bill

Hi-

please f****ve my ignorance here as I know nothing about NDS. We
installed a new Dell 2850/Win 2003 imaging server. The XP scanning
stations connect UNC drive mapping and all have the standard Netware
client installed. Every 45 days, Netware forces the users to change
passwords which undoes the sync between our windows clients (scanning
stations) and the server, so our UNC drive mappings no longer work. In
order to fix this, we'd have to add users to the server and manually
update their passwords every 45 days. There has to be utility that does
this or another way around...I just can't find it. A kick in the right
direction would be much appreciated!

Thanks-
Bill

david gersic

I'm inferring from this that your users have Windows passwords as well,
but that they're not being changed at the same time as your NDS password. Is that correct?

Add users to which server?


There are several possibilities here, but they depend on knowing what you
have and how it works.

What version of NetWare are you using? What service pack is installed?
If you don't know, go to the console and type "version" at the prompt.
Post the results.

Your new Win2003 server, how are your users logging in to it? I'm assuming
that you're using the MS client for MS networking, which would lead me to
think that you have it installed so that there are users defined in the
MS network. Maybe.


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bill

In fact the novell client changes the windows passwords automatically in
order to make windows login automatic. This is the root of the problem
because now the windows password that gets shipped to the server is
incorrect and the drive map doesn't happen.


The imaging server but I'm trying to avoid that.


Client is 4.83 SP3 and 4.90 SP2

We don't actually log in to it at the moment- we map the server folder
we need to access using a single account name and password with assigned
permissions. This is what we want to change. Maybe.

nospam

Is it a big deal to have separate Netwware/Windows passwords?

Alternatively is it really necessary to alter your Novell password
every 3 months or is that out of your control?


--
AnthonyL

david gersic

If I recall correctly, the user is prompted for which passwords to change
at this point. Can you train them _not_ to change the one being used for your Win2003 box?


That's the client version. I'm interested in the server version.

Ok, I see what you're doing. I can think of two ways to make this less
painful, assuming you can't train your users not to do this. But, either
you'll need to have upgraded to NetWare 6.5, or you'd have to buy some
additional software.


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bill

From a work standpoint- no. It will probably only take a couple of
minutes. Still, I was hoping for a cleaner way to do things....

I don't think it's necessary but (you're right) it's out of my
control. I guess their theory is that as time goes by, the chance of
password leaks increase. I guess that's true on some level but I'm not
sure that a malicious person would say something like "Well, now that
I've got the password, I'd better hurry up and hack away before the
3 months is up (in our case- 45 days). On the other hand, I've never
seen any reason to change a password from something hackers don't know
to something else they don't know. . .


Thanks!
Hope the weekend was good..

bill

But that's the problem- it doesn't change that one. If there is a way to
get it to change the windows password on both the client as well as on
the Win2003 box, I'm all eyes.

Not sure and don't use it. Does something like "6.2" sound right?

Not a surprise. What's the additional software??

hope the weekend was good,
B

david gersic

Ok, you've lost me here. Please re-describe exactly what it is that is
happening, what isn't happening, and what it is that you're trying to
accomplish here.

From your previous description, it sounded like you have person Bob.
Bob has an account in your eDirectory tree. Bob has a local machine
account on a Windows workstation. And Bob and all of your other people
are sharing a guess account that gives them access to this new Win2003
server you're talking about.

Right? Wrong?

When Bob's password expires (in eDirectory), he changes it from old-password
to new-password. That much is ok.

From your previous description, you were saying that the password on the
shared guest account for access to the Win2003 box is also being changed,
at which time nobody else in the office can use the box anymore. Yes? No?

No.

Like I said, go to the server console. It'll have a prompt something like
"MYSERVER:" on it. If you're seeing some other screen there, press Ctrl-Esc
to bring up the screens menu, then press Esc to get to the console. Once
you get there, type the word "version" and hit return. Copy down the text
that results from this, and post it here.


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bill

Sorry for the confusion- No-. Bob is using a client called AX. AX uses
UNC drive mapping to map a shared folder on the Win2003 server, where it
stores scanned images. It maps the folder using Bob's windows password.
IE Bob's account on his own pc is mirrored by an account on the Win2003
server (same pw) and AX maps the folder successfully by automatically
using Bob's Windows PW. But every 45 days, the Novell
Client forces Bob to update his Novell PW, while at the same time
updating his Windows login pw so Bob doesn't have to log in twice or
remember 2 passwords. But now Bob's mirror account on the server still
has the old password, and the AX client on Bob's windows pc is suddenly
sending the wrong credentials to map the shared folder.... So the
question: Is there a utility or something that can also update Bob's pw
on the server?


thanks for hanging, b

david gersic

Ah, I see. So your Win2003 server _has_ users (accounts) and passwords.
Gotcha. That's not what you originally said.


Yes. Several possibilities, actually. But recommending something depends
on what you have now, too.

Since I still don't know what server version you're running, I'll just
lay out a couple of options for you, assuming you're running something
reasonably recent (NetWare 6.0 or 6.5). If you're running something
older (5.1, 5.0, 4.*), you'll need to upgrade, or find another answer.

1) Use Novell's Identity Manager (IDM) - the starter pack is included
with NetWare. It would be best if you were running Netware 6.5, as
that would mean that you have a license for IDM v2. If you're running
something older, you have v1 (aka DirXML 1.1a), which will also work,
but is a lot harder to set up.

With this, you'd change your Win2003 server over to running Active
Directory, then synchronize your accounts and passwords between
eDirectory and Active Directory. Your workstations will be joined
to the domain, eliminating the need to deal with local machine
accounts and passwords.

This can be a fairly complex solution, but may not be too bad for
a relatively simple configuration.

2) Use Novell's Native File Access (NFAP) stuff. This is included as
well. You can use the NFAP configuration to set your NetWare server
up as a domain controller, then bring your Win2003 server in to the
domain as a member server. Again, this should eliminate your problem.

It's a bit simpler to set up, probably, but doesn't gain you much
beyond solving your immediate need. If that's enough, maybe this would
be the way to go.


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