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Network booting OS/2 Warp 3.0 from a NetWare Server (RPL)

This page covers how to network boot OS/2 Warp 3.0 from a NetWare server using RPL. The process for OS/2 Warp 4.x is probably much the same if it works at all.

The only information I could find anywhere on network booting OS/2 from NetWare is the manual for the OS/2 NetWare Client. Its on the NetWare 4.1/4.11 documentation CD-ROM and also comes with the client.

I initially tried doing this with OS/2 2.0 and client 2.01 but this only supports NE1000, NE2 and NE2000 network cards which VirtualBox does not emulate. OS/2 2.1 and client 2.11 supports RPL booting but in VirtualBox it crashes on boot. OS/2 Warp 3 seems to work fine though the PCnet driver is a bit unstable under VirtualBox at least.

Contents

• Requirements
• Copy OS/2 Files
• Copy RPL Files
• Setup Workstations
• Configure Users & Permissions
• Testing it out

Requirements

In order to do this you must have an RPL setup. How to do this is covered on the Network booting DOS page. You don't need to do anything else on that page besides configure the server.

You also need a clean install of OS/2 with the NetWare client (v2.12) installed. Installing the NetWare client on Warp 3 is covered here. I have also applied the OS2PT2.EXE patch but its probably not necessary.

This procedure requires disks WSDRV_1 and WSOS2_4 from the NetWare OS/2 Client v2.12 disk set. WSOS2_4 must be modified as part of this so use a copy.

You also need a computer with a network card equipped with an RPL Boot ROM. I'm using VirtualBox as it can emulate an AMD PCnet NIC for which a suitable Boot ROM is available. The Network booting DOS page covers how to setup the VM.

Copy OS/2 Files

We're starting off with a clean install of OS/2 Warp 3.0 and the NetWare OS/2 Requester v1.12 patched with OS2PT2.EXE. Open up a console.

And login...

With a user who will have enough permissions to write to the SYS volume. Such as Admin (NetWare 4.0+) or Supervisor (NetWare 3.x).

Login done - the console can be closed now.

Find the Novell folder on the desktop

And run install.

Here we have Novells weird looks-like-a-text-editor client installation utility.

From the Installation menu, choose Remote workstations...

Then choose Only Copy OS/2 Files... and click OK.

Select the servers to copy files to. If the server you want isn't visible click Attach.

Read and close the warning.

Then click OK.

OS/2 is now being copied from the hard drive to the server (see "Copying file" in the status bar on the window in the background). This will take a little while.

Click No here unless you're planning on network booting some PS/2 machines (this will ask for one of the NetWare client disks)

Part one done!

Copy RPL Files

From the Installation menu, choose Remote workstations... again.

Choose Only Copy RPL Files... and click OK.

Choose servers to copy files to and click OK.

Change the Source Drive for RPL Files to A:. There is a bug in the installer here where it thinks RPL files are on disk WSOS2_3 when they're actually on WSOS2_4. Simply inserting WSOS2_4 here won't work though because it checks the volume label. So you'll need to change the volume label on a copy of WSOS2_4 to WSOS2_3. Or use this disk image which I've already "fixed". Insert the disk and click OK.

Files are copied and you're done with this step!

Setup Workstations

This step must be completed once for each workstation being network booted.

As usual, choose Remote workstations... from the Installation menu.

Select Only SetUp Workstations... and click OK.

Select servers to copy files to and click OK.

Choose Boot ROM type. If you're using an NE1000, NE2 or NE2000, select Older style BOOT PROM. For everything else, choose New Enhanced BOOT PROM.

Insert disk WSDRV_1 and click OK.

Fill in details about the workstation being network booted. User Name is the (only) user that will be using this workstation and Logical Name will be a subdirectory of the users directory where some OS/2 files are stored. When done, click Add to copy some more files.

More files are copied.

Then you click No. If you were setting up a bunch of machines you'd click Yes to add more workstations.

Final step done! All the OS/2 files are now on the server - all that remains is sorting out permissions.

Configure Users & Permissions

You could do this from OS/2 using the 16bit version of NetWare Administrator, but I'm switching to windows for the next bit. If you're running NetWare 3.x then you'll have to use SYSCON to do this instead.

Start up NetWare Administartor

And create a new object.

Choose User as the object class and click OK.

Login name (and last name) must be RPL. No home directory is required. The account must have no password. Click Create.

Now we need to grant permissions. Under Windows 9x, NT 4.0, 2000 and XP you can do this with windows explorer. As I've already got NetWare Administrator open I'll just use that. Find the SYS volume, expand it (double-click) and find the RPL2 directory. Right-click and choose details.

Open the Trustees of this Directory tab

And click Add Trustee...

Find the RPL user and click OK.

Then do the same for each user who will be logging in to a network booted OS/2 workstation.

Done! Click OK

Expand the RPL2 directory and find the USER subdirectory. Open its details and go into the Trustees tab.

Untick all of the checkboxes in the Inheritance filter box except for Supervisor (which can't be unchecked). This will prevent users who have access to the RPL2 directory automatically gaining access to the USER directory.

Click OK.

Expand the USER directory to find directories for users setup during the Setup Workstations step. For each directory, open its details and go to the trustees tab.

Add the user as a trustee

And give the user Supervisor rights.

Click OK and move on to the next user directory (if there is one). Once you're done you can close NetWare Administrator.

This should mean that the RPL user has access to everything in SYS:RPL2 except for the USER folder and its contents. Individual users also have access to everything in SYS:RPL2 plus their own folder inside the USER folder.

There are probably further permissions you could tighten up if you were doing this in an untrusted environment (like a school lab) but thats unlikely today. The manual gives the minimum permissions things need as:

• The RPL user should only have read and file scan access to:
  • SYS:RPL2
  • SYS:RPL2\COMPUTER and its subdirectories
• Individual users should have:
  • File scan and read access to:
    • SYS:RPL2
    • SYS:RPL2\OS2
    • SYS:RPL2\NETWARE
  • Supervisor access to their home directory under SYS:RPL2\USER

A Quick Look at What Was Done

The folder SYS:RPL2 was created

Which is pretty much a copy of the C drive on the OS/2 workstation we set everything up from.

In the users folder there are some more OS/2 bits.

And bootconf.sys contains an entry for the workstation that was setup.

Testing it out

Fire up the (virtual) machine!

RPL Boot ROM has started

Press 1 to boot (or wait 10 seconds)

Booting starts

Then OS/2 begins loading.

Next you've got to login. There is no username prompt - I guess its one user per workstation.

Splash screen

Network client starting up. The PCnet driver that comes with the NetWare client seems pretty unstable (in this configuration at least) - lots of unhandled exceptions - possibly an updated driver would fix this.

Because OS/2 on the server is a copy of OS/2 at the time I was busy setting everything up, the NetWare Client installer has been automatically re-opened. Even though this is a completely different machine.

Diskless OS/2 Warp 3. Well, mostly - the VM does have a floppy drive.

C drive - this is SYS:RPL2 on the server.

Seems you can still login from inside OS/2. I'm not sure how this affects the user folder, etc.

The network browser works.

Program Manager complains - this can probably be fixed by granting write permissions to the program group files.

Seems to work though.

The icon said QBasic but all I got was this editor. And an error saying it couldn't find its help file. But DOS apps do appear to run too.

Solitare works too - and it looks the same as it did in OS/2 2.0.

Thats really about all there is to see. Its pretty unstable under VirtualBox using the AMD PCnet driver but it might do better on real hardware.

There is very little information out there on network booting OS/2 from NetWare. Even Googles Usenet archive is of little use. The only place to go for further documentation is the OS/2 client manual which should be on the NetWare 4.1/4.11 documentation CD and is also bundled with the client.

Disclaimer & Comments

I'm not a netware expert, don't have any of those fancy novell certifications and have never administred a netware network; I've just played with it at home occasionally since 2004 or so. Email me if you've got any suggestsions or corrections for this page or any extra information you think is worth including here. My address is david at this websites domain name (without the www bit of course).