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Prosoft Releases Mac OS X Client for Netware

Posted by pudge on from the the-computer-is-the-network dept.

JSherman writes "Prosoft Engineering has released a client that enables Mac OS X to connect to a Novell network. The client is pure TCP/IP, and is not tied with AppleTalk. Its been possible for Macs to connect to Netware Servers for a long time by using Novell's Native File Access, but this is a much better method since it's an actual client that will remember your user ID and password when connecting to servers, and it allows you to browse the NDS tree. This is great news for all of us that use Apple computers in the Enterprise. Mac OS X progress marches on."

41 comments

  1. It's dead, Jim. by Mordant · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    NetWare is dead - nobody runs it, anymore. Why do you view this as 'progress' for OS/X?

    Virtual desktops, now -that- would be progress for OS/X - I'd like to see -that- problem addressed, rather than celebrating OS/X client access to a NOS which, while once king of the hill, is on life-support.

    What 'progress' are you going to celebrate next, a new OS/X client for Banyan VINES, or OS/2 LAN Manager, heh?

    1. Re:It's dead, Jim. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes they do.
      It is 'progress', an OS that doesn't support multiple networking schemes isn't a very robust OS. Regardless of how "dead" the system is.

      Virtual desktops would be progress, good point.

      Funny how one week OS X can get trashed for not doing something then get a "hmmphff, no bid deal" when they get it done...

      Isn't the fact the OS continues to mature & provide functionality a good thing?

    2. Re:It's dead, Jim. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      OSX Virtual Desktops

    3. Re:It's dead, Jim. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Simply because a product is not a market leader anymore doesnt make it dead. There is still a VERY large amount of Netware installs out there in the world. Especially in the Education industry... which is also where you also have alot of Macintosh machines.
      I'm sure many people would say that Apple computers are dead... simply because it occupies only around a 4% market share.
      Novell's market share of the NOS market is still greater than that, maybe not my much, but still higher.
      Unfortunately, Netware is very much on the decline, and has been for the last six years... but it is not dead.
      For those of us that still use both Macintosh computers, and have Novell servers, this is very much an act of progress.

    4. Re:It's dead, Jim. by GeorgeH · · Score: 2

      Space offers virtual desktops for OS X (kinda) and it's open source.

      --
      Why can't I moderate something "Wrong" or at least "Grossly Misinformed"?
    5. Re:It's dead, Jim. by jhealy1024 · · Score: 1

      Virtual desktops, now -that- would be progress for OS/X - I'd like to see -that- problem addressed

      How 'bout:

      • Space.app (Free, good basic support, advanced features a little lacking for the moment).
      • CodeTek Virtual Desktop (Commercial, works well, supports most features you'd expect).

      Now focus-follows-mouse for MacOS X, that would be something to shout about... =)

    6. Re:It's dead, Jim. by feldsteins · · Score: 2

      There's more Mac users who know what it is to not be able to log onto a NetWare server than who know what "virtual desktops" even are

      --
      You like your Macintosh better than me, don't you Dave? Dave? Can you hear me Dave?
    7. Re:It's dead, Jim. by MochaMan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Now focus-follows-mouse for MacOS X, that would be something to shout about

      Not gonna happen. Not even possible, in fact. Why? Well the Mac Menu bar sits on the top of the screen, not under the title bar of each window. So moving the mouse from a window in one application to a window in another application would require the menu bar to switch to the other application's menu bar, otherwise the user is left with the uncomfortable (and not at all user-friendly) situation of having Application A's menu bar while working in Application B's window. But it gets worse. Assuming, for the above reasons, that the menu bar has to change when you mouse over another application's window, you're in for a nightmare if you use the menus (and why have menus if you aren't going to use them?). Every time you move the mouse to the menu bar, you have to move the mouse pointer out of the Application's window. And if you have any other windows open in the background from another application, your menu bar is going to magically change every time you move the mouse up to the menu bar, defeating the purpose and causing much swearing.

      You could do all sorts of hacks around this, like time-delayed menu-bar switching, but the fact is, the whole metaphor just doesn't work on a Mac. Focus follows mouse is also pretty confusing to most users, since their experience generally comes from either the Mac or Windows world, neither of which has focus follows mouse (actually, you can turn it on in Windows through a registry hack, same goes for tab-completion on the command line). The intended audience of this feature would be UNIX converts, but because of the menu bar deal, they'd be just as annoyed as Mac users. That's why I doubt we'll ever see this in the Mac OS, even as an option.

      Now, on my FreeBSD boxes I tend to use focus follows mouse with sloppy focus, and I like it, but it just doesn't work under the Mac OS metaphor, not that I mind.

    8. Re:It's dead, Jim. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Netware is not dead, and it is popular in Swedish school systems. And im really glad there is a client now, becouse then I can have access to my homedirectory and other services on the network.

      Im just very pissed off that Novell did not make a client for OS X. Which is a big shame!

  2. Um, Netware client for MacOS X? by ivan256 · · Score: 1

    Head spins...

    They meant to say "Netware Client for MacOS", and not the other way around...

  3. How is this news? by Auckerman · · Score: 3, Interesting

    MacOS 10 has had support for LDAP and NIS. 10.2 will have support for Active Directory. Now explain to me why I should PAY for a Novell client, when all I have to do is read some documentation.

    --

    Burn Hollywood Burn
    1. Re:How is this news? by Dephex+Twin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What's the point of automatic transmission when all I have to do for manual is press the clutch and shift gears?

      Some people don't have the time, patience, and/or skill to implement stuff like netware themselves in a convenient manner. What do you think about GUI wrappers for things that can be done in the CLI?

      If you don't see the use of this, you aren't looking beyond your world, IMO.

      --

      If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
    2. Re:How is this news? by AndyDeck · · Score: 5, Informative

      The news is that this is (reportedly) a native NCP client. LDAP/NIS/AD are all directory services - NCP is a file access protocol. Totally different animals.

      This client is intended to permit a Mac user to map directly to a Netware volume without the old Netware (or Prosoft) for MAC NLMs, and without the new Native File Access pack NLMs - both of which, in different ways, forced the Netware server to look like a Mac server. A native NCP client goes the other way - it permits the Mac to use the Netware resources natively.

      The advantage to the native Mac client is one less layer of indirection when accessing Netware-served files. The benefits should include improved security (relative to the Nw4Mac/NFAP methods), theoretically improved performance, better support for features such as clustering, etc.

      In my opinion, Novell would be better off releasing sufficient information about NCP for third parties to create their own clients if they do not intend to write their own. I'm still waiting for the Linux equivalent to this client to appear, for instance. (as far as I can tell, ncpfs only supports IPX not native IP)

      --

      The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life
    3. Re:How is this news? by Auckerman · · Score: 3, Insightful
      "Some people don't have the time, patience, and/or skill to implement stuff like netware themselves in a convenient manner."


      Then they should NOT be an admin. Lazy admins are the reason why many networks are insecure. This is not to be construed as an arguement against GUI's, which have their place, but merely an arguement that reading documentation to learn how to do something is what an admin is supposed to do.

      --

      Burn Hollywood Burn
    4. Re:How is this news? by frankie · · Score: 2
      Lazy admins are the reason why many networks are insecure.

      The Prosoft client is not for Mac sysadmins. This client is for Mac end-users in a corporate environment that only has MCSEs and maybe one old Netware guy. Folks who would otherwise be excluded from Netware servers because no one is willing to help get them connected.

      That said, the Prosoft client is a bad choice for most situations. It's $149 per client, which rapidly exceeds the cost of buying Novell 6 with Native File Access (aka No Client Needed).

      Auckerman, where exactly would I find the documentation that teaches me the Netware protocols, and how to convince 10.2 to use them directly? Right now I use FTP.

    5. Re:How is this news? by Dephex+Twin · · Score: 2

      Some places aren't big enough or wealthy enough to hire the best admin or even a full-time admin for their network. We all know that lots of networks are insecure and a lot of admins don't cut it, right? What do you think has a better chance of happening at this point:

      1. All admins get their act together, and those who shouldn't be admins stop all activity, and small businesses that need new admins pool their funds and get one.

      2. Programs with a more intuitive and user-friendly interface come about, making it easier for any person faced with the duty of setting up network stuff to at least have a basic setup without security holes.

      --

      If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe. -- Carl Sagan
    6. Re:How is this news? by cimetmc · · Score: 1

      Maybe it suprises you, but the documentation for NCP is public already for a couple of years : http://developer.novell.com/ndk/doc/ncp/ncp__enu/d ata/hc4lztgy.html Also, current versions of NCPFS do support NCP/IP connections.

    7. Re:How is this news? by AndyDeck · · Score: 2
      I stand corrected, on both counts. The latest versions of ncpfs do indeed have support for NCP over IP.

      I actually did know about the NCP documentation available through Novell's Developer Net - it's not what I originally had in mind though. Yes, it does document each NCP call - but (IMO) it hardly gives enough information to be used to generate a new client. Perhaps I'm just not enough of a developer to appreciate what's in the document.

      The information is also provided under a restrictive license agreement that could inhibit its use for creating 3rd party Netware clients:
      2. You may use the NCP Documentation only for providing technical
      support services to end users of Novell products and to support Your
      development of Derivative Software that does not: a) enable more than
      one end user per copy of the Derivative Software to access a NetWare
      server; or, b) provide NetWare server functions.

      I can see where they are coming from... and given that ncpfs does now have the necessary IP support, and Novell has even gone so far as to donate some time from one of their engineers to improving Ethereal's NCP decoder, I don't really have any objections.
      --

      The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life
    8. Re:How is this news? by cimetmc · · Score: 1

      2. You may use the NCP Documentation only for providing technical support services to end users of Novell products and to support Your development of Derivative Software that does not: a) enable more than one end user per copy of the Derivative Software to access a NetWare server; or, b) provide NetWare server functions. Actually, I read this as client software development being allowed using this documentation. What is not allowed is using to documentation to write some kind of gateway that would allow multiple users to connect to the server over a single connection, thus bypassing the server licensing, plus the implementation of an NCP server.

    9. Re:How is this news? by cimetmc · · Score: 1

      Sorry, looks like the formatting did not turn out the way I intended it.

    10. Re:How is this news? by AndyDeck · · Score: 2

      >cimetmc said:
      >Actually, I read this as client software development being allowed using this documentation. What is not allowed is using to documentation to write some kind of gateway that would allow multiple users to connect to the server over a single connection, thus bypassing the server licensing, plus the implementation of an NCP server.

      Yes, that is the strict interpretation... but remember, lawyers interpret licenses, not people. The license does permit client development given the above two restrictions - but those are enough to (IMO, IANAL, etc) prohibit this documentation's use to create GPL'd software.
      I just checked, and 1) ncpfs IS GPL'd, and 2) the author does not seem to have used Novell's documentation in the development of ncpfs. Why? Because ncpfs will permit you to mount a Netware volume at an arbitrary Linux mount point, and permit any Linux user to use files on that volume. This explicitly violates the NCP Documentation license at 2a.
      And this is what I had in mind when I suggested that Novell would be better off making client documentation freely available - but as I said in my last message, the fact that ncpfs exists, is GPL'd, and contains IP support satisfies my needs. But this was only possible through the use of third party documentation (including some of Caldera's work), reverse engineering, and (in the USA) the expiration of the RSA patents...
      As for the relevance of this all to this story, ncpfs can't be used on older Mac's, although it could conceivably be ported to OSX. Hence the importance of Prosoft finally updating their client to support modern (IP-only) Netware servers. The rub of course is that the new client is OSX only, so older Macs are stuck with IPX (old Prosoft client), Appletalk (NW4Mac on NW4 or Prosoft NLMs on NW5), or NFAP on NW5.1 or NW6.

      --

      The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life
  4. Platform potpourri by Mr.Intel · · Score: 3, Informative

    Not only can you get a NetWare client for the MAC (OS X) but you can download the demo from an ASP page. For those who don't want to bother with the reg info, here is the link to download it directly. The serial they gave me was 9602-3082-0060-5950-2. I assume it is time limited or some such other nonsense.

    --
    ASCII tastes bad dude.
    Binary it is then.
  5. Wow! by look · · Score: 0, Troll

    This is GREAT news...for all 3 Macintosh Netware users that are left!

    1. Re:Wow! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      I can name one company, closely tied to Apple, running an all-Mac shop that, for some bizarre reason nobody left with the company can explain, is using Netware on the server side. 40 seats here, 400 in LA, hundreds more worldwide. We might even care about this, I dunno - nobody tells me diddly.

      On second thought, I can't name the company. I'd hate to ahve to Switch jobs again.

  6. maybe not, skippy by stego · · Score: 4, Informative

    Both of my 'real jobs' have had Netware networks. I don't like Netware, but having a Mac client is a good thing.

  7. Sadly Netware may be dead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But if it is then its the living dead. My work takes me into several enterprise locations who cling to old infastructures and you guessed it, netware rears its ugly head fairly often. Luckily with a X xlient now the desktops can march on letting upgrades go thru at one end anyway.

  8. Like that is any good news by Cyrano_De · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Anyone who has used the prosoft (formerly novells very own client) client on any OS9 macintoshes in a large novell site will tell you what a pain in the ass it is. If you have multiple networks and need to mount shares across a router FORGET IT. Prosoft will tell you it is a Novell Problem, Novell will tell you it is a Macintosh problem, Apple will tell you they have appletalk why do we care what anyone else does. You might get it to mount the share once every 5 times......You may have to attempt to mount the drives 500 times. Good luck to anyone else out there that has to support a crapintosh on a network of real computers.....

    --
    01010100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101001 01110011 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01010011 01001001 010
    1. Re:Like that is any good news by MacDaffy · · Score: 1

      > ...Apple will tell you they have appletalk why do we care what anyone else does...

      This is a bald-faced lie. I'd say you were ignorant if you had a clue about anything Apple has been doing regarding networks, but you pulled the above quote out of your ass. I was working there when they KILLED the use of AppleTalk on the campus network in favor of TCP/IP and that was YEARS ago.

      Oh... and have a nice day!
      Apple may have its head up its ass in a lot of ways, but imposing AppleTalk on anyone who doesn't want to use it is NOT its current mode of operation and hasn't been for a long time. And I have NEVER had the trouble with Macintosh networking that I have had with getting Novell and Windows networking to operate properly either separately or in concert. Write back when you stop composing your "contributions" with excrement from your diaper.

  9. Netware 6 needs no client software by guanxi · · Score: 2

    At least, that's what Novell and the reviewers say.

    1. Re:Netware 6 needs no client software by AndyDeck · · Score: 2

      This is true, if you use the Native File Access Pack, is included free with NW6. However, as I noted in a previous message, the NFAP is an additional protocol layer, similar in function to Samba. It re-exports native Netware volumes over alternate protocols - CIFS (Windows), NFS (*ix), and AFP (Mac) - all over IP.

      The biggest difference for me is security & passwords, but then I'm a directory services geek. NFAP authentication by design uses a separate password hash than NCP authentication. A native NCP client uses RSA-licenses public/private key encryption to protect passwords - CIFS, AFP, and NFS do not. Therefore NFAP is designed to have a separate password for these protocols to protect the native password. The NFAP password is usually still protected by some kind of hash algorithm, but this is not as secure as the NCP methods.

      But one of Novell's latest mantras is anywhere anytime access to your data, so they include NFAP as a least-common-denominator.

      --

      The Crystal Wind is the Storm, and the Storm is Data, and the Data is Life
    2. Re:Netware 6 needs no client software by margaret · · Score: 1

      Well, our IT guy refuses to install Native File Access, for reasons unknown to me. I think I remember him saying something about security. I think he just hates macs. I hate the stupid novell server more.

      -margaret

  10. Nothing new by margaret · · Score: 1

    This is nothing new. I have been using this client for almost a month now, with limited success. It is VERY buggy, but it beats having to rely on ftp or booting into OS 9.

    To the people making fun of novell users -I don't use novell by choice. I hate our university's network. I wish our departmental IT guy would dump that stupid novell server, but he's always raving about it for some reason. And I still can't figure out how to configure the #@%^! OS X Cisco VPN client so I can login from home. Thanks to the total lack of support for anything besides windoze, I probably never will. Hmph.

    -margaret

  11. Interesting OS X Feature by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have an OS X server. I had several users set up on the server. When the users were originally setup, their home directories, according to the netinfo utilities, pointed to /Network/Servers/Server_Name/Users/username/ .

    When I changed the machine name from Server_Name to servername, the home directories no longer exist.

    If I try and ftp to my OS X server using a username who's home directory no longer exists, the user and password are verified, but the login fails since the home directory does not exist, so the ftp server logs me in as root and drops me in the / directory.

    Wondering if anyone else has noticed this.

  12. Swish to Apple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    Dear Apple,

    I am a homosexual. I bought an Apple computer because of its well earned reputation for being "the" gay computer. Since I have become an Apple owner, I have been exposed to a whole new world of gay friends. It is really a pleasure to meet and compute with other homos such as myself. I plan on using my new Apple computer as a way to entice and recruit young schoolboys into the homosexual lifestyle; it would be so helpful if you could produce more software which would appeal to young boys. Thanks in advance.

    with much gayness,

    Father Randy "Pudge" O'Day, S.J.

  13. Novel is crap by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I did a network admin stint for a company for a year and I couldn't beleive they were running Novel on a network of 40-odd Macs.

    It was the most unreliable server I've ever come acrros. It was running on an IBM 5000 and crashed at least twice a week (2hours of downtime for the direcroty rebuild, ugh). Our head office IT people couldn't figure out what the problem was, neither could we on our end. Novel was the corporate standard and I fought it all the time I was there. I kept pleading with them to move to OS X Server or at least Linux on the machine (to save them some $ since they were such tightwads).
    No-go.

    I ended up quitting from the frustration and the red-tape.

    Novel can die as far as I'm concered in a Mac environment. Hey, even Windows 2000 would have been an improvement (and saying a lot).

  14. V Desk Top by ellem · · Score: 2

    Code Tek makes one it is excellent. It's 20USD and worth every penny.

    You go here Now!

    --
    This .sig is fake but accurate.
  15. Are we talking... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    about the client for the 5000 series or the 3000 series?

    1. Re:Are we talking... by margaret · · Score: 1

      I'm guessing the 3000 series. The client download is called vpnclient-macosx-3.5.rel-k9.tar.gz. I can't get the damn thing to even install. I run the install script and get a zillion "no such directory" errors. So despite having all this advanced technology at my disposal, I use ftp to get my files. And because I'm new to the mac, I get extremely frustrated because the resource fork thing gets lost, and my ftp'ed files never open in the right application.

  16. Banyan VINES! lol GTE is dead too! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Long live Verizon!

    Last I heard Arthur Andersen was dead too (both the man and the company).