Help with installing Netware 3.12 in a VM

[vbdasc]

Hello. I'm sorry that I have to ask such seemingly trivial question, but... can anyone provide insights of installing Netware 3.12 under a simulator/emulator (not a real machine; I have actually installed NW 3.12 on real hardware decades ago, more than once, but my memory is starting to get fuzzy). A step-by step guide would be quite welcome

Yes, I know that there are several guides available on the internet; unfortunately, none is detailed enough. The information I'm really after is: what hypervisor is used and what exact version; what Netware patches are applied, including the level of server ODI support; and what virtual LAN devices and what LAN drivers. Unfortunately, there are too many combinations and trying them all seems a daunting task.

To be honest, I seem to have problems only with the networking. The OS itself gets installed, but I'm simply unable to access it from a DOS workstation over the network. I'm using Virtualbox (I've tried versions 6.1.x, 6.0.x and now I'm on 5.2.x) due to its good networking support. The most I have been able to get so far is successful loading of the LAN drivers on the server, and using a network sniffer I've been able to confirm that the DOS workstation (in Virtualbox too) receives the advertisement frames from the server, and at least reads the IPX network number from them, but... that's it; NETX and VLM clients still don't connect! Yes, I've made sure that the server and the client both use the same Ethernet frame type (tried only 802.2 LLC for now), to spare you this question

Any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[davidg]

Can't provide much help running Netware 3.12 in VirtualBox as I've never tried running it there, but I do have it up and running under Linux-KVM (along with NetWare 4.11) and documented the process in an absurd number of screenshots which I guess is pretty much a step-by-step guide! Though really it was for my own notes in case I ever needed to do it again or had problems later on and wanted to know exactly what configuration choices I'd made while setting everything up. It runs pretty well - I can login from both real physical machines and VirtualBox VMs running on a different machine just fine using all the usual frame types. Can even talk to it from a Mac emulator if I jump through the hoops to get it on the LAN.

You can see what I did here: https://www.zx.net.nz/netware/server/312-kvm-1/ - has the exact configuration along with links to all the drivers I'm running. That page doesn't say it but originally everything was setup on: Debian 10.10 (buster) with uname giving Linux titan 4.19.0-16-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.19.181-1 (2021-03-19) x86_64 GNU/Linux. Libvirt-daemon is version 5.0. I'm managing it with virt-manager 2.2.1 running under the windows subsystem for linux (v2) connecting to the server via SSH.

The base install of NetWare 3.12 worked fine but as far as patches go I took the easy option and just installed the NetWare 3.2 Enhancement Pack which is/was pretty much just a paid-for service pack that bundled up all the patches into one easily installable package and also provided a registered version of wnSysCon (a graphical shareware replacement for SYSCON).

If you want to instead apply the mountain of 3.12 patches, you can grab them from here and the old Config Reader Utility may be useful for seeing whats currently installed vs what Novell recommended having installed as of around 2002.

[vbdasc]

Thanks! Your website is great, by the way! I stumbled upon it about a couple of months ago, and if not for it, I probably wouldn't even think of trying to install Netware... (or rather, I'd not remember that such a thing once existed )

For now, I've decided to stick with Virtualbox, though... (if I fail to make any progress, I might look at other emulators). I downloaded a bunch of AMD PCNET drivers from the net, and I'm going to try them all, one by one, and the same with general patch options (no patch at all, 312PTD, loader patch from 312PTD) and with ODI33G (no patch at all, HSM 3.2 compliance, HSM 3.31 compliance). I hope that I will reach success sometime this week

When I'm done with 3.12, I'll do 3.11, 3.2 and 4.11. Hope the gained experience will 3.12 will help me do them quick

[davidg]

Glad its helpful! Its kind of amazing to me just how obscure NetWare has become in the last 15 years and how much information about it has vanished from the internet in that time.

Of (3.12, 3.2, 4.1 and 4.11) I found 3.12 by far the hardest to install - I did that one with the installation manual open in front of me following the steps carefully. 4.11 I'd installed before (about 15 years back) and it was still pretty trivial - they really improved the installation experience with that one. Automatic hardware detection, automatic disk partitioning, etc. You can just about accept the defaults all the way through the installer and end up with a working system.

I've got the AMD PCnet drivers I use with VirtualBox (as well as Linux-KVM) all archived here if you need them: https://ftp.zx.net.nz/pub/drivers/AMD/pcnet/ - there is a Boot ROM image in there too if you want to have a go with network booted VMs sometime. For 3.12 I used the driver in odi_ahsm_svr3x.exe which also required the ODI v3.3 update. This disk image should have all the necessary bits (plus the VM idle NLM). According to my notes, just copy all .NLM, .LAN and .LDI files (no need to preserve directories) into C:\Server.312 then you should be able to load the drivers from AUTOEXEC.NCF by adding something like the following after the ipx internal net command:

Code: Select all

load C:\server.312\msm31x
load C:\server.312\pcntnw slot=2
bind ipx to pcntnw net=DEADBEEF
load C:\server.312\nw4-idle

The slot number may be different under VirtualBox. I'm not sure what NetWare does if you get the number wrong but under DOS the driver tends to output what the correct slot number is then give you an error.

[vbdasc]

Thanks, I will try this!

[vbdasc]

Well, I finally found out the bad hex that was tormenting me.

In "System" options of the virtual machine the chipset needs to be set to PIIX3 rather than to ICH9. After I did that change, the Netware 3.12 setup went like breeze, and I didn't even need to install any patches, except the "loader patch" from 312PT9 or a newer patch, such as 312PTD. As for the LAN drivers, most drivers that I found on the net worked, even old ones like the "l101_1.zip", "l101_2.zip" which can be easily found by Google.

P.S. Okay, I'm not being entirely honest with the server ODI patches. In other words, I'm cheating. Most drivers which can be downloaded from the internet include updated server ODI files (ETHERTSM.NLM, MSM31X.NLM, optionally NBI31X.NLM) in the same directory as the driver file PCNTNW.LAN . So, if we don't delete them, then when we execute LOAD PCNTNW.LAN from the Netware console, these updated server ODI files get loaded, even if we don't update the Netware installation itself. Without these updated files, the drivers won't load. The newest PCNET driver I'm aware of, which is in the file odi_ahsm_svr3x.exe, come with no server ODI files at all, so to run it, we need to patch the server with ODI33G.EXE, and install ODI 3.3 support. Alternatively, we can uncompress the archive and copy the three server ODI files to the directory where PCNTNW.LAN resides.

Also note that some tutorials in the Internet suggest using the PCNET driver in a file called LANDRV.EXE . Don't try it. It doesn't work, or at least I never managed to make it work, lol.

I recommend the driver in the file amdnic_1.zip, amdnic_2.zip . Google it.

[davidg]

Awesome! I'll have to remember that in the future. Might give NetWare 3.11 a go under VirtualBox some time as I don't really need a third 24x7 instance running. I've been meaning to have a go at installing NetWare 4.10 under OS/2 (NetWare for OS/2) which will have to be under VirtualBox too given KVMs continued inability to run OS/2.