zhmu / nwserver

Novell NetWare 3.12 server in Rust

Novell NetWare 3.12 server

This is a NetWare 3.12 server written in Rust. The main benefit is that it does not rely on an IPX stack, as it uses libpnet to construct and process IPX packets. Only the Ethernet_II IPX frame type is supported.

Status

Only basic read only file sharing is implemented. There is no authentication support or support for multiple volumes.

Still, this is sufficient to turn your Windows or Linux-based system into a NetWare 3.12-server for your retro computing file transfer needs. The server will advertise itself using SAP and RIP as necessary and will co-operate with existing servers, if any.

Configuration

You need to edit config.toml with your preferred configuration. The most important setting is interface, which should correspond with the network interface you want to use for NetWare services.

You'll also want to change the path of the SYS volume to wherever the files are that you intend to serve. Only files in uppercase that can be represented using the 8.3 filename standard will be available - all others will be silently ignored.

Running

$ cargo run --release

Note that this will not work without the proper dependencies installed - these are covered in the next sections.

If you want to enable logging messages, set the environment variable RUST_LOG=TRACE

Linux dependencies

You need to have the development files for libpcap installed. For Debian-based systems, you can install them using apt install libpcap-dev.

Windows dependencies

You need to install npcap first, specifically:

• Npcap 1.60 installer (you must check the "WinPcap API compatible mode" option during installation)
• Npcap SDK 1.12

After installation, copy Packet.lib from the SDK to your Rust's lib directory. For example, mine is located in %USERPROFILE%\.rustup\toolchains\stable-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\lib\rustlib\x86_64-pc-windows-msvc\lib but this can differ based on your Rust setup.

Make sure you use the correct Packet.lib (32 or 64 bit based on your Rust setup)!

NetWare client setup

As only the Ethernet_II framing type is supported, you need to make sure your NetWare client uses this. For VLM-based configurations, edit net.cfg and add:

Link Driver <name>
    FRAME Ethernet_II

Where <name> is the name of your ODI driver, i.e. PCNTNW for AMD PCNet PCI cards such as those found in QEMU.