LinuxWorld: NDS for Linux, Part 2 - A practical view of Novell Directory Services | Linux Today

LinuxWorld: NDS for Linux, Part 2 – A practical view of Novell Directory Services

Written By
Web Webster
Web Webster
Jun 4, 2000

Installing NDS for Linux (Corporate Edition) is simple and
easy. NDS comes as a few RPM packages and a shell script
installer.
Of course, you don’t need to install NDS server on
every machine you have; in most cases one server (or two for
replication purposes) on your LAN is enough. On the rest of the
machines, you install only the NDS User Account Management (UAM)
component.”

“The installation script invokes the vi editor in the
configuration file so that you can set the NDS tree name, context,
common name (CN), organization (O), and organizational unit (OU)
names. All that data is held in /etc/nds.conf. You also need to set
up an admin password for managing the NDS tree — and that’s all.
The rest of the installation process is noninteractive. The
installer is bright enough to search subnets for duplicates of the
NDS name, to extend the NDS schema (explained later), and to
install security services.”

“Last, you install management software — unfortunately it’s
available only for Windows. Although the main tool, ConsoleOne, is
written in Java, we were unable to run it from a Linux desktop.
Another argument for using a Windows workstation is that you will
be able to use additional tools like NDS Manager and NetWare
Administrator, which are necessary for setting more advanced NDS
features.’

“NDS tools require the infrastructure provided with the newest
Novell client software, so you need to install Novell Client for
Win 32 before you install any NDS tools on Windows. The Novell
client also changes the login screen for Windows 9x and NT to make
it possible to log in to the NDS tree interactively.”

Complete
Story

Web Webster

Web Webster

Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.

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