare goes virtual

2007-10-10T07:57:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally happened. NetWare is now virtual and Linux based. According to a story in The INQUIRER, Open Enterprise Server (OES) 2 was released yesterday "...has the NetWare operating system kernel, NetWare 6.5 SP7, running on top of the Xen hypervisor."

To say that NetWare is now merely a shadow of its former self is both trite, and true.

NLM Inventory Tool 4.0

2007-09-28T08:46:00.000-07:00

Just released on the Cool Solutions site is NLM Inventory Tool 4.0, "a process to import the server Config.txt file data using Microsoft Word and Microsoft Access 2000."

Something to add to your toolkit to help you better manage the server environment. Just another fine tool from Chris Premo.

More memories

2007-09-18T10:59:00.000-07:00

The rolling backpack sold on eBay, so here's the next item I'm offering up: it's an advertising premium, a Novell NetWare Clock from the late 90's.

Now wouldn't that look nice in your server room?

Sweet memories

2007-09-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

From time to time I'll be offering up at eBay some bits of pieces of memories of our favorite Network Operating System - some real

Right now, there's a genuine BrainShare rolling Compu-Backpack , but it won't be there for long!

Vote early and often!

2007-08-31T12:02:00.000-07:00

Tech Republic is running a poll: "Are you running any classic Novell products on your network?" Here's your chance to let the world know that NetWare is your choice!

Novell less rubbishy

2007-08-31T08:04:00.000-07:00

Novell just released financial results for its fiscal third quarter which ended July 31, and the news isn't all bad. As reported by Timothy Prickett Morgan at IT Jungle:

"the fact that NetWare sales are not plummeting, as they have been doing for many years, is probably equally significant and worthy of some attention."

The company managed to reduce it's net loss by over $3 million (from $6.5 million to 'only' $3.4 million). Morgan seemed almost giddy as he said:

"If aggregate NetWare and OES sales declines continue to shrink, as they have done in the past two quarters, and if Linux sales continue to grow, as they have particularly since Novell's distribution deal with Microsoft, then Novell could actually end up being a profitable company again..."

Just think what could happen if the company actually spent a couple of bucks marketing NetWare/OES...

Practical joke

2007-08-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

Mike Hillwig posts a note on his blog today recalling a practical joke played "back in the days of Novel [sic] 4.0."

"When I was at Fiserv, we had a senior vice president that nobody seemed to like, including my boss. This was back in the days of Novel 4.0, a good eight or nine years ago. Somebody had set the VP’s password to expire every few days. And then, they set the password change prompt so that it would prompt him five days before the password was due to expire. On top of that, his account was set so that he couldn’t use the last hundred or so passwords. This annoyed the shit out of the VP. When he called the helpdesk, nobody could seem to figure out what the problem was. But with this setup, he was somehow being prompted to change his password every time he logged into the network.

My boss called the whole team together and wanted to know who the hell did this. He tried to yell at us because that’s what was expected of him. As he tried to be upset, he just couldn’t keep a straight face. It was quite possibly one of the best IT pranks any of us had seen to date.... or since."

Novell branches out!

2007-08-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

My clipping service dropped this headline into my inbox today: "Novell Introduces The BIG Wedding Ring For The BIG Commitment"!

At first I thought the Linux business must be really in the toilet - but there were all those Linux World press releases that seemed to say otherwise.

Who knew there was a Novell Design Studio in Roselle, NJ? But check out the cute logo!

Novell - Stop Blaming NetWare

2007-08-07T22:11:00.000-07:00

The Kiwi, "Retroguy" has some interesting facts and figures posted over on abeNd.org calling into question Novell's mantra that they discontinued NetWare because sales were falling drastically. Definitely worth a read.

Users: plus ca change...

2007-08-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

From ComputerWorld's Shark Tank: "Why we love users":

"NetWare admin pilot fish receives a trouble ticket from the help desk and now can't decide whether to be more irritated at the foolish user or at the clueless help desk worker who didn't spot a phishing expedition. The problem: 'User reports that she received an e-mail at home stating that she had tried to log in with an incorrect password too many times to a banking system that she wasn't even a client of, and so that banking account ID had been locked. Could this be why she had trouble logging into her NetWare account at work this morning?' "

Users haven't changed in 20 years!

FrSIRT Security Advisories - Novell NetWare Apache HTTP-Header Remote Information Disclosure Vulnerability / Exploit

2007-06-29T09:02:00.000-07:00

FrSIRT Security Advisories - Novell NetWare Apache HTTP-Header Remote Information Disclosure Vulnerability / Exploit

A vulnerability has been identified in Novell NetWare and GroupWise, which could be exploited by remote attackers to gain knowledge of sensitive information. This issue is caused by an error in Apache that exposes system specifics in the "Content-Location" HTTP header, which could be exploited by attackers to disclose the internal IP of an Apache web server sitting behind a Proxy server or NAT device.

NWAddIn - a new NetWare tool

2007-06-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

NWAddIn is a tool to extend NetWare reporting via Microsoft Excel. As the author, Thomas Roll, says:

The intention of this code is to provide a simple set of functions that, when included in an Excel spreadsheet, can be used to extract basic MIS information of Novell Netware environments based on basic Server and Volume parameters and values. This represents a simple and convenient way in which to extract basic information about disk space availability, server connection usage etc.

In most setups - it will not be required to authenticate/login to the NDS tree in order to get basic information such as disk space statistics or server uptime.

The individual functions have been put together based on information published on the Novell Developer Network about the use of the Novell Client API calls, and sample code published. A special thanks to Karl Durrance - without his work on the Novell clsNovellAPI VB 6 class, I would never have been able to put this library together.

The code will in time be added to in order to provide further functionality to aid in the monitoring and management of Novell Netware environments.

We're not toast yet!

2007-06-11T08:12:00.000-07:00

The city of Seattle recently placed a want ad for a Technical Analyst (paying $1000 - $1500 per week) with one requirement being:

"four years of technical experience with knowledge in managing current Netware technology, including two years of experience architecting, installing, configuring, and administering 6.x NetWare servers."

Dust off that CNE 6, guys - it's still relevant.

Why to hate Novell

2007-05-30T08:15:00.000-07:00

Brian Caulfield, writing in Forbes: "Don't hate Novell because of its partnership with Microsoft. Hate Novell because its business stinks."

According to the story, "The problem? For the past 10 years, booming sales of cheap software from Microsoft and open-source software vendors have sapped sales of Novell's venerable NetWare offering."

Well, that plus Novell's feeble, ever-changing marketing strategies...

The folly of its ways

2007-05-29T09:39:00.000-07:00

Novell finally finished reviewing its stock options grants over the past dozen years, so they could release their quarterly and annual reports that had been delayed. That's the good news.

The quarterly for the 1st quarter of fiscal year 2007 (Nov 1 2006-Jan 31 2007) is the most recent financial report and its not good news. According to ITJungle, "When all the math was done and the taxes paid," the bottom line was "...a $19.9 million net loss, or about 6 cents per share, compared to a net profit of $1.9 million in the year ago quarter, or 1 cent a share."

The really bad news, though, was that Novell's "Workgroup" reporting group (NetWare, Open Enterprise Server, and GroupWise) posted sales of $104.9 million, down 11 percent, but it had an operating profit of $74.5 million, down 8 percent. As the story said, "You can see now why Novell hangs onto its NetWare and Groupwise business."

Too bad Novell's management didn't realize - even as often as we told them - that there was a market for NetWare, and it wouldn't cost a lot to pursue it. Just one more indication that Novell never did understand marketing.

Certificate? We don't need no stinkin' certificate!

2007-05-24T07:53:00.000-07:00

Infoworld has just published what it claims are the "top 10 dead (or dying) computer skills." And, you guessed it, NetWare CNE is on the list.

The good news is that it's only #8 on the list (beating out "PC Network Administrators - why is that seperate?? - and OS/2).

Top among the dying are:

1) Cobol
2) non-relational databases
3) non-IP networks (and IPX isn't even mentioned, it's all about SNA)

Read the whole story, at least for the nostalgia.

Novell Technical Support Wins Awards

2007-05-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

Once again, Novell Technical Support wins accolades from industry groups. The Association of Support Professionals has just named Novell as a "Best Web Support" winner for 2007, while the Help Desk Institute has honored Novell with its "Team Excellence Award for External Support."

novell's tech support has always been recognized as the gold standard that other companies should emulate, so once again I'd like to congratulate the wonderful men and women who work so hard to support the hardest working network managers in the world.

"Small" is not insignificant

2007-05-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

Tim Wohlford published ("Charlie Chaplin and the SCO Penguin") some interesting insight into Novell's seemingly incomprehensible decision to do away with their Small Business Suite - both the Netware version and the SuSE one.

"It was a sad day when I realized that the Novell that I knew would never again be a vendor partner for me, or a viable business partner for my clients. I went to Brainshares, did beta testing for Novell, attended sales conference, have Novell jackets and mugs and tee shirts and backpacks and water bottles... but it was time to face facts."

He paints a compelling picture.

Another one jumps ship

2007-04-29T09:31:00.000-07:00

Those who followed the NetWare newsletter should remember all the praise I've heaped on Ted "The Rev" Haeger over the years. If not, see:

* The Rev expands Novell's online community

* Novell Cool Solutions gets blogs and wikis

* Novell's 'Rev' reaches out further to his flock

*Haeger evangelizes OpenSuSE

and a lot more. Ted Haeger was, in many ways, the chief cheerleader for Novell technology. but more than that, he was an honest cheerleader. You could learn as much from what he didn't say as from what he did. Now he's moving on.

According to another ex-Novellite, Matt Asay, Ted is moving on to Bungee Labs - and Matt is taking credit for attracting Ted to the new startup.

You can read the Rev's own words on his blog, where he says: "The people who make up Novell’s technical community, both outside and inside of the company, have been wonderful to me." And, as I said, Ted tells you a lot with what he doesn't say - and who he doesn't thank!

IPv6 on NetWare

2007-04-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

Mark Miller is writing a series on IPv6 for ITPlanet, and the latest installment notes:

"IP on NetWare, available with NetWare 6.5, enables NetWare applications such as NDS and Winsock to use IPv6 as a native transport protocol over the NetWare server platform. The IPv6 element functions as an add-on component to the existing TCP/IP protocol stack (using a dual IPv4/IPv6 protocol stack architecture), with IPv6 over Ethernet at the Data Link Layer. IPv6 functions that are supported include Neighbor Discovery, Stateless Address Autoconfiguration, the Basic Socket Interface Extensions, the Transmission Mechanisms for hosts and routers, Automatic and Configured tunneling, and others."

Novell SecureLogin Security Issue

2007-04-18T08:29:00.000-07:00

FrSIRT Security has issued advisories concerning Novell's SecureLogin "adschema" Utility and AD Password Modification Security Issues.

"Two vulnerabilities have been identified in Novell SecureLogin, which could be exploited by attackers to bypass security restrictions and potentially obtain elevated privileges.

The first issue is caused by an error in the "ADSCHEMA" utility that grants users excess permissions to their own attributes. No further details have been disclosed.

The second vulnerability is caused by an error within the Active Directory (AD) password change feature. No further details have been disclosed."

Further information, and patching data, are avaulable from Novell.

Novell stomps on partners feet - once again.

2007-04-16T08:23:00.000-07:00

The Novell "marketing machine" recently tried to by-pass its channel partners according to a story in Computer Reseller News (CRN).

Evidently the company recently mass-mailed a number of Small Business Suite customers telling them it was time to renew their support contracts, and noting that they could contact a "local retailer" to do so - but neglected to either give details of, or even inform, the partner who made the original sale! As one said:

"I don't care if they contact the client directly as long as they give me the same opportunity to make the same margin as the direct sales initiative, and they should list our name and number," he said. "I don't think that's asking too much. If they want me to stop selling their product, this is the way to do it."

Considering the poor sales numbers in Novell's last financial report, ticking off your channel partners doesn't seem like a good thing to do.

The computer game that started it all

2007-04-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

My Network World colleague Deni Connor reminisces with Drew Major about Snipes - a game I often played with my staff, late at night, as we waited for yet another Compsurf to finish!

I don't know if it actually "changed" networking, but it certainly made it more fun...

Get your own copy of Snipes and you too can reminisce!

New AdRem Server Manager 6.0 for NetWare and OES

2007-03-21T09:25:00.000-07:00

Just released is AdRem Server Manager 6.0, which supports Novell OES/Linux and NetWare line products providing server monitoring and maintenance for networks based on both platforms.

For more information on AdRem Server Manager please visit the AdRem web site.