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TITLE: NetWare Lite Pre-Release White Paper
DOCUMENT ID#: FYI.P.6026
DATE: October 29, 1991
PRODUCT: NetWare Lite
PRODUCT VERSION: All versions
SUPERSEDES: NA
SYMPTOM: NA
ISSUE/PROBLEM
NetWare Lite Pre-Release White Paper
Overview
NetWare LiteTM is Novell's new peer-to-peer operating system. Its client/server architecture provides networking features for small LANs. NetWare Lite is designed to be easy to install and use. It supports disk and printer sharing for up to 25 nodes on a single physical LAN segment. Each node in the network can be configured as either a client, a server, or both. Both client and server are DOS terminate-and-stay-resident (TSR) programs. Therefore, the server operates in a nondedicated mode with DOS as the underlying operating system.
Program Details
NetWare Lite consists of three TSR software pieces, and a single utility.
The client supports the Microsoft interrupt 2fh redirector interface, and occupies approximately 12k of workstation memory.
The server is another DOS TSR that utilizes DOS networking server hooks. The average configuration requires 45k of workstation memory. The server runs in real mode on an IBM PC, XT, AT or compatible computer with a hard disk. The server uses DOS and the DOS file system to share files with network clients.
Both programs use Novell's IPX protocol. IPX is provided by a trio of TSRs that implement Novell's ODI protocol interface and MLID LAN board interface. The group of programs providing the IPX protocol requires approximately 15k of workstation memory, depending on the LAN driver used. NetWare Lite provides a group of MLID drivers with the product to support a large number of LAN boards. NetWare Lite also runs with other LAN boards if an MLID compliant driver is provided. NetWare Lite also runs over the older "linked" version of IPX, if already present.
Network operations and administration are performed using a single utility that functions in either command-line or menu-driven mode. The utility incorporates extensive online user help.
The client and server communicate using a request/response protocol similar to that used by the dedicated NetWare operating system. The server can support up to 25 simultaneous client connections. All nodes on a NetWare Lite network, both clients and servers, reside on a single physical LAN segment, or on LAN segments connected via MAC layer bridges. The underlying operating system for the server and client is DOS version 3.x (3.1 and above), 4.x, 5.0 or DR DOS 6.0. Disk redirection, file attributes, and file sharing are supported, including enforcement of DOS sharing modes and record locking through DOS' SHARE.EXE. Printer redirection is supported through both DOS device I/O and BIOS printer services.
Network Features
The server provides network directories, that can be shared by a client as a redirected disk. A network directory associates a logical name to a subdirectory on a physical drive at the server. More than one network directory can be defined within the same subdirectory tree on a server's physical disk. Both hard drives and floppy drives can be shared as network directories. The server can also provide network printers, that can be shared by a client as a redirected printer port. A network printer associates a logical name to a printer attached to the server.
Network security is enforced via user accounts. Access to network resources can be controlled on a per-user basis, using a simplified rights scheme implemented through access control lists. A user's identity is verified using password authentication. Passwords are encrypted both in the user database and during transmission on the network. A full range of user account restrictions and password requirements is enforced by the operating system.
Network directories can be manipulated dynamically, for instance a new network directory can be created and used without rebooting the server on which it resides.
Print jobs are spooled, and can be manipulated (held, deleted or other) while in the print queue at the server. The server supports both parallel and serial print devices, and can spool simultaneously to multiple printers. Print jobs can be controlled by a variety of printing options: printing a banner, number of copies, tab expansion, printer setup strings, holding a job, etc. Also supported is direct printing, whereby a job can begin despooling (printing) before it has finished being submitted to the print queue.
A variety of statistics is reported for servers. These can be monitored and used to reconfigure a server for enhanced memory utilization or performance. The network maintains an audit log so that activities on the network can be tracked. An error log is also kept, to aid in isolating and resolving problems with the network. The installation program includes verification that LAN cards, cables and IPX software are installed correctly and are operational.
Additional miscelaneous features include the following: Messages can be sent to other users' video displays. It is possible to disable the reception and display of messages on your terminal. Time for all or part of the machines on the network can be synchronized. The server has a pop-up window that displays printer errors and necessary operator actions, and another window that requests confirmation when the user reboots the machine.
Operational Details (Advanced Features)
NetWare Lite's implementation of advanced networking techniques achieves simplicity of operation as well as network performance and robustness. Shared directories and printers and users are presented in a network-wide view. Network directories and printers can be used without reference to (or user's awareness of) the location of their physical component. Furthermore, client access to a resource is unaffected by moving the resource from one server to another. Although resources are presented to the user in a conglomerate view, servers operate independently of each other. Also, a single server or group of servers can go down without disrupting the rest of the network.
The user database is a distributed, replicated database. Therefore, user accounts are administered on a network-wide, rather than per-server basis. A user logs into the network, rather than into specific servers. The password is required only once (the client software, not the user, handles authentication with new servers as their resources are used). Only one account exists on the network for each user. This greatly simplifies user administration. If user accounts are administered when a portion of the network is down, the user database is resynchronized when that portion again becomes operational. Since the database is distributed, network operation continues even if only one server is functional.
The client can reconnect (transparently to the user) with a server and continue most operations even after a server has gone down and is brought back up. In such a case, drives need not be remapped nor must printer ports be recaptured. However, information for open DOS files cannot be retained through a server reboot.
NetWare Lite supports de-centralized network administration. Network resources and server configurations can be manipulated from any machine (running the client software) on the network. Remote administration of servers can be optionally disallowed per server.
The server implements a read-ahead cache for enhanced performance. NetWare Lite is also compatible with third party DOS-based disk caches. Several third party caches have been tested and found to enhance network performance by the same amount that they enhance local DOS disk performance.
NetWare Compatibility
NetWare Lite is compatible with NetWare. NetWare Lite software (both client and server) can use either the ODI implementation of IPX or the original linked implementation of IPX. The client and server both coexist with the NetWare DOS shell. Thus a client may have drives mapped to volumes on dedicated NetWare 286 or 386 servers, while simultaneously having other drives mapped to NetWare Lite network directories. Also, dedicated NetWare volumes can be chained into a NetWare Lite network by mapping a drive to the volume using the shell and then providing a network directory, based on that drive, to Lite clients through the non-dedicated NetWare Lite server. The same holds true for simultaneous port captures, and chained printer ports.
Applications Compatibility
NetWare Lite is compatible with application software that uses single-machine DOS calls. Also, NetWare Lite supports network applications that use only DOS networking APIs. This includes all DOS networking APIs. The NetWare application programming interface is not supported.
Peer-to-peer network level APIs are also supported. This includes IPX, SPX, and NetBIOS. To use the NetBIOS API with NetWare Lite, you must load Novell's NetBIOS emulator software (available separately).
