History of IPX/IP Gateway & NIAS - January 25, 2001
I started work on this documentation a long time ago, but never did anything with it. I just found it again on my hard drive, and I though some people might find it useful. This is from memory, and I could be wrong, and I could have left out valuable information.
If anyone wants to contribute to this, email me at the address on the main page. Especially useful would be feedback from people actually still using some of the older versions of NIAS.
IPX/IP Gateway FAQ
Novell has produced three distinctly different versions of the IPX/IP Gateway, starting with the version included on the NIAS CD shipped with IntranetWare 4.11. A second version was used in BorderManager 2.1, and another version ships with BorderManager 3.x. Here are some differences between them:
Original Version - IntranetWare 4.1
- Called NIAS4 (Novell Internet Access Server/Services). Unfortunately Novell has reused the NIAS name in subsequent products to denote entirely different products, mostly now referring to an updated version
of NetWare Connect.
- Configured with a menu option in INETCFG
- The menu option in INETCFG was mistakenly removed with certain versions of the NW4.11 service packs. Copying back the original version of TCPCFG.NLM to SYS:SYSTEM recovers the menu option.
- This version of IPX/IP Gateway requires an older Novell client32 for Win95 (versions 2.2 and 2.5 were the best), but no support was offered for NT. (I don't recall if there was a Win 3.1 client that supported IPX/IP Gateway).
- The older version of the client provides a special Novell version of the winsock.dll and wsock32.dll files in order to function. These files did not function well with a number of third-party applications.
- The IPGC07A.EXE patch updated some of the client-side pieces of the IPX/IP Gateway and fixed a lot of issues related to incompatibility of the Novell winsock files with 3rd-party apps.
- The newer Novell clients with IP Gateway support (Win95/98 Client32 3.02 and later) did not provide special winsock files, but instead relied on the Microsoft-supplied versions. Because of this change, it is a matter of luck if 3rd-party apps work properly with this version of the IPX/IP Gateway.
- Had logging capability completely unique to this version
- Required a number of special NDS access rights to be granted in NWADMIN in order to provide access control
- Could locate a IPX/IP Gateway server in either NDS or BINDERY mode, and the access controls applied varied depending on which method was used. This problem is addressed by carefully configuring the client side.
- Could ONLY be administered using NWADMN3X with snapins manually set up in an INI file.
- A common trick to get certain 3rd-party apps that did not like the Novell winsock files to work with IPX/IP Gateway was to copy the Microsoft version of wsock32.dll into the same directory as the application having the problem.
BorderManager 2.1 Version - IntranetWare 4.11
- Called IPX/IP Gateway as NIAS4.1 included in the BorderManager product referred to a version of NetWare Connect (which itself was also called RAS - Remote Access Services - in later releases).
- Still used the special winsock files from the older Novell Client32 versions 2.2 and 2.5.
- Had better performance than NIAS4
- Configured in NWADMN95 with other BorderManager services.
- Provided integrated NDS authentication which could be used in setting up NDS-based access control rules.
- A common trick to get certain 3rd-party apps that did not like the Novell winsock files to work with IPX/IP Gateway was to copy the Microsoft version of wsock32.dll into the same directory as the application having the problem.
BorderManager 3.0, 3.5 - IntranetWare 4.11 or NetWare 5
- Called IP Gateway. No real differentiation is made at the client to select either IP/IP or IPX/IP Gateway, except by installing or not installing TCP/IP protocol on the client.
- Configured in NWADMN32. Listening ports can be specified.
- Requires the newer versions of Client32 for Win95/98 and NT in order to function correctly.
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