6/18/08
Eric Low

Netware comes with its own backup software called SMS (Storage Management Services). Because of my bad experiences with Arcserve, realizing that NovaNET had a terrible interface, and not wanting to pay for Veritas, I decided to at least give Netware's own built-in software a try.

There are supposedly two user interfaces (Novell calls these Storage Management Engines, or SME's) for setting up backup jobs, SBCON and NWBACK32. SBCON is an NLM that can be run from the server, while NWBACK32 is a Windows GUI. I found SBCON.NLM pretty easily, as it was sitting right there in my SYS:\SYSTEM directory, but NWBACK32 was nowhere to be found. I decided to come back to that.

First I made sure that the proper files were loaded. Running SMSSTART on the server will do this for you. This will load SMDR.NLM (the SMS Data Requester) and TSAFS.NLM (the Netware 6.5 TSA, so that you can actually back up the server). It also loads SMSUT.NLM, the SMS utility library. Some other files that may or may not be needed are SMSDI.NLM (the Device Interface module so that SBCON can communicate with the backup device), QMAN.NLM (the SMS Queue Manager), and TSANDS.NLM (the TSA to backup eDirectory). Be aware that these three NLM's seem to be loaded automatically for you if needed when you run SBCON.

When I first loaded SBCON, I could not see my backup device. Going into NoRM and clicking on Manager Server -> Partition Disks, I could see the SCSI controller that the tape drive was attached to (it was an LSI card, and the .HAM drivers were definitely loaded). however, the tape drive itself showed up under that card as "Unbound Device Object." Some helpful console commands to show devices and what-not are as follows:

This drive was a Quantum Ultrium LTO-2; I went to the Quantum site and found a handy NLM utility called TapeRX that will show you information about Certance/Quantum drives connected to your Netware server. I ran this, and sure enough it saw the drive just fine.

After some searching, I realized that Netware needed NWTAPE.CDM to be loaded in order for SBCON to be able to communicate with a tape device. This driver conflicts with third-party backup software, so be aware that you may not be able to run SBCON at the same time as third-party backup programs because of this. I found NWTAPE.CDM on my server's DOS partition under C:\NWSERVER\DRIVERS.NEW\NWTAPE.CDM. I tried loading it from the console by typing LOAD C:\NWSERVER\DRIVERS.NEW\NWTAPE.CDM, and it loaded just fine. I then ran SBCON, and suddenly my tape drive showed up! It also showed up when I typed LIST DEVICES, and was now nowhere to be found on NoRM's Partition Disks screen (even the SCSI adapter no longer showed up!). I then added NWTAPE to my STARTUP.NCF file so that it would load on bootup. This should go right after the the ACPIDRV.PSM line and probably before any SCSI drivers are loaded. The first part of my STARTUP.NCF looks as follows:

Note that the driver for my SCSI card that the tape drive is connected to is the LSIMPTNW.HAM. Also, it sounds like some of the NLM's loaded in order to run SMS will create some NDS objects while they are loaded/running.

Now that SBCON would load and see my drive, I decided to try running a backup.

* When setting up a backup, you select Target Service and see, then login to, the server. It should then show you Netware File System and Novell Directory. If it does not show you that menu, or you do not see Novell Directory, you must load TSANDS (the TSA to access eDirectory) and then reload SBCON.

* If you go to create a backup job, then select List Resources only to get an empty pop-up box, hit the INS key to see the volumes.

* Logs are stored in SYS:\SYSTEM\TSA\LOG by default.