AN OVERVIEW OF NETWARE LITE 1.0 ****** WARNING ****** I can only describe what is happening on the hardware/software combo that I am using. I know you knew that. I'm repeating it so that I get inquiries not hate mail. At the end of this NetWare Lite overview you'll find a complete de- scription of my systems. But you may want to know from the onset that I'm using Generic MS-DOS 3.3. In order to spare you a diatribe but answer those who may be wondering about upgrading DOS I'll put an explanation on why I don't upgrade to MS-DOS 5.0 or DR-DOS 6.0 at the end of this overview. See section titled -- WHY I HAVEN'T UPGRADED. YUMMIES, FACTS & OPINIONS ABOUT NETWARE LITE For those of you who have not read about NetWare Lite {NL here after}. OPINION - NL is suitable for home and small to medium business needs. For busi- nesses it will provide a quick and inexpensive way into the Novell Networking World, with no loss of investment when a business is ready to move to NetWare 2.1 or above. For business with existing Novell systems, it is fully compatible and offers the chance to do some novel things. FACT - Installation of the software & preparation {security etc.} is easy and quick. Even if you change your mind or Network Cards or just play around to look at things, reinstallation is easy. By quick I mean that after installing network cards and cabling you can be up and running in 15-30 minutes including backups of the original software. FACT - The documentation while lacking a technical description of some areas of concern, Read Buffers and Receive Buffers. Doesn't weigh 50 lbs. It's all contained in 160 odd pages and while to simplistic for some, is perfect for the first time user or non-network non-technical per- son. FACT - NL's effect on your system resources is minimal you won't see it slow down your computer. FACT - NL itself is fast at transferring files, and updating files. Random & sequential access remains fast even when both machines are running heavy processes. Note I have not gone beyond 5 workstations yet, but each was running only NL and were not sharing the cabling with any other NetWare. Testing is always a long hard process. FACT - The configuration options in the program NET.EXE meet the real needs of anyone planning to run NL in a work environment. OPINION - Printer sharing is possible and desirable for character based pro- grams. OPINION - Printer sharing for graphics applications is not satisfactory. OPINION - NL is a memory hog. This opinion will be the most hotly contested. Just after this summery you find a discussion of NL Memory Require- ments and QEMM 6.0. I come to this opinion from Netware drivers that use WD 8003 Cards which stash a kernel in low memory and allow the use of expanded or extended memory for the bulk of their code. FACT - The above opinion will be tempered by your own requirements. IE. do you desire two way peer to peer or one way. Do you need printer shar- ing . Are your network cards 8 or 16 bit. Ah gotcha on that, right? So far I have not seen any discussion of memory figures for NL that have included the Network cards ram memory, but as far as I'm con- cerned the cards ram memory requirement reduce your system memory and in this day and age of high memory management, Windows 3.0 and DESQview, this reduction MUST be considered as part of the overall memory requirements of NL. Just how important 8 lowly k of high mem- ory is, will be dependent on your needs and uses, but it was import- ant enough for me, that I replaced 16 bit cards with 8 bit cards. And by the way I noticed no reduction in throughput. FACT - I have stated elsewhere that in my work environment I use NetWare 2.1 and below. If a server goes down or is taken down the workstations or clients must relog and remap to regain access. NL does a superb job of allowing the client to retry lost connections. And a simple bat file will as with NetWare 2.1 take care of relogging and remapping. OPINION - NL does a great job of trapping keyboard attempts to . Options are needed here to make it satisfactory in a work environ- ment . Novell must add, in it's next version, a password protect routine that demands a password if the routine finds client files open. Right now the routine allows you to back out or continue with the warm boot. FACT - Using MS-DOS 3.3 and Qemm 6.0 you can load NL's files into high mem- ory. If you are operating as Server and Client then only Server.exe or Client.exe can be loaded high, but not both. You can use stealth parameters in your Qemm 6.0 configuration and NetWare Lite will work. FACT - An experienced NetWare user friend of mine tells me that the above holds true for MS-DOS 5.0 using Qemm 6.0. NetWare Lite files and memory considerations Once the installation program is finished it will have created on your disk, a directory (you have the option of naming it anything you wish). In this directory it places the files need to allow you to become a Server, a client, or Both. It even creates a bat file to load the software or demonstrate to you the proper load sequence. THESE ARE THE FILES YOU NEED TO LOAD INTO MEMORY. LSL -------- Link Support. IPX talks to device drivers. WDPLUS ------ Network interface board drivers. Names & memory sizes may differ with different Manufacturers boards. IPXODI A --- Controls packet transmission between machines on lan. SHARE ------ Optional / Needed on Server Machine only. Dangerous not to use. SERVER ----- Needed by at least one machine on the lan. CLIENT ------ Allows workstation to access files on the server. With regards to memory consideration. During my testing I only observed one file change sizes significantly as I made changes to servers parameters. The file Server.exe. It went from a low of 42k to a high of 54k. Listed below are the best fit configuration file sizes I have arrived at for my system. Machine configured as a server only. LSL --------------- 3.6K WDPLUS ------------- 3.9K IPXODI A ---------- 6.9K SHARE ------------- 5.9K SERVER ------------ 46.0K No printer sharing. ------- 66.3K Not counting the Network boards ram. 74.3K With Network board ram included. Machine configured as a client only. LSL --------------- 3.6K WDPLUS ------------- 3.9K IPXODI A ---------- 6.9K CLIENT ------------- 13.5K No printer sharing. ------- 27.9K Not counting the Network boards ram. 35.9K With Network board ram included. Machine configured as server and client. LSL --------------- 3.6K WDPLUS ------------- 3.9K IPXODI A ---------- 6.9K SHARE ------------- 5.9K SERVER ------------ 46.0K No printer sharing. CLIENT ------------- 13.5K -------- 79.8K Not counting the Network boards ram. 87.8K With Network board ram included. Below is a snapshot of my high memory region with the above files loaded. IMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM; : Region Area Size Status : : 1 B000 - B00C 0.2K Used (QEMM386) : : 1 B00D - B0D3 3.1K Used (NANSI286) : : 1 B0D4 - B69F 23K Used (SMARTDRV) : : 1 B6A0 - B705 1.5K Used (SJDRIVER) : : 1 B706 - B7A7 2.5K Used (HPSCANER) : : 1 B7A8 - B7FE 1.3K Available : : 2 CE00 - CEEA 3.6K Used (LSL) : : 2 CEEB - CFE7 3.9K Used (WDPLUS) : : 2 CFE8 - D1A2 6.9K Used (IPXODI) : : 2 D1A3 - DD54 46K Used (SERVER) : : 2 DD55 - EBFE 58K Available : : 3 FC00 - FEFF 12K Available : HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM< Below is my config.sys file, with the Qemm parameters note especially the exclusions for Stealth. The X=FF00-FFFF Seems to be important in order to make NetWare Lite Stable. The X=C000-C7FF exclusion is needed by Windows 3.0 on my system. Note- I include these addresses in Windows system.ini file along with B000-B7FF. I have been running Windows 3.0 since it became available. Under Windows I run some very demanding software. Publishers Paintbrush by Zsoft, Ami Pro 2.0 from Lotus, FoxPro Lan from Fox, PC AnyWhere II from DMA, Scanners and CD-ROMs. Many of these software packages are run simultaneously. They all work with NetWare Lite and I haven't had a burp yet. rem c:\configs\WIN3.SYS shell=c:\command.com /E:450/P stacks=0,0 buffers=2 files=32 LASTDRIVE=W device=c:\qemm\qemm386.sys /R:1 DMA=64 ROM RAM ARAM=C800-CDFF ST:M X=C000-C7FF X=FF00-FFFF device=c:\qemm\loadhi.sys /R:1 c:\drivers\nansi286.sys device=c:\qemm\loadhi.sys /R:1 c:\drivers\smartdrv.sys 2048 1024 device=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /R:1 C:\DRIVERS\SJDRIVER.SYS device=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /R:1 C:\DRIVERS\HPSCANER.SYS /H DEVICE=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /R:1 c:\drivers\SONY_CDU.SYS /D:MSCD001 /B:340 /U:1 /M:H /Q:5 /T:* WHY I HAVEN'T UPGRADED Our business must remain functional during the day. Invoicing, purchase ordering, computer faxing, our 8 Books in Print on CD-ROM, Invoice History etc., MUST all be available or we cannot function. Thus all Workstations in our 42 Workstation 4 NetWare Servers system have large Disk drives to accommodate local batch files for nightly batch processing, as well as redundancy. IE. Six workstations can do invoicing in case of the ultimate emergency . During the night complex bat files and in house written software use the network to comm- unicate between machines, transfer data and update files, backup to tape and even change their own CONFIG.SYS AND AUTOEXEC.BAT files. The Books In Print CD-ROM software requires weekly updates that take about 20 30 minutes of down loading from floppy disk and 4-6 hours of processing. With eight machines running this software it would be stupid not to do as I have done and automate the process so that even the newest employee can do the updating via menu on one workstation and then have the system do a nightly transfer to the other seven Workstations. It's a one man show, mine so I have gone to great lengths to automate even the simplest of things. Workstation's nightly do checks of their disk and take appropriate action if something is wrong as well as notify me. Once a month each workstation backs all it's software to the network, double checks that the backups are perfect and then refresh their own disks, mark bad blocks etc. then reload the backup software and data and double check it all again. In 9 years I have never had to tell the boss we have lost data. Never once has The Network gone down due to any problems with the NetWare software, or Servers. But we have had several disasters that have shut down the network for more than a few days. We have had a flood, a fire, a fifty thousand volt surge, and a few other incidents. Through it all we stayed open and worked efficiently using Workstations. Thank God our Business does not require real time multiuser transaction processing. Add to the above paragraphs the fact that our four Novell Netware servers all run Netware Version 2.1 and below. I am not about at this time to chance moving to a new dos. MS-DOS 5.0 requires Netware 2.15 and above according to Microsoft and DR_DOS 6.0 is still to new and untested. Looking at the functionality of Both MS_DOS 5.0 and DR-Dos 6.0 I see nothing there that would justify the ex- pendure of Thousands of Dollars To upgrade the Novell Software, Purchase 42 Doses, test all Workstation and perhaps Rewrite in house software. Lastly, I can tell you that the combination of MS-DOS 3.3 and Qram on a 286 or QEMM 6.0 on a 386/486 is still superior to upgrading to any other DOS. Yes I have done extensive testing and yes I'd spend the money and I'd upgrade everything tomorrow but not for just a Kiss and a Promise. MARTY JACOBSON OPAMP TECHNICAL BOOKS INC. (213)-464-4322 System / Overview 486 EISA Processor i486 Video Adapter VGA BIOS Mylex BIOS Date 05/13/91 Coprocessor 80387 Keyboard Enhanced Parallel Ports 2 Serial Ports 2 Total Available Conventional Memory 640K 564K Expanded Memory 31840K 29216K Extended Memory 31744K 0K System / CONFIG rem c:\configs\ WIN3.SYS shell=c:\command.com /E:450/P stacks=0,0 buffers=2 files=32 LASTDRIVE=W device=c:\qemm\qemm386.sys /R:1 DMA=64 ROM RAM ARAM=C ...800-CDFF ST:M X=C000-C7FF X=FF00-FFFF device=c:\qemm\loadhi.sys /R:1 c:\drivers\nansi286.sy ...s device=c:\qemm\loadhi.sys /R:1 c:\drivers\smartdrv.sy ...s 2048 1024 device=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /R:1 C:\DRIVERS\SJDRIVER.SY ...S device=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /R:1 C:\DRIVERS\HPSCANER.SY ...S /H DEVICE=C:\QEMM\LOADHI.SYS /R:1 c:\drivers\SONY_CDU.SY ...S /D:MSCD001 /B:340 /U:1 /M:H /Q:5 /T:* System / AUTOEXEC @ECHO OFF CTTY NUL: PATH=C:\UTIL;C:\BAT;C:\DOS;C:\NWLITE SET COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM SET LIB=E:\LIB SET LINK=/SE:500 SET NAME=WIN3 SET TEMP=P:\TEMP SET TMP=P:\TEMP SET COPYQM=VERIFY;ALL SET FOXPROCFG=C:\FOXPRO\CONFIG.FP PROMPT=$P$_ IF NOT EXIST F:\WINDOWS\*.THB GOTO SKIP0 DEL F:\WINDOWS\*.THB :SKIP0 IF NOT EXIST C:\~*.* GOTO SKIP1 DEL C:\~*.* CALL C:\AUTOBATS\DELTEMPS.BAT C :SKIP1 IF NOT EXIST P:\TEMP\~*.* GOTO SKIP2 DEL P:\TEMP\~*.* CALL C:\AUTOBATS\DELTEMPS.BAT P :SKIP2 IF NOT EXIST O:\PUBTEMP\~*.* GOTO SKIP3 DEL O:\PUBTEMP\~*.* CALL C:\AUTOBATS\DELTEMPS.BAT O :SKIP3 C: CD \ PATH=C:\UTIL;C:\BAT;C:\DOS;C:\NWLITE;K:\AMIPRO;C:\HDI ...PCDOS CALL C:\AUTOBATS\NETWORK.BAT C: CD \ :EXIT CTTY CON CALL C:\AUTOBATS\AUTOEXIT.BAT WINDOWS :FINI System / Adapters Video Display Adapter Type: VGA Monitor: Color Display Video Memory: A000 - AFFF Graphics B800 - BFFF Text Video ROM: C000 - C7FF Disk Adapters Device No. Type Heads Cyls Sect Capacity Diskette 1 2 2 80 15 1.2 MB Diskette 2 4 2 80 18 1.4 MB ------------------------------------------------ Fixed Disk 1 43 12 987 35 212.2 MB Fixed Disk 2 43 12 987 35 212.2 MB Serial / Printer Adapters Serial Signals No. Port CD RI DSR CTS 1 03F8 - - - - 2 02F8 - - - - Printer Signals No. Port SEL OOP ACK NBZ 1 0378 * - - - 2 0278 - - - - System / CMOS Time 7:17 AM Date October 21, 1991 Base Memory 640K Extended Memory 31744K Diskette Drives Primary = 1.2 MB Secondary = 1.44 MB Fixed Disks Primary = Type 43 Secondary = Type 12587 First Meg / Overview Memory Area Size Description 0000 - 003F 1K Interrupt Area 0040 - 004F 0.3K BIOS Data Area 0050 - 006F 0.5K System Data 0070 - 0E75 56K DOS 0E76 - 12D1 17K Program Area 12D2 - 9FFF 564K [Available] ===Conventional memory ends at 640K==== A000 - AFFF 64K VGA Graphics B000 - B7FF 32K High RAM B800 - BFFF 32K VGA Text C000 - C7FF 32K Video ROM C800 - CDFF 24K Unused CE00 - EBFF 120K High RAM EC00 - FBFF 64K Page Frame FC00 - FEFF 12K High RAM FF00 - FFFF 4K System ROM First Meg / Programs Memory Area Size Description 0E76 - 0F49 3.3K COMMAND 0F4A - 0F4D 0.1K [Available] 0F4E - 0F6B 0.5K COMMAND Environment 0F6C - 0F81 0.3K [Available] 0F82 - 12D1 13K (0F83) 12D2 - 9FFF 564K [Available] ====Conventional memory ends at 640K===== B000 - B00C 0.2K QEMM386 B00D - B0D3 3.1K NANSI286 B0D4 - B69F 23K SMARTDRV B6A0 - B705 1.6K SJDRIVER B706 - B7A7 2.5K HPSCANER B7A8 - B7FE 1.4K [Available] CE00 - CEEA 3.7K LSL CEEB - CFE7 4K WDPLUS CFE8 - D1A2 6.9K IPXODI D1A3 - DD54 46K SERVER DD55 - EBFE 58K [Available] FC00 - FEFF 12K [Available] First Meg / Interrupts 0070: IO 01 03 04 0F 02BC: MSDOS 00 20 25 26 27 2B 2C 2D 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 3A 3B 3C 3D 3E 3F 0A1F: EMMXXXX0 02 06 07 0A 0C 0D 0E 11 12 15 16 1A 40 42 4B 67 6D 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 0E76: COMMAND 22 23 24 2E 0F82: (0F83) 10 13 17 28 2A 2F B000: QEMM386 41 46 B00D: NANSI286 1B 29 B0D4: SMARTDRV 19 C000: Video ROM 1F 43 CEEB: WDPLUS 0B CFE8: IPXODI 64 7A D1A3: SERVER 05 08 09 14 21 FF00: System ROM 18 1C 1D 44 45 47 48 49 4A 4C 4D 4E 4F 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 5A 5B 5C 5D 5E 5F 68 69 6A 6B 6C 6E 6F First Meg / BIOS Data 00: Serial Ports 03F8 02F8 0000 0000 08: Parallel Ports 0378 0278 0000 0000 10: Installed Hardware 8463 12: Reserved B0 13: Memory Size in Kb 0280 15: Reserved 00 00 17: Keyboard Control 20 00 00 1A: Keyboard Head/Tail 0032 0032 1E: Keyboard Buffer 1474 1C0D 2166 3C00 26: 50E0 0F09 50E0 50E0 2E: 50E0 1C0D 1177 1C0D 36: 2E63 0E08 326D 2166 3E: Diskette Data 00 00 1F 00 42: Diskette Status C3 00 00 00 00 00 00 49: Display Mode 03 4A: Number of Columns 0050 4C: Regen Buffer Length 1000 4E: Regen Buffer Start 0000 50: Cursor Positions 1029 0000 0000 0000 58: 0000 0000 0000 0000 60: Cursor Type 07 06 62: Display Page 00 63: CRT Controller Base 03D4 65: 3x8 Setting 09 66: 3x9 Setting 30 67: Reset Vector 0B08:017E 6B: Interrupt Occurred 02 6C: Timer Counter 0007:48A6 70: Timer Overflow 00 71: Break Bit 00 72: Reset Word 1200 74: Fixed Disk Status 00 75: Fixed Disks Attached 02 76: Fixed Disk Control 08 77: Reserved 00 78: Printer Timeouts 14 14 14 34 7C: Serial Timeouts 01 01 01 01 80: Keyboard Start 001E 82: Keyboard End 003E 84: Screen Rows (Less 1) 18 85: Character Height 0010 87: Video Control States 60 F9 89: Reserved 11 0B 8B: Media Control 01 8C: Fixed Disk Data 50 01 00 8F: Reserved 00 90: Media States 02 61 92: Reserved 00 00 94: Current Cylinders 00 00 96: Keyboard State 10 97: Keyboard LED 12 98: User Wait Routine 0040:00A0 9C: User Wait Count 0000:0018 A0: Wait Active Flag 00 A1: Reserved 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 A8: EGA Structures C000:2434 Expanded / Overview QEMM-386 v. 6.00 EMS Version 4.0 and EEMS 3.2 Page Frame EC00 Mappable Pages 40 Total Available Expanded Memory 31840K 29216K EMS Handles 64 62 Real Alternate Maps 8 8 Expanded / Handles Handle Size Name 0 576K 1 2048K EMB1 Extended / Overview Memory Area Size Status 1024K - 32767K 31744K Used from Top Extended / XMS XMS Version 3.00 Driver Revision 6.00 High Memory Area Available A20 Disabled Handles Available 62 Shares Memory with EMS Yes Total Largest Memory Block Type Available Available Upper (640K - 1024K) 71K 58K Extended (above 1024K) 10240K 10240K DOS / Overview DOS version 3.30 Kernel: 38K* Drivers: 13K Base Data: 4K Memory Area Size Description Total: 56K 0070 - 02BB 9.2K IO 02BC - 0A1E 29K MSDOS FILES=32 0A1F - 0D77 13K Drivers FCBS=4,0 0D78 - 0DD1 1.4K 27 FILES BUFFERS=2 0DD2 - 0DDF 0.2K 4 FCBS LASTDRIVE=W 0DE0 - 0E00 0.5K 1 BUFFERS STACKS=0,0 0E01 - 0E75 1.8K Drive List * Includes: 5 FILES and 1 BUFFERS DOS / Drivers Attributes Memory Area Size Driver Program CSBxRxxxxLxxKNOI NUL MSDOS C N 0B1F - 0D77 9.4K MSCD001 CS R 0B0F - 0B1E 0.3K IMGSCAN$ CS 0AFF - 0B0E 0.3K HPSCAN CS 0AEF - 0AFE 0.3K SMARTAAR CS R 0ADF - 0AEE 0.3K CON C x OI QEMM386$ CS 0A1F - 0ADE 3K EMMXXXX0 CS CON IO C x OI AUX IO C PRN IO C B L CLOCK$ IO C K A: - P: IO R L COM1 IO C LPT1 IO C B L LPT2 IO C B L LPT3 IO C B L COM2 IO C COM3 IO C COM4 IO C DOS / Files Open Total Files 8 32 FCBs 0 4 Open Files Name Ext Program AUX CON PRN NUL CON NUL NUL MANIFEST PRN DOS / Environment Total Available Environment Size 464 162 COMSPEC=C:\COMMAND.COM LIB=E:\LIB LINK=/SE:500 NAME=WIN3 TEMP=P:\TEMP TMP=P:\TEMP COPYQM=VERIFY;ALL FOXPROCFG=C:\FOXPRO\CONFIG.FP PROMPT=$P$_ LAST=C:\LIGHT LASTDRV=C: ENV=WINDOWS SPARE=RELEASE THIS SPACE IN BAT FILES TO GAIN MORE EN ...VIRONMENT PATH=C:\UTIL;C:\BAT;C:\DOS;C:\NWLITE;K:\AMIPRO;C:\HDI ...PCDOS QEMM-386 / Overview QEMM version 6.00 QEMM status There is High RAM and Mapped ROM. Expanded memory is being used. Mode ON Page Frame EC00 QEMM-386 / Memory Unavailable Converted Initial to QEMM by QEMM Leaving Conventional 640K - 0K - 0K = 640K Extended 31744K - 0K -31744K = 0K Expanded 0K - 0K +31264K =31264K High RAM 0K - 0K + 164K = 164K ------ ------ ------ ------ TOTAL 32384K - 0K - 316K =32068K 316K QEMM Overhead Code & Data: 119K Maps: 32K Tasks: 18K Mapped ROM: 68K DMA Buffer: 64K Unassigned: 15K 3K Conventional Memory Overhead