OS X & mounting AppleTalk or Netware network drives

[erdunbar]

Ok, a two part question:
(1) AppleTalk not over TCP/IP. Is anyone aware of an OS X solution to allow OS X to mount Classic or OT AppleTalk network drives?

(2) Netware 3.12. Again, does anyone know of a way to mount Netware drives on OS X? I'm sure there have to be *nix services which will allow *nix users to access Netware services so the obstacles to porting them to OS X should not be that great.

I am in a network which is serviced by a Netware 3.12 server. There's a mixture of Win 95/98/NT/2000/ME and Mac OS 8.x-9.1 + one or two odd-ball OS Xers (probably 100-200 computers). All I need from the server is to be able to mount drives. Under OS 9 I can login using AppleShare (OpenTransport... is that what is no longer supported under OS X?).

The problem under OS X is that the server does not have AppleTalk over TCP/IP services and I'm 99.9% sure that there are no $$$s or will available for a Netware software upgrade (people around here are still using Pegasus e-mail because they don't want to delete their *vital* emails from 1989).

What I would like to be able to do is access the file server under OS X. AppleTalk over TCP/IP would be ideal, but failing that accessing the server using the same protocols that Windoze (Netware?) does would be fine!

BTW the reason I don't see them being that keen on upgrading to a newer Netware is that the server causes them no headaches whatsoever (they had to reset the DNS a few months ago b/c it'd crashed but that was it).

Eric.

[sveijk]

Well, there is a Linux Novell client called ncpfs. You could try porting that.

Netmare 3.x does not serve AFP over IP (essentially Appleshare/IP). So you are out of luck there. And to be honest, the AFP/IP client in OSX seems pretty finicky anyway. It doesn't like my Netatalk servers at all. Apparently there is only one version of Netatalk that works with OSX.

For one-time transfers, you could move files to a Win2000 box. 2000 supports AFP/IP so you could theoretically create a share accessible by your OSX machine.

If I were our employer, I would move to a Linux or BSD based server. They could serve IPX/SPX, SMB and AFP/IP from one machine with equal or better reliability.

[erdunbar]

Originally posted by sveijk
Well, there is a Linux Novell client called ncpfs. You could try porting that.

Hmmm... I think I'll wait for someone else to get around to porting it. Though, if I ever find enough spare time, I'll tinker with it. ncpfs... will have to d/l and see what can be done with it (I presume it requires too much techno-geek Linux/UNIX knowledge though).

For one-time transfers, you could move files to a Win2000 box. 2000 supports AFP/IP so you could theoretically create a share accessible by your OSX machine.

If I were our employer, I would move to a Linux or BSD based server. They could serve IPX/SPX, SMB and AFP/IP from one machine with equal or better reliability.

For transfers all I need to do is boot into OS 9 (my preferred OS now that I have 320 MB RAM (G3/450)... OS X feels like it's OS 9 on a 64 MB 8600/200 (it doesn't even feel like a G3 machine) ).

As for my "employer" (am grad student in a university botany department), they do not have a budget for computer upgrades since the server works fine for all non-OS X OSes (Ontario universities are now among the worst funded post-secondary institutions in North America... we have a gov't in place that would fit right in with some of the American loonie-toon states (Nebraska ). The computer guy would like to just have a linux/unix server for file services and e-mail but we've got a bunch of professors who are reluctant to enter the 1990s and use a real e-mail app rather than Pegasus!!! (and, the older you are, the more power you wield and, thus, the less likely you are to be willing to learn how to use newer, more effective apps).

Though, reliability isn't an issue as the server doesn't crash (I have *always* been able to access my files there).

Eric.

[sveijk]

Originally posted by erdunbar

Hmmm... I think I'll wait for someone else to get around to porting it. Though, if I ever find enough spare time, I'll tinker with it. ncpfs... will have to d/l and see what can be done with it (I presume it requires too much techno-geek Linux/UNIX knowledge though).

Probably. Although you might be able to simply untar the source, cd into it and:

./configure ppc
make
make install

Seems unlikely, since I can't find any web reference to using the package under BSD. My BSD ignorance is only exceeded by my Novell ignorance.

For transfers all I need to do is boot into OS 9 (my preferred OS now that I have 320 MB RAM (G3/450)... OS X feels like it's OS 9 on a 64 MB 8600/200 (it doesn't even feel like a G3 machine) ).

Perspective is everything. To me, cooperative multitasking makes OS9 seem unbearably slow. Waiting a few extra seconds for my web browser to open in OSX doesn't bother me.

As for my "employer" (am grad student in a university botany department), they do not have a budget for computer upgrades since the server works fine for all non-OS X OSes (Ontario universities are now among the worst funded post-secondary institutions in North America... we have a gov't in place that would fit right in with some of the American loonie-toon states (Nebraska ). The computer guy would like to just have a linux/unix server for file services and e-mail but we've got a bunch of professors who are reluctant to enter the 1990s and use a real e-mail app rather than Pegasus!!! (and, the older you are, the more power you wield and, thus, the less likely you are to be willing to learn how to use newer, more effective apps).

Well, this upgrade should be zero cost. Except for the time of whoever implements it. Of course, if you don't need it, you don't need it.

Though, reliability isn't an issue as the server doesn't crash (I have *always* been able to access my files there).

Hmmm... Must be some other Novell 3.x I never encountered. ;-)

Actually, it sounds as if you are using Novell as Mother Nature intended. There is nothing like appropriate technology. For the admin, there are compelling reasons to change (remote administration foremost among them) but for you users, there probably aren't. Still, while reliable, I doubt that box is as robust as a decent Linux server. The last one I deployed serves 10,000+ users and has been up for 225 days without a reboot or interruption of service.

I'll keep my eyes open for Novell clients. Although, now that I think about it, this would probably require some kind of IPX/SPX kernel functionality. So this would be a very different (although easier) matter under OSX than under Linux. I suppose they could implement it in user space, but ncpfs doesn't.

Sounds like a dead end to me. I think there are third party suites that tack TCP/IP based services onto Netmare 3.x. If you can find one of them for cheap, you could export your data as NFS shares.