[comp.sys.novell] Unix/Novell interface

rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) (01/19/91)

"Give me DOS software which makes my Novell server appear to be a TCP/IP
NFS server".

I've come up with an idea which should theoretically work if there's a
DOS NFS which can run on top of a TCP/IP running on top of IPX:  I take
a DOS system, throw Novell's client software on it, have it log in to
a Netware server and mount its disks as X:, Y:, Z:, start up TCP/IP,
and start up the NFS server.  Then I should be able to walk over to my
Unix system and NFS mount my Novell files.  The only inconvenience would
be that DOS and Unix treat newlines in text files differently.  And because
I'd have to run this on a separate DOS box from the Novell server, it
wouldn't be as fast as when Novell provides its own NFS server.

Can anyone point me to an NFS server product running on DOS?  Does such
a thing exist?  Has anyone else tried to do this?

For background, I'm working at a company with several dozen DOS machines
linked via Ethernet to a series of Novell servers.  About 6-10 Unix
machines are in the process of being installed; we have not yet brought
up TCP/IP but are about to.  Unix users need access to the plethora of
facilities provided by the Novell system already in place.  (This includes
printers, e-mail, tape drives, modems, etc.)

-rich

rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) (01/25/91)

dixon@pdn.paradyne.com (Tom Dixon) writes:
>Wouldn't Stans on NFS Server fit this bill?  It is available from 
>sun.soe.clarkson.edu and is often refered to as SOS.

Yes it works.  At least a little bit.  Enough to impress my boss for at
least a day, anyway.  Here's my configuration:

	SCO Unix	DOS		Novell Server
	--------       -------        -----------------
	3C503 card   Interlan card      <whatever>
	TCP/IP       BYU Pkt Driver
	NFS          Netware 386
		     CMU/MIT PC/IP
		     SOS

All three systems are on a single Ethernet coax.  I can then type

	mount -f NFS,soft,rsize=500,wsize=500 dosbox:/y/mydir /usr/me/novell

after logging into the Novell server on 'dosbox' and mappying device Y:.
I get real-time, albeit somewhat slow, transparent file access on my
Unix system to the gigabytes of Novell stuff.  And all for the price of
a couple of Ethernet cards and a minimally-configured DOS box.  In the
future, Novell may be able to provide this directly via software on the
Novell server.  But the Novell NFS is vaporware for the foreseeable
months.

There are some technical problems with SOS, however.  I may switch to PC-NFS
if I can't solve them soon.  The readdir function invoked within NFS
when you type 'ls' hangs indefinitely if the directory contains more than
a few dozen files.  Is anyone out there using SOS from day to day?  How
can I solve these problems and potential others I may run across?  Is the
latest version the 4/90 edition presently on sun.soe.clarkson.edu?

-rich

DeadHead@cup.portal.com (Bruce M Ong) (01/26/91)

>"Give me DOS software which makes my Novell server appear to be a TCP/IP
>NFS server".

	I'd like to find out if such a beast exists, on either DOS or 
UNIX, that allows a unix system to mount a novell disk so that  a unix
user can access the files on that disk as if it where a unix disk. All the
discussion I have seen here seems to suggest that you can go the other
way (novel user access a unix file system) but not from a UNIX's perspective.