NetWare 3.0
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NetWare is a discontinued computer
network operating system A network operating system (NOS) is a specialized operating system for a network device such as a router, switch or firewall. Historically operating systems with networking capabilities were described as network operating systems, because they al ...
developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used
cooperative multitasking Cooperative multitasking, also known as non-preemptive multitasking, is a style of computer multitasking in which the operating system never initiates a context switch from a running process to another process. Instead, in order to run multiple ...
to run various services on a personal computer, using the
IPX Internetwork Packet Exchange (IPX) is the network layer protocol in the IPX/SPX protocol suite. IPX is derived from Xerox Network Systems' IDP. It also has the ability to act as a transport layer protocol. The IPX/SPX protocol suite was very p ...
network protocol. The original NetWare product in 1983 supported clients running both CP/M and
MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...
, ran over a proprietary star
network topology Network topology is the arrangement of the elements ( links, nodes, etc.) of a communication network. Network topology can be used to define or describe the arrangement of various types of telecommunication networks, including command and contr ...
and was based on a Novell-built file server using the Motorola 68000 processor. The company soon moved away from building its own hardware, and NetWare became hardware-independent, running on any suitable Intel-based
IBM PC compatible IBM PC compatible computers are similar to the original IBM Personal Computer, IBM PC, IBM Personal Computer XT, XT, and IBM Personal Computer/AT, AT, all from computer giant IBM, that are able to use the same software and expansion cards. Such ...
system, and able to utilize a wide range of network cards. From the beginning NetWare implemented a number of features inspired by mainframe and minicomputer systems that were not available in its competitors' products. In 1991, Novell introduced cheaper
peer-to-peer Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads between peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the network. They are said to form a peer-to-peer ...
networking products for
DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
and
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...
, unrelated to their server-centric NetWare. These are NetWare Lite 1.0 (NWL), and later Personal NetWare 1.0 (PNW) in 1993. In 1993, the main NetWare product line took a dramatic turn when version 4 introduced NetWare Directory Services (NDS, later renamed eDirectory), a global
directory service In computing, a directory service or name service maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses. It is a shared information infrastructure for locating, managing, administering and organizing everyday items and network ...
based on ISO X.500 concepts (six years later,
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
released
Active Directory Active Directory (AD) is a directory service developed by Microsoft for Windows domain networks. It is included in most Windows Server operating systems as a set of Process (computing), processes and Windows service, services. Initially, Active D ...
). The directory service, along with a new e-mail system ( GroupWise), application configuration suite (
ZENworks ZENworks, a suite of software products developed and maintained by Micro Focus International for computer systems management, aims to manage the entire product life cycle management, life cycle of server (computing), servers, of desktop compute ...
), and security product ( BorderManager) were all targeted at the needs of large enterprises. By 2000, however, Microsoft was taking more of Novell's customer base and Novell increasingly looked to a future based on a Linux kernel. The successor to NetWare, '' Open Enterprise Server'' (OES), released in March 2005, offers all the services previously hosted by NetWare 6.5, but on a SUSE Linux Enterprise Server; the NetWare kernel remained an option until OES 11 in late 2011. The final update release was version 6.5SP8 of May 2009; NetWare is no longer on Novell's product list. NetWare 6.5SP8 General Support ended in 2010; Extended Support was available until the end of 2015, and Self Support until the end of 2017. The replacement is Open Enterprise Server.


History

NetWare evolved from a very simple concept: file sharing instead of disk sharing. By controlling access at the level of individual files, instead of entire disks, files could be locked and better access control implemented. In 1983 when the first versions of NetWare originated, all other competing products were based on the concept of providing shared direct disk access. Novell's alternative approach was validated by IBM in 1984, which helped promote the NetWare product. Novell NetWare shares disk space in the form of NetWare ''volumes'', comparable to logical volumes. Client workstations running DOS run a special
terminate and stay resident A terminate-and-stay-resident program (commonly TSR) is a computer program running under DOS that uses a system call to return control to DOS as though it has finished, but remains in computer memory so it can be reactivated later. This technique ...
(TSR) program that allows them to ''map'' a local drive letter to a NetWare volume. Clients log into a server in order to be allowed to map volumes, and access can be restricted according to the login name. Similarly, they can connect to shared printers on the dedicated server, and print as if the printer is connected locally. At the end of the 1990s, with Internet connectivity booming, the Internet's
TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...
protocol became dominant on LANs. Novell had introduced limited TCP/IP support in NetWare 3.x (circa 1992) and 4.x (circa 1995), consisting mainly of FTP services and UNIX-style LPR/LPD printing (available in NetWare 3.x), and a Novell-developed webserver (in NetWare 4.x). Native TCP/IP support for the client file and print services normally associated with NetWare was introduced in NetWare 5.0 (released in 1998). There was also a short-lived product, NWIP, that encapsulated IPX in TCP/IP, intended to ease transition of an existing NetWare environment from IPX to IP. During the early to mid-1980s
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
introduced their own LAN system in
LAN Manager LAN Manager is a discontinued network operating system (NOS) available from multiple vendors and developed by Microsoft in cooperation with 3Com Corporation. It was designed to succeed 3Com's 3+Share network server software which ran atop a h ...
, based on the competing NBF protocol. Early attempts to compete with NetWare failed, but this changed with the inclusion of improved networking support in Windows for Workgroups, and then the successful
Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Win ...
and
Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...
. NT, in particular, offered a sub-set of NetWare's services, but on a system that could also be used on a desktop, and due to the vertical integration there was no need for a third-party client.


Early years

NetWare originated from consulting work by
SuperSet Software Drew Major (born June 17, 1956) is a computer scientist and entrepreneur. He is best known for his role as one of the principal engineers of the Novell NetWare operating system from early in Novell's history. He currently resides in Orem, Utah wi ...
, a group founded by the friends Drew Major, Dale Neibaur, Kyle Powell and later Mark Hurst. This work stemmed from their classwork at
Brigham Young University Brigham Young University (BYU, sometimes referred to colloquially as The Y) is a private research university in Provo, Utah. It was founded in 1875 by religious leader Brigham Young and is sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-d ...
in Provo, Utah, starting in October 1981. In 1981, Raymond Noorda engaged the work by the SuperSet team. The team was originally assigned to create a CP/M
disk sharing Disk or disc may refer to: * Disk (mathematics), a geometric shape * Disk storage Music * Disc (band), an American experimental music band * ''Disk'' (album), a 1995 EP by Moby Other uses * Disk (functional analysis), a subset of a vector spac ...
system to help network the CP/M Motorola 68000 hardware that Novell sold at the time. The first S-Net is CP/M-68K-based and shares a hard disk. In 1983, the team was privately convinced that CP/M was a doomed platform and instead came up with a successful file-sharing system for the newly introduced IBM-compatible PC. They also wrote an application called Snipes – a text-mode game – and used it to test the new network and demonstrate its capabilities. Snipes ka 'NSnipes' for 'Network Snipes'is the first network application ever written for a commercial personal computer, and it is recognized as one of the precursors of many popular multiplayer games such as ''
Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * ...
'' and '' Quake''. First called
ShareNet S-Net (aka ShareNet) was a network operating system and the set of network protocol A communication protocol is a system of rules that allows two or more entities of a communications system to transmit information via any kind of variation of ...
or S-Net, this
network operating system A network operating system (NOS) is a specialized operating system for a network device such as a router, switch or firewall. Historically operating systems with networking capabilities were described as network operating systems, because they al ...
(NOS) was later called Novell NetWare. NetWare is based on the
NetWare Core Protocol The NetWare Core Protocol (NCP) is a network protocol used in some products from Novell, Inc. It is usually associated with the client-server operating system Novell NetWare which originally supported primarily MS-DOS client stations, but later su ...
(NCP), which is a packet-based protocol that enables a client to send requests to and receive replies from a NetWare server. Initially, NCP was directly tied to the
IPX/SPX IPX/SPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange. IPX and SPX are networking protocol, networking protocols used initially on networks using the (since discontinued) Novell NetWare operating systems. They also became wid ...
protocol, and NetWare communicated natively using only IPX/SPX. The first product to bear the NetWare name was released in 1983. There were two distinct versions of NetWare at that time. One version was designed to run on the Intel 8086 processor and another on the Motorola processor which was called NetWare 68 (aka S-Net); it runs on the Motorola 68000 processor on a proprietary Novell-built file server (Novell could not write an original network operating system from scratch so they licensed a
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...
kernel and based NetWare on that) and uses a star
network topology Network topology is the arrangement of the elements ( links, nodes, etc.) of a communication network. Network topology can be used to define or describe the arrangement of various types of telecommunication networks, including command and contr ...
. This was soon joined by NetWare 86 4.x, which was written for the Intel 8086. This was replaced in 1985 with Advanced NetWare 86 version 1.0a which allows more than one server on the same network. In 1986, after the
Intel 80286 The Intel 80286 (also marketed as the iAPX 286 and often called Intel 286) is a 16-bit microprocessor that was introduced on February 1, 1982. It was the first 8086-based CPU with separate, non- multiplexed address and data buses and also the ...
processor became available, Novell released Advanced NetWare 286 1.0a. Two versions were offered for sale; the basic version was sold as ELS I and the more enhanced version was sold as ELS II. The acronym ELS was used to identify this new product line as NetWare's Entry Level System.


NetWare 286 2.x

Advanced NetWare version 2.x, launched in 1986, was written for the then-new 80286 CPU. The 80286 CPU features a new
16-bit 16-bit microcomputers are microcomputers that use 16-bit microprocessors. A 16-bit register can store 216 different values. The range of integer values that can be stored in 16 bits depends on the integer representation used. With the two mo ...
protected mode that provides access to up to 16 MiB RAM as well as new mechanisms to aid multi-tasking. (Prior to the 80286, PC CPU servers used the Intel
8088 The Intel 8088 ("''eighty-eighty-eight''", also called iAPX 88) microprocessor is a variant of the Intel 8086. Introduced on June 1, 1979, the 8088 has an eight-bit external data bus instead of the 16-bit bus of the 8086. The 16-bit registers a ...
/8086 8-/16-bit processors, which are limited to an address space of 1 MiB with not more than 640 KiB of directly addressable RAM.) The combination of a higher 16 MiB RAM limit, 80286 processor feature utilization, and 256 MB NetWare volume size limit (compared to the 32 MB that DOS allowed at that time) allowed the building of reliable, cost-effective server-based local area networks for the first time. The 16 MiB RAM limit was especially important, since it makes enough RAM available for disk caching to significantly improve performance. This became the key to Novell's performance while also allowing larger networks to be built. In a significant innovation, NetWare 286 is also hardware-independent, unlike competing network server systems. Novell servers can be assembled using any brand system with an Intel 80286 CPU, any MFM, RLL, ESDI, or SCSI hard drive and any 8- or 16-bit network adapter for which NetWare drivers are available – and 18 different manufacturer's network cards were supported at launch. The server could support up to four network cards, and these can be a mixture of technologies such as
ARCNET Attached Resource Computer NETwork (ARCNET or ARCnet) is a communications protocol for local area networks. ARCNET was the first widely available networking system for microcomputers; it became popular in the 1980s for office automation tasks. It ...
,
Token Ring Token Ring network IBM hermaphroditic connector with locking clip. Screen contacts are prominently visible, gold-plated signal contacts less so. Token Ring is a computer networking technology used to build local area networks. It was introduc ...
and
Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...
. The operating system is provided as a set of compiled object modules that required configuration and linking. Any change to the operating system requires a re-linking of the
kernel Kernel may refer to: Computing * Kernel (operating system), the central component of most operating systems * Kernel (image processing), a matrix used for image convolution * Compute kernel, in GPGPU programming * Kernel method, in machine learn ...
. Installation also requires the use of a proprietary low-level format program for MFM hard drives called COMPSURF. The file system used by NetWare 2.x is NetWare File System 286, or NWFS 286, supporting volumes of up to 256 MB. NetWare 286 recognizes 80286 protected mode, extending NetWare's support of RAM from 1 MiB to the full 16 MiB addressable by the 80286. A minimum of 2 MiB is required to start up the operating system; any additional RAM is used for
FAT In nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers specifically to triglycerides (triple est ...
, DET and file caching. Since 16-bit protected mode is implemented in the 80286 and every subsequent Intel x86 processor, NetWare 286 version 2.x will run on any 80286 or later compatible processor. NetWare 2.x implements a number of features inspired by mainframe and minicomputer systems that were not available in other
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...
s of the day. The '' System Fault Tolerance (SFT)'' features includes standard read-after-write verification (SFT-I) with on-the-fly bad block re-mapping (at the time, disks did not have that feature built in) and software
RAID1 In computer storage, the standard RAID levels comprise a basic set of RAID ("redundant array of independent disks" or "redundant array of inexpensive disks") configurations that employ the techniques of striping, mirroring, or parity to create lar ...
(disk mirroring, SFT-II). The
Transaction Tracking System In computing, a NetWare File System (NWFS) is a file system based on a heavily modified version of FAT. It was used in the Novell NetWare operating system. It is the default and only file system for all volumes in versions 2.x through 4.x, and t ...
(TTS) optionally protects files against incomplete updates. For single files, this requires only a file attribute to be set. Transactions over multiple files and controlled roll-backs are possible by programming to the TTS
API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
. NetWare 286 2.x normally requires a dedicated PC to act as the server, where the server uses DOS only as a
boot loader A bootloader, also spelled as boot loader or called boot manager and bootstrap loader, is a computer program that is responsible for booting a computer. When a computer is turned off, its softwareincluding operating systems, application code, a ...
to execute the operating system file . All memory is allocated to NetWare; no DOS ran on the server. However, a "non-dedicated" version was also available for price-conscious customers. In this, DOS 3.3 or higher remains in memory, and the processor time-slices between the DOS and NetWare programs, allowing the server computer to be used simultaneously as a network file server and as a user workstation. Because all
extended memory In DOS memory management, extended memory refers to memory above the first megabyte (220 bytes) of address space in an IBM PC or compatible with an 80286 or later processor. The term is mainly used under the DOS and Windows operating systems. D ...
(RAM above 1 MiB) is allocated to NetWare, DOS is limited to only 640 KiB;
expanded memory In DOS memory management, expanded memory is a system of bank switching that provided additional memory to DOS programs beyond the limit of conventional memory (640 KiB). ''Expanded memory'' is an umbrella term for several incompatible tec ...
managers that used the MMU of 80386 and higher processors, such as EMM386, do not work; 8086-style expanded memory on dedicated plug-in cards is possible however. Time slicing is accomplished using the keyboard
interrupt In digital computers, an interrupt (sometimes referred to as a trap) is a request for the processor to ''interrupt'' currently executing code (when permitted), so that the event can be processed in a timely manner. If the request is accepted, ...
, which requires strict compliance with the IBM PC design model, otherwise performance is affected. Server licensing on early versions of NetWare 286 is accomplished by using a key card. The key card was designed for an 8-bit ISA bus, and has a serial number encoded on a ROM chip. The serial number has to match the serial number of the NetWare software running on the server. To broaden the hardware base, particularly to machines using the IBM MCA bus, later versions of NetWare 2.x do not require the key card; serialised license floppy disks are used in place of the key cards. Licensing is normally for 100 users, but two ELS versions were also available. First a 5-user ELS in 1987, and followed by the 8-user ELS 2.12 II in 1988.


NetWare 3.x

NetWare's 3.x range was a major step forward. It began with version 3.0 in 1990, followed quickly by version 3.10 and 3.11 in 1991. A key feature was support for 32-bit protected mode, eliminating the 16 MiB memory limit of NetWare 286 and therefore allowing larger hard drives to be supported (since NetWare 3.x cached the entire file allocation table and directory entry table into memory for improved performance). NetWare version 3.x was also much simpler to install, with disk and network support provided by software modules called a
NetWare Loadable Module A NetWare Loadable Module (NLM) is a loadable kernel module (a binary code module) that can be loaded into Novell's NetWare operating system. NLMs can implement hardware drivers, server functions (e.g. clustering), applications (e.g. GroupW ...
(NLM) loaded either at start-up or when it was needed. NLMs could also add functionality such as anti-virus software, backup software, database and web servers. Support for long filenames was also provided by an NLM. A new file system was introduced by NetWare 3.x – " NetWare File System 386", or NWFS 386, which significantly extended volume capacity (1 TB, 4 GB files), and could handle up to 16 volume segments spanning multiple physical disk drives. Volume segments could be added while the server was in use and the volume was mounted, allowing a server to be expanded without interruption. In NetWare 386 3.x all NLMs ran on the server at the same level of processor
memory protection Memory protection is a way to control memory access rights on a computer, and is a part of most modern instruction set architectures and operating systems. The main purpose of memory protection is to prevent a process from accessing memory that h ...
, known as " ring 0". This provided the best possible performance, it sacrificed reliability because there was no memory protection, and furthermore NetWare 3.x used a co-operative multitasking model, meaning that an NLM was required to yield to the kernel regularly. For either of these reasons a badly behaved NLM could result in a fatal ( ABEND) error. NetWare continued to be administered using console-based utilities. With version 3.x, Novell increased the rigors of compatibility testing with their third-party vendors, revamping their certification program in October 1992 and unveiling a two-tier cooperating marketing program. The first tier provided Novell's vendors a package containing a compatibility guideline book, engineering support lines, self-testing tools, and limited marketing resources, the latter including a license to promote products with a logo stating "Yes, it runs with NetWare" – all free of charge and followed at the vendors' discretion. The second tier required a one-time application fee of $7,000 but replaced the logo's byline with a more confident-sounding "Yes, it's NetWare tested and approved" and accorded partners with more extensive support, including on-location testing by Novell Labs. Initially limited to the United States, this program was rolled out in the United Kingdom in the following year. For a while, Novell also marketed an
OEM An original equipment manufacturer (OEM) is generally perceived as a company that produces non-aftermarket parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. It is a common industry term recognized and used by many professional or ...
version of NetWare 3, called Portable NetWare, together with OEMs such as Hewlett-Packard, DEC and
Data General Data General Corporation was one of the first minicomputer firms of the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). Their first product, 1969's Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicompute ...
, who ported Novell source code to run on top of their Unix operating systems. Portable NetWare did not sell well. While NetWare 3.x was current, Novell introduced its first
high-availability cluster High-availability clusters (also known as HA clusters, fail-over clusters) are groups of computers that support server applications that can be reliably utilized with a minimum amount of down-time. They operate by using high availability softwa ...
ing system, named NetWare SFT-III, which allowed a logical server to be completely mirrored to a separate physical machine. Implemented as a
shared-nothing A shared-nothing architecture (SN) is a distributed computing architecture in which each update request is satisfied by a single node (processor/memory/storage unit) in a computer cluster. The intent is to eliminate contention among nodes. Nodes do ...
cluster, under SFT-III the OS was logically split into an interrupt-driven ''I/O engine'' and the event-driven OS core. The I/O engines serialized their interrupts (disk, network etc.) into a combined event stream that was fed to two identical copies of the system engine through a fast (typically 100 Mbit/s) inter-server link. Because of its non-preemptive nature, the OS core, stripped of non-deterministic I/O, behaves deterministically, like a large
finite state machine A finite-state machine (FSM) or finite-state automaton (FSA, plural: ''automata''), finite automaton, or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model of computation. It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number o ...
. The outputs of the two system engines were compared to ensure proper operation, and two copies fed back to the I/O engines. Using the existing SFT-II software RAID functionality present in the core, disks could be mirrored between the two machines without special hardware. The two machines could be separated as far as the server-to-server link would permit. In case of a server or disk failure, the surviving server could take over client sessions transparently after a short pause since it had full state information. SFT-III was the first NetWare version able to make use of SMP hardware – the I/O engine could optionally be run on its own CPU. NetWare SFT-III, ahead of its time in several ways, was a mixed success. With NetWare 3 an improved routing protocol,
NetWare Link Services Protocol NetWare Link Services Protocol (NLSP) is a routing protocol for Internetwork Packet Exchange based on the Intermediate-System-to-Intermediate-System (IS-IS) protocol developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). NLSP enabl ...
, has been introduced which scales better than
Routing Information Protocol The Routing Information Protocol (RIP) is one of the oldest distance-vector routing protocols which employs the hop count as a routing metric. RIP prevents routing loops by implementing a limit on the number of hops allowed in a path from sour ...
and allows building large networks.


NetWare 4.x

Version 4 in 1993 introduced NetWare Directory Services, later re-branded as
Novell Directory Services eDirectory is an X.500-compatible directory service software product from NetIQ. Previously owned by Novell, the product has also been known as Novell Directory Services (NDS) and sometimes referred to as ''NetWare Directory Services''. NDS was in ...
(NDS), based on X.500, which replaced the Bindery with a global
directory service In computing, a directory service or name service maps the names of network resources to their respective network addresses. It is a shared information infrastructure for locating, managing, administering and organizing everyday items and network ...
, in which the infrastructure was described and managed in a single place. Additionally, NDS provided an extensible
schema The word schema comes from the Greek word ('), which means ''shape'', or more generally, ''plan''. The plural is ('). In English, both ''schemas'' and ''schemata'' are used as plural forms. Schema may refer to: Science and technology * SCHEMA ...
, allowing the introduction of new object types. This allowed a single user authentication to NDS to govern access to any server in the directory tree structure. Users could therefore access network resources no matter on which server they resided, although user license counts were still tied to individual servers. (Large enterprises could opt for a license model giving them essentially unlimited per-server users if they let Novell audit their total user count.) Version 4 also introduced a number of useful tools and features, such as transparent compression at file system level and RSA public/private
encryption In cryptography, encryption is the process of encoding information. This process converts the original representation of the information, known as plaintext, into an alternative form known as ciphertext. Ideally, only authorized parties can de ...
. Another new feature was the NetWare Asynchronous Services Interface (NASI). It allowed network sharing of multiple serial devices, such as
modems A modulator-demodulator or modem is a computer hardware device that converts data from a digital format into a format suitable for an analog transmission medium such as telephone or radio. A modem transmits data by modulating one or more ca ...
. Client port redirection occurred via a DOS or Windows driver allowing companies to consolidate modems and analog phone lines.


NetWare for OS/2

Promised as early as 1988, when the Microsoft-IBM collaboration was still ongoing and
OS/2 OS/2 (Operating System/2) is a series of computer operating systems, initially created by Microsoft and IBM under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci. As a result of a feud between the two companies over how to position OS/2 r ...
 1.x was still a 16-bit product, the product didn't become commercially available until after IBM and Microsoft had parted ways and OS/2 2.0 had become a 32-bit, pre-emptive multitasking and multithreading OS. By August 1993, Novell released its first version of "NetWare for OS/2". This first release supported OS/2 2.1 (1993) as the base OS, and required that users first buy and install IBM OS/2, then purchase NetWare 4.01, and then install the NetWare for OS/2 product. It retailed for $200. By around 1995, and coincidental with IBM's renewed marketing push for its 32-bit OS/2 Warp OS, both as a desktop client and as a LAN server (OS/2 Warp Server), NetWare for OS/2 began receiving some good press coverage. "NetWare 4.1 for OS/2" allowed to run Novell's network stack and server modules on top of IBM's 32-bit kernel and network stack. It was basically NetWare 4.x running as a service on top of OS/2. It was compatible with third party client and server utilities and NetWare Loadable Modules. Since IBM's 32-bit OS/2 included Netbios, IPX/SPX and TCP/IP support, this means that sysadmins could run all three most popular network stacks on a single box, and use the OS/2 box as a workstation too. NetWare for OS/2 shared memory on the system with OS/2 seamlessly. The book "Client Server survival Guide with OS/2" described it as "
glue code Adhesive, also known as glue, cement, mucilage, or paste, is any non-metallic substance applied to one or both surfaces of two separate items that binds them together and resists their separation. The use of adhesives offers certain advant ...
that lets the unmodified NetWare 4.x server program think it owns all resources on a OS/2 system". It also claimed that a NetWare server running on top of OS/2 only suffered a 5% to 10% overhead over NetWare running over the bare metal hardware, while gaining OS/2's pre-emptive multitasking and object oriented GUI. Novell continued releasing bugfixes and updates to NetWare for OS/2 up to 1998.


Strategic mistakes

Novell's strategy with NetWare 286 2.x and 3.x proved very successful; before the arrival of Windows NT Server, Novell claimed 90% of the market for PC based servers. While the design of NetWare 3.x and later involved a DOS partition to load NetWare server files; while of little technical import (DOS merely loaded NetWare into memory and turned execution over to it; in later versions, DOS could be unloaded from RAM), this feature became a marketing liability. Additionally, the NetWare console remained text-based, when the Windows graphical interface gained widespread acceptance. Novell could have eliminated this technical liability by retaining the design of NetWare 286, which installed the server file into a Novell partition and allowed the server to boot from the Novell partition without creating a bootable DOS partition. Novell finally added support for this in a Support Pack for NetWare 6.5. As Novell initially used
IPX/SPX IPX/SPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange. IPX and SPX are networking protocol, networking protocols used initially on networks using the (since discontinued) Novell NetWare operating systems. They also became wid ...
instead of
TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...
, they were poorly positioned to take advantage of the Internet in 1995. This resulted in Novell servers being bypassed for routing and Internet access in favor of hardware routers,
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...
-based operating systems such as FreeBSD, and SOCKS and HTTP
Proxy Servers In computer networking, a proxy server is a server application that acts as an intermediary between a client (computing), client requesting a Web resource, resource and the server providing that resource. Instead of connecting directly to a ...
on Windows and other operating systems. A decision by the management of Novell also took away the ability of independent resellers and engineers to recommend and sell the product. The reduction of their effective sales force created this downward spiral in sales.


NetWare 4.1x and NetWare for Small Business

Novell priced NetWare 4.10 similarly to NetWare 3.12, allowing customers who resisted NDS (typically small businesses) to try it at no cost. Later Novell released NetWare version 4.11 in 1996 which included many enhancements that made the operating system easier to install, easier to operate, faster, and more stable. It also included the first full 32-bit client for Microsoft Windows-based workstations, SMP support and the NetWare Administrator (NWADMIN or NWADMN32), a GUI-based administration tool for NetWare. Previous administration tools used the Cworthy interface, the character-based GUI tools such as SYSCON and PCONSOLE with blue text-based background. Some of these tools survive to this day, for instance MONITOR.NLM. Novell packaged NetWare 4.11 with its Web server, TCP/IP support and the Netscape browser into a bundle dubbed IntranetWare (also written as intraNetWare). A version designed for networks of 25 or fewer users was named IntranetWare for Small Business and contained a limited version of NDS and tried to simplify NDS administration. The intranetWare name was dropped in NetWare 5. During this time Novell also began to leverage its directory service, NDS, by tying their other products into the directory. Their e-mail system, GroupWise, was integrated with NDS, and Novell released many other directory-enabled products such as
ZENworks ZENworks, a suite of software products developed and maintained by Micro Focus International for computer systems management, aims to manage the entire product life cycle management, life cycle of server (computing), servers, of desktop compute ...
and BorderManager. NetWare still required IPX/SPX as NCP used it, but Novell started to acknowledge the demand for TCP/IP with NetWare 4.11 by including tools and utilities that made it easier to create intranets and link networks to the Internet. Novell bundled tools, such as the IPX/IP gateway, to ease the connection between IPX workstations and IP networks. It also began integrating Internet technologies and support through features such as a natively hosted web server.


NetWare 5.x

With the release of NetWare 5 in October 1998 Novell switched its primary NCP interface from the
IPX/SPX IPX/SPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange. IPX and SPX are networking protocol, networking protocols used initially on networks using the (since discontinued) Novell NetWare operating systems. They also became wid ...
network protocol to TCP/IP to meet market demand. Products continued to support IPX/SPX, but the emphasis shifted to TCP/IP. New features included: * a GUI for NetWare *
Novell Storage Services Novell Storage Services (NSS) is a file system used by the Novell NetWare operating system. Support for NSS was introduced in 2004 to SUSE Linux via low-level network NCPFS protocol. It has some unique features that make it especially useful for ...
(NSS), a file system to replace the traditional NetWare File System (which Novell continued to support) * Java virtual machine for NetWare * Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS), an infrastructure for printing over networks * ConsoleOne, a Java-based GUI administration console * directory-enabled Public key infrastructure services (PKIS) * directory-enabled DNS and
DHCP The Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) is a network management protocol used on Internet Protocol (IP) networks for automatically assigning IP addresses and other communication parameters to devices connected to the network using a cli ...
servers * support for
Storage Area Network A storage area network (SAN) or storage network is a computer network which provides access to consolidated, block-level data storage. SANs are primarily used to access data storage devices, such as disk arrays and tape libraries from ser ...
s (SANs) * Novell Cluster Services (NCS), a replacement for SFT-III * Oracle 8i with a 5-user license The Cluster Services improved on SFT-III, as NCS did not require specialized hardware or identical server configurations. Novell released NetWare 5 during a time when NetWare's market share had started dropping precipitously; many companies and organizations replaced their NetWare servers with servers running
Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washin ...
's
Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Win ...
operating system. Around this time Novell also released their last upgrade to the NetWare 4 operating system, NetWare 4.2. NetWare 5 and above supported Novell NetStorage for Internet-based access to files stored within NetWare. Novell released NetWare 5.1 in January 2000. It introduced a number of tools, such as: *
IBM WebSphere Application Server WebSphere Application Server (WAS) is a software product that performs the role of a web application server. More specifically, it is a software framework and middleware that hosts Java-based web applications. It is the flagship product with ...
* NetWare Management Portal (later called Novell Remote Manager), web-based management of the operating system *
FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...
,
NNTP The Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) is an application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles (''netnews'') between news servers, and for reading/posting articles by the end user client applications. Brian Kantor of the Univers ...
and streaming-media servers * NetWare Web Search Server *
WebDAV WebDAV (Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning) is a set of extensions to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which allows user agents to collaboratively author contents ''directly'' in an HTTP web server by providing facilities for con ...
support


NetWare 6.0

NetWare 6 was released in October 2001, shortly after its predecessor. This version has a simplified licensing scheme based on users, not server connections. This allows unlimited connections per user to any number of NetWare servers in the network. Novell Cluster Services was also improved to support 32-node clusters; the base NetWare 6.0 product included a two-node clustering license.


NetWare 6.5

NetWare 6.5 was released in August 2003. Some of the new features in this version included: * more open-source products such as
PHP PHP is a general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementation is now produced by The PHP Group. ...
,
MySQL MySQL () is an open-source relational database management system (RDBMS). Its name is a combination of "My", the name of co-founder Michael Widenius's daughter My, and "SQL", the acronym for Structured Query Language. A relational database ...
and
OpenSSH OpenSSH (also known as OpenBSD Secure Shell) is a suite of secure networking utilities based on the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, which provides a secure channel over an unsecured network in a client–server architecture. Network Working Gro ...
* a port of the Bash shell and a lot of traditional Unix utilities such as
wget GNU Wget (or just Wget, formerly Geturl, also written as its package name, wget) is a computer program that retrieves content from web servers. It is part of the GNU Project. Its name derives from "World Wide Web" and " ''get''." It supports do ...
,
grep grep is a command-line utility for searching plain-text data sets for lines that match a regular expression. Its name comes from the ed command ''g/re/p'' (''globally search for a regular expression and print matching lines''), which has the sa ...
,
awk AWK (''awk'') is a domain-specific language designed for text processing and typically used as a data extraction and reporting tool. Like sed and grep, it is a filter, and is a standard feature of most Unix-like operating systems. The AWK lang ...
and
sed sed ("stream editor") is a Unix utility that parses and transforms text, using a simple, compact programming language. It was developed from 1973 to 1974 by Lee E. McMahon of Bell Labs, and is available today for most operating systems. sed w ...
to provide additional capabilities for scripting *
iSCSI Internet Small Computer Systems Interface or iSCSI ( ) is an Internet Protocol-based storage networking standard for linking data storage facilities. iSCSI provides block-level access to storage devices by carrying SCSI commands over a TCP/IP ...
support (both target and initiator) * Virtual Office – an "out of the box" web portal for end users providing access to e-mail, personal file storage, company address book, etc. *
Domain controller A domain controller (DC) is a server computer that responds to security authentication requests within a computer network domain. It is a network server that is responsible for allowing host access to domain resources. It authenticates users, sto ...
functionality * Universal password * DirXML Starter Pack – synchronization of user accounts with another eDirectory tree, a Windows NT domain or Active Directory. * exteNd Application Server – a
Java EE Jakarta EE, formerly Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) and Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE), is a set of specifications, extending Java SE with specifications for enterprise features such as distributed computing and web ser ...
1.3-compatible application server * support for customized printer driver profiles and printer usage auditing *
NX bit The NX bit (no-execute) is a technology used in CPUs to segregate areas of memory for use by either storage of processor instructions or for storage of data, a feature normally only found in Harvard architecture processors. However, the NX bit i ...
support * support for
USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...
storage devices * support for encrypted volumes The latest – and apparently last – Service Pack for NetWare 6.5 is SP8, released May 2009.


Open Enterprise Server


1.0

In 2003, Novell announced the successor product to NetWare: Open Enterprise Server (OES). First released in March 2005, OES completes the separation of the services traditionally associated with NetWare (such as Directory Services, and file-and-print) from the platform underlying the delivery of those services. OES is essentially a set of applications (eDirectory,
NetWare Core Protocol The NetWare Core Protocol (NCP) is a network protocol used in some products from Novell, Inc. It is usually associated with the client-server operating system Novell NetWare which originally supported primarily MS-DOS client stations, but later su ...
services, iPrint, etc.) that can run atop either a
Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...
or a NetWare kernel platform. Clustered OES implementations can even migrate services from Linux to NetWare and back again, making Novell one of the very few vendors to offer a multi-platform clustering solution. Consequent to Novell's acquisitions of
Ximian Ximian, Inc. (previously called Helix Code and originally named International Gnome Support) was an American company that developed, sold and supported application software for Linux and Unix based on the GNOME platform. It was founded by Migu ...
and the German Linux distributor SuSE, Novell moved away from NetWare and shifted its focus towards Linux. Marketing was focused on getting faithful NetWare users to move to the Linux platform for future releases. The clearest indication of this direction was Novell's controversial decision to release Open Enterprise Server on Linux only, not NetWare. Novell later watered down this decision and stated that NetWare's 90 million users would be supported until at least 2015. Meanwhile, many former NetWare customers rejected the confusing mix of licensed software running on an open-source Linux operating system in favor of moving to complete Open Source solutions such as those offered by Red Hat.


2.0

OES 2 was released on 8 October 2007. It includes NetWare 6.5 SP7, which supports running as a paravirtualized guest inside the Xen hypervisor and new Linux based version using SLES10. ;New features include: *
64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit CPUs and ALUs are those that are based on processor registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. A compu ...
support * Virtualization * Dynamic Storage Technology, which provide Shadow Volumes * Domain services for Windows (provided in OES 2 service pack 1)


From the 1990s

some organizations still used Novell NetWare, but it had started to lose popularity from the mid-1990s, when NetWare was the de facto standard for file- and printer-sharing software for the
Intel x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...
server platform. Microsoft successfully took market share from NetWare products from the late-1990s. Microsoft's more aggressive marketing was aimed directly at non-technical management through major magazines, while Novell NetWare's was through more technical magazines read by IT personnel. Novell did not adapt their pricing structure to current market conditions, and NetWare sales suffered.


NetWare Lite / Personal NetWare

NetWare Lite NetWare Lite and Personal NetWare are a series of discontinued peer-to-peer local area networks developed by Novell for DOS- and Windows-based personal computers aimed at personal users and small businesses in the 1990s. NetWare Lite In 1991, N ...
and Personal NetWare were a series of peer-to-peer networks developed by Novell for
DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
- and
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...
-based computers aimed at personal users and small businesses between 1991 and 1995.


Performance

NetWare dominated the network operating system (NOS) market from the mid-1980s through the mid- to late-1990s due to its extremely high performance relative to other NOS technologies. Most benchmarks during this period demonstrated a 5:1 to 10:1 performance advantage over products from Microsoft, Banyan, and others. One noteworthy benchmark pitted NetWare 3.x running NFS services over TCP/IP (not NetWare's native IPX protocol) against a dedicated Auspex NFS server and an SCO Unix server running NFS service. NetWare NFS outperformed both 'native' NFS systems and claimed a 2:1 performance advantage over SCO Unix NFS on the same hardware. The reasons for NetWare's performance advantage are given below.


File service instead of disk service

When first developed, nearly all LAN storage was based on the disk server model. This meant that if a client computer wanted to read a particular block from a particular file it would have to issue the following requests across the relatively slow LAN: # Read first block of directory # Continue reading subsequent directory blocks until the directory block containing the information on the desired file was found, could be many directory blocks # Read through multiple file entry blocks until the block containing the location of the desired file block was found, could be many directory blocks # Read the desired data block NetWare, since it was based on a file service model, interacted with the client at the file API level: # Send file open request (if this hadn't already been done) # Send a request for the desired data from the file All of the work of searching the directory to figure out where the desired data was physically located on the disk was performed at high speed locally on the server. By the mid-1980s, most NOS products had shifted from the disk service to the file service model. Today, the disk service model is making a comeback, see SAN.


Aggressive caching

From the start, the NetWare design focused on servers with copious amounts of RAM. The entire file allocation table (FAT) was read into RAM when a volume was mounted, thereby requiring a minimum amount of RAM proportional to online disk space; adding a disk to a server would often require a RAM upgrade as well. Unlike most competing
network operating system A network operating system (NOS) is a specialized operating system for a network device such as a router, switch or firewall. Historically operating systems with networking capabilities were described as network operating systems, because they al ...
s prior to Windows NT, NetWare automatically used all otherwise unused RAM for caching active files, employing delayed write-backs to facilitate re-ordering of disk requests ( elevator seeks). An unexpected shutdown could therefore corrupt data, making an
uninterruptible power supply An uninterruptible power supply or uninterruptible power source (UPS) is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power source or mains power fails. A UPS differs from an auxiliary or emergency power syste ...
practically a mandatory part of a server installation. The default dirty cache delay time was fixed at 2.2 seconds in NetWare 286 versions 2.x. Starting with NetWare 386 3.x, the dirty disk cache delay time and dirty directory cache delay time settings controlled the amount of time the server would cache changed ("dirty") data before saving (flushing) the data to a hard drive. The default setting of 3.3 seconds could be decreased to 0.5 seconds but not reduced to zero, while the maximum delay was 10 seconds. The option to increase the cache delay to 10 seconds provided a significant performance boost. Windows 2000 and 2003 server do not allow adjustment to the cache delay time. Instead, they use an algorithm that adjusts cache delay.


Efficiency of NetWare Core Protocol (NCP)

Most network protocols in use at the time NetWare was developed didn't trust the network to deliver messages. A typical client file read would work something like this: # Client sends read request to server # Server acknowledges request # Client acknowledges acknowledgement # Server sends requested data to client # Client acknowledges data # Server acknowledges acknowledgement In contrast, NCP was based on the idea that networks worked perfectly most of the time, so the reply to a request served as the acknowledgement. Here is an example of a client read request using this model: # Client sends read request to server # Server sends requested data to client All requests contained a sequence number, so if the client didn't receive a response within an appropriate amount of time it would re-send the request with the same sequence number. If the server had already processed the request it would resend the cached response, if it had not yet had time to process the request it would only send a "positive acknowledgement". The bottom line to this 'trust the network' approach was a 2/3 reduction in network transactions and the associated latency.


Non-preemptive OS designed for network services

One of the raging debates of the 1990s was whether it was more appropriate for network file service to be performed by a software layer running on top of a general purpose operating system, or by a special purpose operating system. NetWare was a special purpose operating system, not a timesharing OS. It was written from the ground up as a platform for client-server processing services. Initially it focused on file and print services, but later demonstrated its flexibility by running database, email, web and other services as well. It also performed efficiently as a router, supporting IPX, TCP/IP, and Appletalk, though it never offered the flexibility of a 'hardware' router. In 4.x and earlier versions, NetWare did not support preemption,
virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very ...
,
graphical user interfaces The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
, etc. Processes and services running under the NetWare OS were expected to be cooperative, that is to process a request and return control to the OS in a timely fashion. On the down side, this trust of application processes to manage themselves could lead to a misbehaving application bringing down the server.


See also

*
Novell NetWare Access Server DESQview (DV) is a text mode multitasking operating environment developed by Quarterdeck Office Systems which enjoyed modest popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Running on top of DOS, it allows users to run multiple programs concurrentl ...
(NAS) *
Comparison of operating systems These tables provide a comparison of operating systems, of computer devices, as listing general and technical information for a number of widely used and currently available PC or handheld (including smartphone and tablet computer) operating sy ...
*
Btrieve Btrieve is a transactional database ( navigational database) software product. It is based on Indexed Sequential Access Method (ISAM), which is a way of storing data for fast retrieval. There have been several versions of the product for DOS, Li ...
*
NCOPY In digital file management, copying is a file operation that creates a new file which has the same content as an existing file. Computer operating systems include file copying methods to users, with operating systems with graphical user inter ...


References


Further reading

* * * * *


External links


NetWare Cool Solutions
– Tips & tricks, guides, tools and other resources submitted by the NetWare community *


Epic uptime of NetWare 3 server, arstechnica.com
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Novell Netware 1983 software Network operating systems NetWare Proprietary software X86 operating systems PowerPC operating systems MIPS operating systems Discontinued operating systems