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NetWare 3.12 Server Taken Down After 16 Years of Continuous Duty
An anonymous reader writes "Ars Technica's Peter Bright reports on a Netware 3.12 server that has been decommissioned after over 16 years of continuous operation. The plug was pulled when noise from the server's hard drives become intolerable. From the article: 'It's September 23, 1996. It's a Monday. The Macarena is pumping out of the office radio, mid-way through its 14 week run at the top of the Billboard Hot 100, doing little to improve the usual Monday gloom...Sixteen and a half years later, INTEL's hard disks—a pair of full height 5.25 inch 800 MB Quantum SCSI devices—are making some disconcerting noises from their bearings, and you're tired of the complaints. It's time to turn off the old warhorse.'"
Netware 3 ruled.
Netmare 2 on the other hand earned the name.
By version 5 it was back to Netmare (for different reasons).
I once walked into a dusty environment, remote location and could hear the drive bearings from 100 feet away through a fire door. Backed up successfully but never spun up again.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2001/04/12/missing_novell_server_discovered_after/
Netware 3.12 was quite secure and rock solid. It did one thing (file and print serving) very, very well. It's a testament to good software design. The fact that you make light of it probably indicates that you were not in the IT field back then and have no sense of perspective. I wasn't a huge Netware fan, being more of an OS/2 and Unix guy back in the day, but I had a great deal of respect for the product.
Last year, I worked next to a system with DOS and IBM BASIC that has been up continuously on a production line since 1989, mind you, it was in a protective box with special filters and 90% of it's "functionality" is no longer used.
16 years and they did not run of space on it?
also good hardware not to fail in some way other that time. Did they hot swap UPS batteries over the years as well?
"My linux systems require constant patching for them not to be p0wned by script kiddies. Therefore it follows that every other system is the same.".
Love that logic.
Novell asked people to send screen shots of their uptimes. http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/103.html The winner then had an uptime of about 6 years.
You know those little squiggly red lines under words you type? I think they're trying to tell you something.
In Soviet Russia, dot slashes YOU!
So? Is there some rule requiring every tech website to report unique content?
I don't follow Arstechnica, so I'm glad that having been on Arstechnica doesn't disqualify something from being on slashdot.
From the linked thread: ... The only thing it's been connected to since 2004 has been my personal computer (laptop)."
"When I began work here in 2004, this system was completely orphaned
Way to spend (by my reckoning) 10,000 kWh of electricity.
They're solid states drives. No vacuum tubes used in the assembly.
to borrow from "Mr. Merlin" (anyone remember that??):
"You're Merlin? You gotta be like... eight hundred years old?"
"I do forty push-ups a day and I don't eat fried food..."
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Yup.
(1600 years old and thirty push-ups, but yup).
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
"are making some disconcerting noises from their bearings"
Rule 1 about hard disks.
When the hard disk starts making funny noises it hasn't made before(especially after 10+ years), its time to start looking for a new hard drive, failure is imminent.
They were probably running it out of pure curiosity on when it would fail. I've seen another company running a netware 4.1 for the same reason. Doesn't even have tcp still using ipx.
...sixteen years of operation is ordinary. It's sad that this considered outstanding for a router.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I have very fond memories of 3.12, running a few site servers in the US, Mexico and Honduras. Although installing or patching was a pain with boxes of floppies to feed in to the server. It did what I asked it to do.
When I first looked at IPv6 addresses I had an IPX flashback. When we transitioned to IP from IPX (and to NT 4) I thought "these numbers seem finite compared to what is possible in IPX."
Whatever happened to the "Old Novell Guys" website from the late '90's? I am one. /Sorry if I am rambling.
Just a dude. Stuck in IT.
Essentially - other than tunneling IPX over TCP/IP, which the site may or may not have been using - this version of Netware had no TCP/IP support. No web server, no nothing. Odds are this this wasn't much of a risk. My guess (the article didn't say) is that they were using it for something really specific.
Put that old war horse down easy, it did it's duty and then some, it deserves some respect.
I loved Netware and worked on 2.x, 3.x and 4.x, it's a real shame what's become of Novell.
Is the order of magnitude these heads have traveled (in a circle).
8000rpm x 60 x 24 x 365 x 16 x (5.25/2/2)*pi x 12 x 5280
The special enclosures and controllers in server class hardware supported hot swap [e.g. rebuilding a RAID after disk failure]. The segments of a RAID array comprising a Volume could be on more than one disk controller. Really fancy systems had cold spare drives that would be spun up only when needed to rebuild the array.
Only volume sys: needs to be mounted at all times, other volumes could be mounted and dismounted by console commands. [And again server class hardware supported physically swapping the dismounted volume]
Caution: Do not stare into laser with remaining eye.
This was a NetWare 3.12 box and...
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
I would say thats testament to what quality once was. Try getting even 6 years out of current hard drives. Now everything has this planned obsolescence by manufacturers, since they want to sell you again soon as possible...
My guess (the article didn't say) is that they were using it for something really specific.
It's pretty obvious the only thing they were using it for was to watch the runtime go up and up.
The drive bearings had been noticeably failing for quite some time. The operators might pay some lip service as to why that somehow didn't matter, but the bottom line is - if the risk of a drive failure during operation isn't a problem, the machine isn't serving any real purpose.
#DeleteChrome
One of my clients ran PosgreSQL on their NetWare 3.12 server for years for an insurance agency app. No downtime, no app errors, not even abends.
Another ran the Advantage database engine through 2000. We had a 15 minute call 0002 EST when the app failed ot reload, and before I could get off the call the Y2K patch was in my inbox. Up at 0015, no further problems.
NetWare was my favorite server OS. Miss it still. Only Debian makes servers tolerable for me.
Security seemed to be a nonissue. Nearly every patch I recall was to secure the console - sitting at the keyboard was a prerequiste. Nothing like Windows NT.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
It's slower but more than fast enough, supports printers too although you'll really miss those Novell print queues. And Lantastic has evolved too, you are no longer limited to Arcnet, it supports the *new* 10baseT half duplex cards! Patches are available for the DOS stack to accommodate just about any combination of hardware IRQ and base IO PORT. Just be sure to load the network TSRs BEFORE you run Borland Sidekick.
Whoa! I was having 1984 flashbacks for a moment.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
Most of the patches I applied to 3.12 didn't require a reboot, and those that did didn't require shutting down the power. Such requirements as reboots are uncivilized.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
It's not Windows.
Most systems 16 years ago were very secure (except Windows). Also, most systems didn't need to reboot for security updates (except Windows).
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
tcpip.nlm
I think I first ran Apache on NetWare 4.11. 5.0 had a full stack, even the Tomcat server. GroupWise offered a web server on NW 4.x forward.
No, 3,12 didn't do all it could with TCP/IP, which was a little of a bummer.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Are you saying that every channel on the TV should show the same program?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
âoeNetWare 3.12 Server Taken Down After 16 Years ...â
Required a wooden stake.
Software outliving it's hardware... sigh.
There's something innately human about that which strikes me as... odd.
Price, Quality, Time. Pick none. What, you thought you had a choice?
That's a Montgomery Burns quote Homer.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Why, did IPX have any layer 3 addressing mechanisms?
... How many nines is 16 years of continuous duty? And how many times your beloved "six nines" is that?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
I have stuff yet to ever come up.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Most of the patches I applied to 3.12 didn't require a reboot, and those that did didn't require shutting down the power. Such requirements as reboots are uncivilized.
Does any patch require shutting down the power? The last time I remember a patch that required shutting down the power, it was a wirewrap change on the backplane.
This was on Arstechnica like 3 days ago. This site is increasingly feeding on news carrion.
This site has been doing that for years.
There's still no other site with the quality of exta information you get from the comments.
What ever happend to the Open source NetWare ? I was never clear if it was a clone or not.
Now the other question I have is, why would anyone run it?
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
That's a nice strawman you've got there - it's such a shame it has to go up in flames!
Of course every channel on TV shouldn't show the same programming, just like every website on the internet shouldn't report the same stories. But if one news report on TV covers a particular story, that doesn't mean it's wrong for a TV news report on a different channel (which might have a different audience) to cover the same story. Same with websites.
There was a patch for SuSE recently to fix a 208-day bug, where certain CPU registers on a particular CPU would hold their value through a reboot. We patched servers in work, and they still fell over at various times past 208 days of uptime. It was then realised that there was a need to fully cold-boot the affected servers for the condition to clear correctly.
So, that was one example of a patch that required shutting down the power.
- This sig deliberately left blank. Nothing to see, move along.
Oddly, I replaced my main home server with a highly energy efficient model four years ago (mac mini). I was using a kill-a-watt meter to measure that I was spending > $100/year on the old server, and that was a significant factor on what to get as a replacement. All my other systems are energy efficient laptops at home. I use the kill-a-watt regularly to test devices suspected of burning excess power.
Are there things I don't do? Of course. But I hardly ignore energy efficiency. I also make sure I'm not getting a low energy number that I will never make up the cost of over the life of the equipment. So that hybrid car? No go. I don't drive enough miles to justify the surcharge.
"I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend unto the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire
"My linux systems require constant patching for them not to be p0wned by script kiddies. Therefore it follows that every other system is the same.".
Love that logic.
If you find an OS that doesn't sooner or later turn up something exploitable, please let us know.
Especially if it jacks into a network.
I always was rather impressed with those Quantum drives. I had a Quantum 1.2GB hdd in my computer when we suffered a house fire, and that drive was the only piece of electronics to survive in usable condition. Indeed, it lasted a good 4 or 5 years beyond that.
Dyolf Knip
Funny you mention OS/2, you'd load the OS/2 namespace module on Netware 3.12 in order to get long file name support.
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
Secure my ass, bindery hacks were easy. On more then one occasion I have had to recover admin passwords after disgruntled employees left.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
All of these replies about Novell Netware, and yet I haven't see one single mention of where Novell is today, how NDS came to be known as eDirectory, how Netware was ripped out and slapped on top of Linux under the name SuSe Enterprise Linux, which is totally free to download almost every product they ship and use on your own home network in an uncrippled fashion (so long as you don't want to security updates via a 30 day trial).
Anyways, cheers Novell, you will be missed o/ ;|
On Fark you get pictures.
Skip ------ See the latest from http://www.anArchyFortWorth.com
Only on slashdot you can laugh about silly comments, learn from really insightful ones AND learn about how HOSTS file can save your life and that APK posting as AC was impersonated by another Anonymous Coward!
Tomorrow is another day...
The first time I studied for the Cisco CCNA exam, in the mid-2000s or so, it still had questions about how to configure Netware IPX. Unfortunately, they wouldn't accept the right answer, which was "Tell the users that Netware has supported TCP/IP since Version 5, and if they're still running IPX it's time to upgrade their software." :-)
But one thing I did like about IPv6 was the IPX-like address autoconfiguration. On the other hand, when DHCP came out, it did autoconfiguration just about as easily, and the IPv6 folks seem to have decided "Oh, boy, we get to add all the features anybody thought of that weren't in DHCPv4" so there's a mess of Router Advertisements and different flavors of DHCPv6s and it's not clear that you can get all the capabilities you want from just one protocol. (And EUI64 is gratuitously uglier than just using the MAC address, though I understand why you'd want to bite the bullet now and use 64-bit instead of 48-bit MACs.) And most client-only implementations these days are using IPv6 address privacy extensions when they can, which is a really good thing.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
IPX addresses had two parts - a 4-byte network number and a 6-byte host number that was almost always the MAC address. The network number was locally assigned, and in practice was almost always 00:00:00:00 (the default local network, because almost nobody actually bothered with routing), or FF:FF:FF:FF (broadcast), though some people got fancy and actually split up their networks into routed segments 1,2,3 etc. instead of bridging.
So you could theoretically run an Internet-like network on it if there were some central authority assigning network numbers instead of everybody rolling their own, and it would scale better than IPv4 because there were 32 bits of network number!
AT&T ran an IPX public internet in the mid/late 90s, in coordination with Novell. We assigned public network numbers, and sold connections. By now I've forgotten exactly what years it was, and I wasn't organizationally close enough to it to know if they actually got many customers, and of course there weren't really a lot of applications for it, but it probably ran for about two years.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Just a correction for JSG's post - the IPX address had two parts, a 32-bit network address and a 48-bit host address. SPX was separate - it's the Netware Layer 4 protocol that's roughly equivalent to TCP. IPX network addresses were locally administered, not globally, and most people just used the default network address of 0 (i.e. 00:00:00:00) and if they had multiple LANs they bridged them rather than routing, though some people got fancy and assigned network numbers 1,2,3, etc. the way they currently assign RFC1918 addresses themselves. The host address was almost always a MAC address (or broadcast.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
DEC always prided itself in marketing fully transistorized computers, so it was unlikely to have vacuum tubes.
Netware was considerably stronger than Windows security at the time. Once sitting at the console, it pretty easy, other than a MONITOR.NLM password. Resetting the bindery Supervisor password was pretty simple by loading SETSPASS.NLM or SETSPWD.NLM. Or NW4.x NDS SETPWD.NLM
Direct bindery hacks were much more complicated and still required console access to either get access to the NET$OBJ.SYS, NET$PROP.SYS, NET$VAL.SYS files in 3.x.
Area51 - We are watching...
Might seem hard to believe, but the vast majority of patches, often didn't require reboots under Netware, though it was easier to do so, than unloading and reloading.
Also there's been hardly any 3.12 patches in the last 16 years that I'm aware of. Last year I decommissioned a SFTIII 4.12 system. Up time was 3 years at most due to some weird NIC (State) NLM bug, that replicated across the SFTIII link once every few years. It's a real pity Novell ditched SFTIII, it was a tech that was way ahead of it time and still yet to be matched in simplicity and function IMO.
Area51 - We are watching...
I have a question. Does anyone know whether Novell ever considered porting Netware to any computer platform other than Intel based servers? I mean, there were all the Unix/RISC companies like Sun, SGI, IBM, HP, DEC and so on, so did Novell ever consider porting Netware to any of them, given that they were all based on the server market? Had they done that, there would have been a common OS for all these platforms, instead of fragmented Unixes, such as Solaris, Irix, Ultrix and so on.
A few kernel patches got us, and there were two for GroupWise that included kernel patches. An one IDE driver patch left me with several servers that just would not reload the IDE driver, and yes, we used IDE drives for boot drives.
The IDE driver, in particular, was the one that caused servers to lose time. IDE driver would switch between protected and real mode, and it lost ticks every time. Clock could be fiddled with to resync, and I think NW5 gave me NTP modules that helped, but still a problem. Ah, the days...
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
That is because Novell had been focusing on the new GOSIP protocol stack instead of TCP/IP v4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GOSIP
Are you insane?
If you took all the insecurities of every other OS out there from 1995 and combined them, they could touch all the problems and insecurities DOS/windows had with a 10 foot pole.
What are you talking about, NetWare isn't even remotely related to Unix.