Virtualizing Novell Netware 4.11

[vgshp]

I know this is not a supported OS for ESX Server, but with the help of some other posts here, I have been able to get a server up and running. However after about 2 weeks of running smoothly, the server started to report it was redirecting blocks. After a while of doing this the VM will abend. Upon rebooting the VM, it comes up and runs vrepair on the volumes. sometimes it will mount the volume, other times it will not and give errors.

Anyone ever run into this on a Novell VM in esx server?

Any help will be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks!

HP

[lholling]

Hi There

I normally run the NW4.11 server I have on Workstation but I will convert it over to ESX to have a look...

Anyhow are you running SP9 and what driver/version are you using for the disk?

What version of ESX / Patch level are you using?

Leonard...

[vgshp]

Yes I beleive it is SP9, and I am using the BLMM3.HAM driver for the disk.

Running on ESX 3.0.2 no other patches.

Thanks

Harry

[lholling]

I got it over from Workstation to ESX and it is working fine. I have it working in a NetWare 5.1 configured VM on ESX v3.0.2 + all patches (up to 8th October) so I am using the LSIMPTNW.HAM driver from NetWare 5.1 with it and it is working fine.

I have also used the nw4-idle.nlm to make it understand CPU idling.

Hmmm not sure what else to tell youat this point, I will keep monitoring it and let you know but for me it is working like a charm...

Leonard...

[lholling]

Hi Harry

Well it has run fine over the last few days... My only suggestion would be to try using the LSI disk type using the LSIMPTNW.HAM drivers from NW5.1SP8 as this is what is working OK for me. I can email it to you if you like?

The latest version of the driver you are using appears to be around 1999.

Leonard...

[vgshp]

Thanks Leonard!

I will try that driver, if you can email it to me, though I'm not sure it will work with 4.11. I think we got the problem taken care of......it seems it was a Path configuration issue on our ESX servers and the type of SAN we are using. We had it configured to use Preferred pathing, and using a backend SAN that was Active/Passive caused some issues on the LUNS. After we corrected that issue, everyhting seemed to function alot better.

HP

[lholling]

Here are the files and I know they will work because I am using them right now...

If this as been helpful don't forget to award points...

Leonard...

[JDLangdon]

Here are the files and I know they will work because I am using them right now...

If this as been helpful don't forget to award points...

Leonard...

These drives did not work in my testing environment. When trespassing the LUN from one controller to the other on an active/pasive SAN the Netware server crashed with an error message stating that "Device VMware Virtual disk rev:1.0 deactivated by driver due to device failure."

Jason

[lholling]

Hmmmm must admit I never really checked to see what happens if the controllers swap for NetWare. I will have to investigate and get back to you on that one.

Leonard...

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Don't forget if the answers help, award points

[JDLangdon]

Thanks Leonard!

I will try that driver, if you can email it to me, though I'm not sure it will work with 4.11. I think we got the problem taken care of......it seems it was a Path configuration issue on our ESX servers and the type of SAN we are using. We had it configured to use Preferred pathing, and using a backend SAN that was Active/Passive caused some issues on the LUNS. After we corrected that issue, everyhting seemed to function alot better.

HP

Hi HP,

After reading your post it would appear that both you and I are experiencing the same issues related to an active/passive SAN failing over between controllers. I've been experimenting with various flavours of Netware (5.1 / 6.0 / 6.5) and all seem to have the same issues. From what I can tell, the issue occurs when the active path switches between controllers. Instead of pausig operations for a few seconds, like most OS's do, Netware times out and needs to be rebooted.

I'm going to try the drivers posted on this thread to see if it makes any difference in my environment.

Jason

[renegadeZA]

hi there,

im an trying to migrate a novell 4.11 server running sp9 on vmware workstation 6 to esx 3.5, how did you accoumplish this, please help.

Kind Regards

Renegade

[lholling]

Hi There

The best way that I can recommend is to make a copy of the Virtual Machine in Workstation from there use the copy and then change the disk from IDE to LSI Logic SCSI. Once VMware is set to LSI for the disks use the drivers that I posted as part of this thread and replace the IDE ones in the c:\nwserver\startup.ncf

Make sure that you use SCSIHD.CDM instead of IDEHD.CDM as well.

Once you have a working LSI Logic version of the VM then it is simple to get it to ESX. You just need to copy the VMDK's over to ESX using something like SCP (use your favourite ftp program) or Veeams FastSCP.

Now that they are there use the vmkfstools -i /sourcedir/server.vmdk /vmfs/volumes/volume/nw4.11/nw4-11.vmdk to make the files work correctly for ESX (especially if you have used thin provisioning).

Then you can register it on the ESX server using the VI Client.

Leonard...

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Don't forget if the answers help, award points

[renegadeZA]

thanks a mil got it working, but another problem, the utilization is high all the time.

did install the vmtool.nlm and running the nw4-idle nlm, still high, changed the net driver to cneamd.nlm and scsi driver to lsimptnw.nlm

still very high

Comptia A+ | Comptia N+ | CCNA |NES |HP ACT | EE N3 | MCP | MCTSx1 | MCITPx1 | SCS

[grahampowelljr]

For those who are experiencing high CPU utilization - is the VM experiencing high utilization, as indicated on the Performance tab in VirtualCenter, or is NetWare reporting high utilization, through Monitor for example? It seems to be normal the NetWare thinks CPU utilization is high even when idle, but the virtual machine is actually not consuming that much processor time.

For those who are experiencing device deactivations due to SAN pathing issues, if you are running NW 4.11 SP9 then you should be able to use an updated SCSIHD.CDM as described here:

That device driver is not intended for NetWare 4.11 but in practice it seems to work (at least with ESX3.5).

Graham

[Joemamps]

Hello,

How about high memory utilization? I've been looking for a solution if there is a workaround for this or just like what you mentioned in high processor utilization during idle its perfectly ok.

[sschmeinck]

Hi!

I have NW 4.11 SP9 installed on ESX 3.5. I have also nw4-idle.nlm running but still high processor utilization! Is there any other solution for this issue?

Stefan

[cgbyrd]

Has anyone found any kind of solution to this? It sounds close to the problem I am having with Netware 6.5 sp7.

[Texiwill]

Hello,

Moved to Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum.

For Netware you should install the appropriate VMware Tools as the netware spin loop will take up processing instead of waiting and letting others have access to the CPU.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

SearchVMware Blog: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/

Blue Gears Blogs - http://www.itworld.com/ and http://www.networkworld.com/community/haletky

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[cgbyrd]

I actually replied to the wrong person the first time. I am having issues with the san problem. I am running a Sun StorageTek 6140 and 6130. All of my servers are NW 6.5 SP7.

We have 3 new nw657 virtual servers running on an hp c7000 blade server. All 3 servers have sys volumes locally on their blade, but they have volumes mapped to one of the two Sun SANs I mentioned. They are different volumes, but on the same SAN. When the SAN admin performs any kind of maintenance on the SAN, deleting

volumes for example, it causes these netware servers to loose connection to their volumes. The volumes say cdm driver deactivated device.

We have a true Netware 655 server (not virtual) also connected to the same SAN box. This server did not loose its volumes. It is not on the Bladeserver. It is on a standalone rack server.

I figured it was a setting that has to do with how quick volumes are deactivated, but I am not sure. I tried all different settings and command line switches with the latest and greatest scsihd driver for netware, but no luck yet.

Anyone seen this or found a workaround?

[sschmeinck]

Hello!

As far as I know there are no VMware tools for Netware! When I try to install the tools I get an "General error...". I´m using ESX 3.5.0, 70356!

Stefan

[Texiwill]

Hello,

The VMware Tools for Netware is for v5 and above.

Best regards,

Edward L. Haletky

VMware Communities User Moderator

====

Author of the book 'VMWare ESX Server in the Enterprise: Planning and Securing Virtualization Servers', Copyright 2008 Pearson Education.

SearchVMware Blog: http://itknowledgeexchange.techtarget.com/virtualization-pro/

Blue Gears Blogs - http://www.itworld.com/ and http://www.networkworld.com/community/haletky

As well as the Virtualization Wiki at http://www.astroarch.com/wiki/index.php/Virtualization

[renegadeZA]

Hi there,

Just a thought, wont the novell 5 nlm's run on novell4.2 the architechture is still the same and most of novell 5 nlm's run on 4.2

So that being how do you manually install the vmware tools in novell.

Kind Regards

RenegadeZA