Access NT and NetWare networks through one user interface and directory tree
Four years have passed since Microsoft announced Cairo, and Windows NT still lacks a functional directory service--a
centrally administered database of objects representing network resources. The upcoming NT 5.0 will include a directory
service called Active Directory. However, Microsoft won't release NT 5.0 to manufacturing until early 1998 at the
soonest, and a shakedown period is certain before network administrators commit to the new service.
In the meantime, technologies are emerging that can provide alternatives to a native NT directory service right
now. One such alternative is a Novell product--Workstation Manager, part of an updated version of Novell's IntranetWare
Client for Windows NT that was released in January. The Workstation Manager module lets you add NT systems to a Novell
Directory Services (NDS) tree in a mixed NetWare and NT environment as shown in Screen 1. NDS is the popular
NetWare-based directory service that stores information about network resources (e.g., users, groups, printers, and
volumes) in a distributed database. Objects organized into a hierarchical tree design represent an entire enterprise
network's resources. Workstation Manager expands the NetWare Administrator program's capabilities by letting you add a
new type of object that represents an NT workstation to the NDS tree. (For information about installing and configuring
IntranetWare Client for NT, see "Windows NT and NDS," March 1997).
NDS and NT
Many organizations rely on both NetWare and NT for network services. A typical example is a shop that uses NetWare
for file and print services and NT application servers and workstations. But with this mixed environment comes the
challenge of managing two different access control systems.
NT's domain-based system of access control provides only a directory service's most basic features, such as user
groups and password protection, and is limited to use with Microsoft operating systems. NetWare has the most widely
deployed directory service in the industry, with more than 17 million sites running NDS. NDS supports clients running on
DOS and all the Windows platforms as well as UNIX and Macintosh systems. NDS gives users an expandable view of an
enterprise network through one user interface (UI), supporting a virtually unlimited number of clients and servers. NDS
contains configuration data for many types of network resources in a database that can be distributed among NetWare
servers around the office or around the world.
Unlike the other operating systems that NDS supports, however, NT requires an authenticated logon, even for local
system access. With Workstation Manager, you can now use NDS to manage and store the information needed to perform this
logon.
Novell Workstation Manager eliminates the need to manually create user accounts on NT 3.51 and 4.0 workstations
running Novell's client for NetWare. NDS stores all the necessary user information and dynamically creates accounts
during the logon process.
To accomplish this automation, Workstation Manager lets network administrators create NDS tree objects that
represent NT machines. The NDS database on your NetWare servers stores these objects, which are configured with the
account information needed to perform the NT system logon. The objects are then associated with specific NDS users so
that when a user logs on to the NDS tree from an NT system, an account is automatically created on the NT workstation,
using the credentials stored in the NDS database. Workstation Manager also supports remote client configuration, roaming
user profiles, system policies, and NT user groups.
Workstation Manager's purpose is not to completely resolve the problem of integrating NT with NetWare but to
simplify using NT as a client operating system on NetWare networks. If you use NT domains to store account information
for your users, Workstation Manager may not be helpful because it does nothing to manage user and group access to NT
domain servers.
Another product, Novell Administrator for NT (formerly code-named Tabasco), addresses the problem of assimilating
NT domains into NDS. This product is a NetWare Administrator module that synchronizes NT user and group information in
the NDS database. Sometime this year, Novell plans to release a full port of NDS to NT. This port will eliminate the
need for NetWare servers to store the NDS database.
Despite these drawbacks, Workstation Manager is a significant first step toward the use of NDS as a complete
enterprise directory services solution. Workstation Manager can be especially useful for NetWare sites with many NT
desktops where administrators routinely travel to each system to create user accounts or use NT domains solely for
centralized account management.
Installing Workstation Manager
To obtain Workstation Manager, you must download IntranetWare Client for Windows NT, which is available for free
from http://www.novell.com.
Workstation Manager consists of two parts. One is an updated version of the NetWare Graphical Identification and
Authentication module (NWGINA) that replaces the Microsoft GINA on the NT system. NWGINA controls the functions of the
logon dialog box that appears when you boot the system.
The other part of Workstation Manager consists of snap-in modules. These modules extend the NDS database's schema
to let a network administrator create and manage NT Client Configuration objects (more about these later).
The IntranetWare Client's automated setup procedures install both modules. The IntranetWare package includes a
setupnw.exe program, which installs the client software (including NWGINA) on the NT system, and an admsetup.exe
program, which installs NT versions of the NetWare administration utilities (including the new snap-in modules) to the
SYS volume on the NetWare server.
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