By Jeff Durham and Emmett Dulaney

If you are just starting on the road to Novell certification and hope to become certified in NetWare 5.1, you must pass the NetWare 5.1 Administration exam (#50-653). This exam is a requirement for becoming certified at the CNA (Certified Novell Administrator) level, as well as all higher levels. (You must be a CNA to become a CNE; you must be a CNE to become an MCNE; and so forth.) The exam is offered through both VUE (www.vue.com) and Prometric (www.2test.com) testing centers and, as the name implies, tests the basics of administering a NetWare 5.1 network. You can find a detailed list of the test objectives for the NetWare 5.1 Administration exam by visiting www.novell.com/education/testinfo/objectives/560atobj.html.

There are no methods that are required to obtain the knowledge to pass the NetWare 5.1 Admini-stration exam (or any other Novell exam, for that matter). You can do so in any number of ways: on-the-job training, self-study books, computer-based training (CBT), etc. One method is to sit through a class at a Novell Authorized Education Center (NAEC). If you are considering this option for the NetWare 5.1 Administration exam, use course #560A. It’s a five-day course that covers the necessary topics and provides a solid foundation for the Advanced Administration course (should you want to continue beyond the CNA to the CNE level). For additional information on the NAEC course, check out novell.netpub.com/cgi-bin/edcatalog/ilt_one_sresult?m=709.

This article examines some of the broad topics covered by the NetWare 5.1 Administration exam. The topics are assembled into the following categories:

• Networking, NetWare and NDS
• Network access and login scripts
• Security
• Novell Distributed Print Services
• ZENworks
• Potpourri (items that don’t fit anywhere else)

Networking, NetWare and NDS

For the networking portion of the NetWare 5.1 Administration exam, you must know the basic terminology of a network and all its components: a server (versus a workstation), topology, network interface cards and so on. You can find a great deal of this information in any basic networking text (including the 88-page PDF file at www.certificationcorner.com/network.pdf).

NetWare, the network operating system marketed by and proprietary to Novell, is a collection of services, applications and utilities that are required on the server and/or the workstations to be able to communicate. NetWare is supported on almost all workstations with the appropriate software, including Windows, DOS, Linux/UNIX and Macintosh.

NDS (Novell Directory Service) is a distributed, replicated database in the SYS volume of the server and always has a top level of [ROOT]. The database holds information about all the items on the network (users, resources, etc.) in a hierarchical tree structure. The items are known as objects, and each object has properties and values. A user object might be jsleeva, for example. That object will have properties associated with it, one of which might be full name. The value of the full name property is John Sleeva. Every object can have a property, and every property can have a value.

A key benefit of NDS is the centralized management that is possible, regardless of the physical size of the network. In an environment exceeding a local area, NetWare has the ability to use container objects. A container object is used to hold other objects that have something in common. Those other objects can, in turn, hold additional objects (making them containers as well) or terminate at that point (in which case, they’re known as leaf objects). To illustrate, a container object may contain every user in the Anderson office. Within that container, there can be containers for each division (sales, marketing, editorial, art, etc.). Each of those containers can be divided into floor numbers (other containers) or users (leaf objects). Containers differ only in breadth of scope and can be one of the following three:

• Country
• Organization
• Organizational Unit (OU)

TIP: NDPS helps to expand printing possibilities, but not all clients are compatible. To find out if your Windows 9x clients are compatible with NDPS, see the instructions available at www.lbl.gov/ITSD/CIS/Novell/compatible9x.html.

Network Access and Login Scripts

When a user logs in at a workstation, the software interacts with the network interface card (NIC) installed in the machine, and communication is then possible between the workstation and the server. The workstation must be running an operating system for which NetWare is available along with the Novell Client software. Prior to NetWare 5, the default communication protocol between the server and workstation was the IPX/SPX (Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Package Exchange) protocol, which is proprietary to Novell. IPX/SPX can still be used with NetWare 5, but the new default is TCP/IP.

Although the login prompt generally is configured to run when the workstation boots, it can be called separately. (The methods differ based on the OS running on the workstation.) Login scripts can be configured to run when the user logs in to automate key commands, the most common of which involves MAP. You can also use a large number of “identifier variables” to customize actions based on the value of the variables. You can find an excellent resource on login scripts by visiting www.lsilogicstorage.com/products/storage_apps/docs/tas53/ref/nwlogin.htm.

Security

Once logged in, users can interact with any resource on the network that they’ve been granted permissions to in the NDS database or on the file system. Rights flow down from one directory to all child directories (known as inheritance), unless blocked. Effective rights are those rights that apply to a particular user and resource based on the accumulation of permissions through group membership, ownership and so on. The default NDS rights provide that a user has Browse to all objects in their tree and Read to all objects associated with their user account.

Security can be physical (logging up the server) or software-based. NetWare allows you to restrict users to only being able to log in from certain workstations or even to limit the hours each day that users can log in. Although all passwords are optional, there are no instances when you should not use them. NetWare automatically remembers the last eight passwords and does not allow you to change your password to one of those previous values when it has expired.

You can assign the following rights to objects:

• Browse
• Create
• Delete
• Inheritable
• Rename
• Supervisor

You can assign the following rights to properties:

• Add/Remove Self
• Compare
• Inheritable
• Read
• Supervisor
• Write

The rights for files and directories are as follows:

• Access Control (all rights except Supervisor)
• Create (to create new directories and files)
• Erase (to remove existing directories and files)
• File Scan (to list existing files and directories)
• Modify (to change names and attributes)
• Read (to read the contents of files and run executables)
• Supervisor (all)
• Write (to add to existing files)

List files and directories with the NDIR command, change attributes with the FLAG command and move files with the NCOPY command.

TIP: The NetWare 5.1 Administration exam can fluctuate between being adaptive and form-based. The adaptive format asks 15 to 25 questions. The standard format asks approximately 60 questions. There is no surefire way to know the format of the exam prior to showing up at the testing center, so be prepared for the longer exam (and be pleasantly surprised if you get the shorter version).

Novell Distributed Print Services

Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS), created in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard and Xerox, requires a printer agent for each printer. The purpose of NDPS, pure and simple, is to allow network printing to take advantage of all the features a printer is capable of. Using NDPS, a printer is available as soon as it is plugged in; the need to install drivers on each client is eliminated.

NDPS also allows for bidirectional information associated with print jobs—telling users when there is low toner, a paper jam, etc. An excellent FAQ on NDPS can be found at developer.novell.com/devres/nest/ndpsfaq.htm.

ZENworks

The purpose of ZENworks (Zero Effort Networks) is to simplify administration. ZENworks is a collection of programs used in conjunction to provide management of Windows-based workstations via NDS. In addition to workstation management, ZENworks performs administrative tasks such as desktop management and application control. Workstation tasks are specifically coordinated with ZENworks using the ZENworks Work- station Manager, a set of integrated modules combined with NetWare administrative snap-in consoles.

These components work in concert to address the following issues: managing user settings, troubleshooting desktop configurations and delivering proper hardware drivers to their correct location on the network. A number of specific features are included with Workstation Manager:

• The Scheduled Updates feature is used to schedule software updates to occur on certain workstations at preset times.

• The Novell Client Configuration feature is used to configure client properties for multiple workstations at once, thus eliminating the need to deal with each machine individually.

• The Workstation Profile Management feature is used to create and manage pre-designed desktop settings and user profiles.

• The NDS Storage for Policies feature is used to generate policies in the NetWare Administrator and allows for centralized management of desktops from a single interface.

• The Dynamic Printer Configuration feature is used to relate a print queue and its parallel printer driver with specified clients and workstations.

Potpourri

You can manage NDS with the CX (“context”) command-line utility, with NetWare Administrator or with ConsoleOne (a Java-based applet that allows for remote management). The FILER utility, a carryover from earlier (DOS-based only) versions of NetWare, can be used for direct file management.

When files are deleted, they are simply marked for deletion and can be recovered as long as they have not been purged. File compression is enabled on the server by default.

Jeff Durham is the product director for Certification Corner (www.CertificationCorner.com), makers of the TestPro test engine software. He can be reached at jdurham@technicalcontent.com.

Emmett Dulaney is StudyGuide editor for Certification Magazine, author of more than 30 books and one of the founders of D S Technical Solutions. Emmett can be reached at edulaney@certmag.com.

ZENworks is a complex topic about which many tomes have been written. Just when you think you understand the product, you’ll stumble across features you never knew existed. An excellent article on the imaging feature can be found at www.elementkjournals.com/inw/0103/inw0131.htm.