This brief article explains how it could be possible to set up Linux to interact with a Novell system.

Please note that this document is provided without any guarantees whatsoever and has not been officially sanctioned by anybody... if you follow the instructions and manage to break something we will not be held responsible... at all. You bear all security risks too. Handwash only. Batteries not included.

In general there seem to be two ways of getting the IPX stuff to work:

A

Encapsulate IPX in IP... send it across the wire and let the other end do the worrying. This is similar to the pktdriver + ipxbyu encountered on some DOS boxes. This approach currently seems only available for DOSEMU.

Pros

Your kernel does not need to do IPX.

Cons

You can only use it from DOSEMU. It is not real IPX to begin with.

How to do it

Set up DOSEMU. Do not enable the IPX support. Only enable pktdriver novell_hack option if you are on a 802.3 network in the dosemu.conf. (If you are on a EtherII net, then let it be).

Start DOSEMU. Load either pdipx + netx or lsl + pdether (to be found on TSX - mirrored on ftp.sun.ac.za in the dosemu directory) + IPXODI + NETX.

Good luck.

B

Configure your Linux box to do IPX. This should be the more powerful approach - since you should be able to do such fun things as mount the novell file system as part of your Linux tree.

Pros

Flexible approach. You Linux machine tries to integrate itself into the Novell network.

Cons

Same as above. You are part of a Novell network.

How to do it

Establish your frame type. At UCT that would usually be EtherII or 802.3. Set up your ipx interface. To do that get the ipx utils package (written by the Caldera people and part of lots of packages...) and compile and install it.

Then run the command ipx_interface add -p eth0 EtherII. (Explanation: -p makes the thing the primary interface, eth0 is your device - you might have more than one network card, and EtherII your frame type... could be 802.3 or something else). Now your device should be up (check the /proc/net/ipx* files for the scary detail).

You can now start doing fun things:

Get the ncpfs utilities... allows you to do SLIST, NPRINT and, if the gods smile on you, mount the novell server (we actually managed to do that after a bit of a struggle). Bits and pieces of ncpfs come with the newer kernels. A really handy package to have.

Get DOSEMU... now you can enable IPX in the dosemu.conf, and simply start NETX in the emulator (or CLIENT if you want to connect to a NETWARE Lite server). The former should work in theory, the latter has been proven to work ;-).

More information

This article is only a rough outline of what to do. For more authorative information look at:

• IPX-HOWTO which is part of TLDP.
• NOVELL-HOWTO - part of the dosemu documentation
• The Linux/Novell Mailing List.
• Yor local IPX guru.