* A new method and another take on a previous method to preserve directory info
I think this newsletter should be the last one on directory backups, restores, hardware upgrades and related activities. It seems like ages ago, but really was only a couple of weeks ago, that I presented the case of a reader who got in trouble while upgrading hardware on his Small Business Suite single-server system due to an inability to restore a supposedly good backup of the NDS/eDirectory system.
Over the intervening issues, I’ve presented various ways that the situation could have been handled to preserve the directory information. Today, I’ll mention one more method and present another take on a method I laid out recently. Let’s do the latter first.
Two weeks’ ago, I offered a reader’s suggestion that – since NetWare 6.x allowed you to run as many servers as you wish – a solution would be to temporarily install any old (but meeting the minimum specifications) PC as a temporary server to hold the directory while the primary server was being upgraded.
I said at the time that the licensing scheme for versions earlier than 6.x would preclude you from doing this on those systems. While technically true, what a number of you pointed out was that Version 4.x and 5.x server software could be installed on temporary hardware as long as no licenses were installed with it. This would, in effect, give you a one-user demo system – plenty enough to store the directory on temporarily while you perform the hardware upgrade.
While I did recommend that there should be more than one server on a NetWare 6 network so that you could have multiple replicas of the directory partitions, I can’t advise this with the earlier versions since this does violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the licensing scheme. Maybe that’s just one more reason to upgrade.
The new method I want to tell you about is an offshoot of an excellent little tool that should be evaluated for its own sake. Germany’s Future Gate Consulting (see link below) offers DeTroubler, a tool that I know as an excellent application for restoring and repairing objects within the directory. What I overlooked (and what Roy Lopez, of DeTroubler’s U.S. distributor, the Blackbird Group was quick to point out) is that DeTroubler can also back up and restore the entire directory quickly and efficiently. It will do this, by the way, for every version of NetWare from 4.11 on and for just about all versions of NDS (4.x, 5.x, 6.x, 7.x, and 8.x) and eDirectory (8.5, 8.6 and 8.7).
To find out if you need DeTroubler, take the (tongue-partially-in-cheek) test at https://www.future-gate.com/en/software/detroubler/fg-getlouder.html (be sure your speakers are on).
Check out DeTroubler, and get more than one server (three is the minimum recommended) on your network soon. Class dismissed.
