Indirectly access Novell networks

Jun 10, '02 10:19:52PM

Contributed by: forrestwalter

The company I work for uses a Novell network, which was fine when I was using Mac OS 9, but I recently got upgraded to a G4 800 running OS X. There isn't any Novell client for X (yet?). There is a "Novell Native File Access" product, but that's more money and the company's already spent a bundle on my hardware and software. So ... cheap fast fix time! I've got an old Pentium 120 in my office.

After getting our IT guy's go-ahead, I installed WarFTP (free) on it. I set myself up as a user and pointed the server at the mapped Novell network drive. On my Mac, I used RbrowserLite (free) logged in, and saw all the files I needed ... very cool.

A couple of drawbacks:

  1. Resource forks will be bopped, if transferred to the server (I believe Native File Access allows resource forks).
  2. The PC has to be on, logged into the network, and running WarFTP.
Other than that, it's mighty fine.

[Editor's note: A creative solution to a fairly large hole in OS X's networking abilities. If anyone has news or info on a solution that doesn't require a separate PC, please post what you know! We run Novell at work, and I'd love to get to it from my OS X box...]

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