# is it possible to mount novell drives?

## dufnutz

Hello, my campus uses a novell network to give the students access to a "netdrive" across campus, is there any way to mount it under gentoo? is it possible with the "mount" command?

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## mglauche

yes, they should be. enable IPX and the Novell network fs in kernel, then you should be able to mount them. There should be even some helper applications out there. Did try it way back time with novel 4.1, did work quite fine (IIRC it was linux 2.0.1something)

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## dufnutz

ok i compiled in IPX and ncpfs, then i emerged ncpfs. I was looking at the man for ncpmount and looked at this thread. they say to use this command

ipx_configure --auto_interface=on --auto_primary=on 

so i did, then this command

ncpmount -S servername -V volumename -U username /place/to/mount

so i did, excpet i didn't know my servername or volumename so i went to my closest lab and found this, at ever windows novell client these are the filds i fill in.

User: myusername

password:  mypassword

Tree: lafnet

Context 2005.students.lafayette

Server:

yes, server is left blank, im guessing the Tree/context is enough to tell it where the server is, also I dont know specifically what the volume name is, i can telll you they are mounted at "H:\" on every windows client. so do you have any idea the command i would need to mount this drive?

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## pjp

Unfortunately Tree and Context don't necessarily reveal the server.  Your best bet would be to ask an administrator.  Next to the blank 'server' box, there should be an icon that will let you 'browse'.  This should display available servers.  They may not be the one you really want though.  After logging in, you can check properties of the "H:" drive and see if that reveals anything (a 'right-click' may even list a novell option).  As a last resort, you can scrounge around for an admin utility (nwadmin or similar, its been a while).  Unfortunately, this could be hidden.  Rather than do all of this, I really would ask an administrator.  If you are allowed access to the drive, I don't see why they wouldn't help.

I miss working on Novell servers.

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## Vancouverite

From the command line in the public directory you can type "slist" for server names and other info.  For volume info type "volinfo".  I think NetWare still supports these utilities, I don't think you need admin priveledges to run them....  but it's been a while for me. Best advice is to just ask the Administrator.

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## dufnutz

ok i think i found my server and volume name this is the command im typing and every time i get a segfault, let me know if something looks wrong

```

# ncpmount -S LAFNWST2 -V //LAFNWST2/SYS/HOME/2005/DUFRESNJ -U dufresnj.2005.students.lafayette  /mnt/h/

Logging into LAFNWST2 as DUFRESNJ.2005.STUDENTS.LAFAYETTE

Password: 

Segmentation fault

```

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## dufnutz

ok after that failing a bunch of times i tried this

```

ncplogin -S lafnwst2 -U dufresnj.2005.students.lafayette

Logging into LAFNWST2 as DUFRESNJ.2005.STUDENTS.LAFAYETTE

Password: 

```

that worked and mounted the network drive to /root/ncp/LAFNWST2/SYS

thats all good but not quite what i want, i want to mount he sub directory //LAFNWST2/SYS/HOME/2005/DUFRESNJ/ because these are the files i access around campus. but im curious as to why the command above didn't work

also as a side note, it truncates all my file names and makes them all capital letters, is there a way to stop this from happening?

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## owena

Theres a kernel option that can fix the filename mangling, specifically CONFIG_NCPFS_NFS_NS.

To set in in menuconfig/xconfig:

Under Filesystems > Network Filesystems, in the "NCP filesystem support" section, say yes to "Use NFS namespace if available"

To make NFS filenames even more friendly, you can also say yes to "Lowercase DOS filenames" and "Use Native Language Support" in the same section. If you do say yes to NLS support, you'll also need to got Filesystems > Native Language Support and compile (modules are fine) support for at least one charset. I'm fine with just ISO 8859-1.

Having said all that, I've got a question of my own: the setup I've just described (plus working IPX and ncpfs tools) gave me great Novell access on my old Linux From Scratch system. Now, however, it doesn't seem to work: I can mount and unmount all I want, but trying to 'ls' inside a novell mount always gives me "ls: .: Stale NFS file handle" and nothing else. 

Its entirely possible that I "accidentally" did something that made it work on my old system which I don't know to do on the new. Any suggestions?

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## dufnutz

I got rid of capital letters but the filenames are still truncated like old DOS days. did i miss a kernel option?

also how do i logout? i notice there isn't a ncplogout option, and i need to log out because my campus only allows each account one login session.

I'm still having the problem with ncpmount as described above if any fresh eyes see this. thanks

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## pjp

Does ncplogin have  a man page?  Perhaps it has an option to logout or related info.

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## dufnutz

nope. no man for ncplogin, ncp, ncpfs and 

ncplogin -h

doesn't meantion logging out

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## preacherx

 *dufnutz wrote:*   

> ok i think i found my server and volume name this is the command im typing and every time i get a segfault, let me know if something looks wrong
> 
> ```
> 
> # ncpmount -S LAFNWST2 -V //LAFNWST2/SYS/HOME/2005/DUFRESNJ -U dufresnj.2005.students.lafayette  /mnt/h/
> ...

 

NCPFS does not allow mounting a specific directory that is why the first command fails.  The volume name is just SYS.  See NCPFS is only keyed to the login for permissions.  everyone will see all folders but not everyone will be able to read/write.  Is there a specific reason you need multiple logins?   i mean if the student is logged into the gentoo box, they are obviously not going to logged into another workstation somewhere else so that login seesion counts as there one login.    

To logout all you do is 

```
# ncpumount  /mnt/h
```

That will unmount the novell volume and log out the user.  Try the following code to login as conpared to the method used above.

```

# ncpmount -S LAFNWST2 -V SYS -U dufresnj.2005.students.lafayette  /mnt/h/

```

And like i said before, ncpfs will not allow mounting a single directory inside the directory tree.  just the volume root. 

Regards,

Preacher X

A+, Linux+, LPI lvl 1

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