ncpfs
NCPFS is a simple Netware client for Linux which enables Linux users to mount Netware volumes (e.g., "P:"-drives) and send files to be printed via Netware print queues (e.g., usuls2).
Most distributions, including RedHat, come with a binary pack package (e.g., RPM) for NCPFS (you may also need a supporting package called something like ipxutils). However, experience shows that version 2.2.0.20 (or greater) is required to authenticate to UMIST's NDS (Netware tree) as of 2002 November 21 --- version 2.2.0.18 fails --- so you may need to download the source code (and compile it) for a newer version than that supplied, or seek binaries from elsewhere. (Both RedHat v7.2 and RedHat v8.0 come with v2.2.0.18.)
For more information on interacting with Netware see the
IPX HOWTO
or
RPMs can be downloaded from RedHat mirror sites, though these may not be at a sufficent version level to work with the UMIST NDS. The best solution is to download the source from freshmeat.net and compile binaries/executables from that.
First, you need ensure that your Linux machine understands IPX, so ensure the ipxutils RPM is installed (or you have downloaded the source, compiled and installed it). Then
ipx_configure --auto_interface=on --auto_primary=on
Secondly, ensure that an up-to-date version of NCPFS is installed (either from the RPM or, better, by downloading and compiling the source). At this point you can check that your machine can successfully talk IPX by running the slist command (which you have just installed) --- this should give output similar to the following:
prompt$ slist Known NetWare File Servers Network Node Address -------------------------------------------------------------------------- MAN-BS-FS2 01033A2A 000000000001 MAN-BS-FS5 01033A2D 000000000001 . . UMIST-SS2 01033BA3 000000000001 UMIST-SS3 01033BA5 000000000001
To mount your P:-drive you first need to know your server. If you don't know exactly what it's called, but have and approximate idea (e.g., "its HS1"), you can use slist to determine the exact name as required to mount your P:-drive (e.g., umist-hs1).
Given that you know the exact server name, as determined above, you should be able to authenticate and mount your drive.
IPX
To do this use
ncpmount -S <server> -U <full-username> -V <volume> <mount-point>
For example:
ncpmount -S umist-hs1 -U mpciish2.isd.umist -V vol1 /mnt/novell/
where /mnt/novell is the mount point on your Linux machine.
You will need to enter your eUMIST password, when prompted.
(In a previous life this would have been
ncpmount -S uk-ac-umist-fs1 -U mpciish2.csu.iss.umist.ac.uk -V vol1 /mnt/novell/
or similar.)
IP
ncpmount -S umist-hs1 -U mpciish2.isd.umist -V vol1 -o tcp,ipserver=hs1.umist.ac.uk /mnt/novell
First ensure that ipxutils and ncpfs are installed, then check which queues your machine can "see" --- use the pqlist utility to do this
pqlist -S <print-server> -U <full-username>
For example:
pqlist -S umist-prn1 -U mpciish2.isd.umist
Having chosen a queue, print using the nprint utility:
nprint -S <print-server> -q <queue> -U <full-username> <file>
For example:
nprint -S umist-prn1 -q usuls2 -U mpciish2.isd.umist \
/home/simonh/printtest.txt.ps
(you will need to enter your eUMIST password, when prompted).
N.B. You must send a suitable file to a printer: send Postscript or PCL as appropriate --- plain text is rejected by many queues.
Recent distributions of Linux come with a graphical utility, printconf-gui, which can be used to set up a standard, local print-queue to save the above lengthy typing: within the utility select select New and then Novell Printer and enter the values used above. Then you can use
lpr -P<queue-name> <file>
to print to the Netware queue.
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