Getting Data from Solaris to NetWare

I have a lot of disk-based snapshots of NetWare and OES Linux servers on a big Sun x4500. We get the data onto there using rsync. We let our admins get data back from Solaris by using a web interface based on Apache. However, this doesn’t work very well for getting data from Solaris to NetWare in bulk in a hurry. Neither does rsync, because with datasets in the several hundred gigabyte range, rsync is dog slow.

Here’s a quick way: Install the nfs part of the NetWare Native File Access Pack on your NetWare box, export the volume via nfs from NetWare, mount it on your Solaris box, and just copy. I’m getting about 45 GB per hour over a gigabit connection, which is fast enough for right now, because I just want to get the data over the weekend. I could probably tune it up to about 100 GB per hour with a little effort.

How to do it:

First get the NFAP from Novell for NetWare. Uncompress it somewhere on the NetWare server or put it on a CD. Use the installer on the NetWare gui to install it.

Next, edit sys:\etc\exports, and add a line like the following:

/volume/folder -rw -root solarisbox.mydomain.com

This shares the folder “folder” on the NetWare volume “volume” via nfs, and gives the Solaris machine solarisbox.mydomain.com full access to the share. If you want to share the whole volume, just omit the “/folder” part.

Next, add a line in the sys:\etc\hosts file for the IP address of the Solaris machine. If you don’t do this then the Solaris machine will be unable to mount the nfs share.

192.168.1.10 solarisbox.mydomain.com solarisbox

The last step on NetWare is to stop and restart nfs.

nfsstop
nfsstart

Next, on the Solaris machine, mount the NetWare nfs share, and go to town. As root on Solaris, do this:

mkdir /mnt/mountpoint
mount netwarebox.mydomain.com:/volume/folder /mnt/mountpoint

This will make the NetWare folder available on the Solaris box at /mnt/mountpoint.

Now you can use cp, or even rsync natively on the Solaris machine to get data stored on your Solaris volumes onto the NetWare volume.