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Server Manager
4.0 Client/Server
Reviewed
by: Jim
Huddle
CNE CNE5 CBS MCSE ES-RC, send
e-mail
Published
by: Adrem
Software, go
to the web site
Requires:
NetWare 4.11 with SP 5 (or newer), 4.2, 5.x, 6.0 (beta), Windows
9x/NT/2000/XP, Novell NetWare client version 2.50 (Windows
9x), 4.60 (Windows NT) or newer.
MSRP:
US$595.00 (single server), $525 each (2-4 servers), etc. Standard
version available - check the web site
If
you are a Netware administrator, Server Manager is one of
those utilities you have always wished Novell would have bundled
with the OS. It's clean, the interface is simple and easy
to navigate and the wealth of information is gratifying.
The
base product installs on a Windows client box. When you first
access a server, the app will ask to install and load a couple
of NLMs. The NLMs have a pretty small footprint and I've run
them on both 5.1 and 6.0 without incident.
Note
that the current version isn't certified for Netware 6. But
I only found a couple of things that needed tweaking for Netware
6 compatibility, most notably the reported memory in use and
available cache buffers. Server Manager over-reports memory
used on my 6.0 server. Beyond that, everything else I've looked
at has been right on the money.
Once
the NLMs are loaded you are presented with the config screen.
Note that Information/General is similar to what you'll find
in Monitor, but also includes network addresses with ports,
web servers, and the portal server's IP addresses and ports.
From the config screen you can also drill down into your devices,
memory, network stats and lan drivers. There's another section
with detailed information on a number of stats and you can
view and set server parameters and edit both server and dos
startup files, as well as view log files. Server Manager also
performs a particularly neat trick. Many of the items you
can see, can be dragged to the Server Monitor window and turned
into a real time graph. You can even change the graph's size
and display properties.
There
are five other menu bar selections. Active shows who and what
is logged in. Clicking the plus sign next to the connection
shows what files the connection has open. Double clicking
on a user connection will also give you a graph in the lower
portion of the Server Manager window showing the bytes read
and written, requests, opened files, disk usage and more.
The
Opened menu bar tab shows open files and who is using them.
The NLM tab shows all running NLMs and tells you name, version
and date description. It also shows you total memory used
by the NLM and then breaks it down by code, static and dynamic
data. You can sort on every field. The Disk tab gives you
an Explorer-like window showing mounted volumes. At the bottom
you get a pie graph showing volume stats. You can right click
on folders and files and perform Explorer functions as well
as view and set Netware attributes. You can even set the owner
of a folder and have it change ownership status below that
folder as well.
The
Utilities tab is where you can install Adrem's virus software
and what they call a console extender. What lit me up was
the Events scheduler. It's like a cron without the fuss. Repeated
actions are easy to add and very configurable.
Server
Manager also includes a remote console feature. It's quick,
but be warned it does not require input of another password,
so it's not too secure. The console window is quick, easily
resizes and once you see it, you'll have an idea where Novell's
IP console got it's look.
This
is a great product for quick information and in my mind essential
for troubleshooting. It's what Novell's portal service could
be and may be one day.
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