PHP for NetWare Beta Released

Twintop writes "Taken from the PHP.net homepage: 'A Beta version of PHP for NetWare is available on the Novell Developer Kit site. This version is based on the 4.0.8 (development) version of the PHP source code.' --- Well, even if it is an old version, it's better than nothing for NetWare peeps."

Good, or bad.

[billcopc]

Somehow deep down inside I wish this didn't exist. Netware is old and cruddy and should be left to die, it is a serious ball-and-chain in anything bigger than a small 30-pc network, and is generally better served by Linux or even NT.

But to get back to the point : wouldn't it be simpler and more efficient to just slap linux + apache + php on a box and just setup the Netware firewall (BorderManager) to forward port 80 ?

Re:Good, or bad.

[AndyDeck]

I almost hate to bite on such an obvious troll... but I'd hate to be running anything BUT Netware on anything larger than an 30-pc network. Netware does a fine job of running enterprise-class file and print services. NDS/eDirectory [novell.com] is still THE choice for enterprise directory services, plus it can be hosted off of NT/2K/Linux/Solaris in addition to its native Netware.

I see the point of PHP on Netware as just another option - you can already run Apache & Tomcat on Netware, they are even running the new management pieces of Netware 6. You also already have Perl and Java... and with the licensing model of Netware 6 (user-based, not server- or connection- based as in the past) you can run as many servers as you need. Not really a huge consideration if you have the skills to run Linux, but much cheaper than purchasing 2K or XP + CALs just to run a simple website.

I don't see why you are mentioning BorderManager & port forwarding, though. Yes, perhaps a rabid Novell advocate would refuse to run anything else for the firewall (I am a strong believer in best-of-breed - NT/2K etc do have their place in application hosting) - but why would you need to 'forward port 80' for your linux+apache+php? Unless you think a site can have only one hostname or some such nonsense. I'd use iChain [novell.com] over BorderManager [novell.com], anyways. I see BorderManager as more of an outbound (forward prox) solution, whereas iChain is targeted more at inbound traffic (reverse proxy).

Their latest products are rather neat - we're just scratching the surface here. If you haven't taken a look *recently*, you really have no idea.

Re:Good, or bad.

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree. I would also add that NetWare's access privilege system is very, very much superior to that of un*x. I.e. trustees (aka ACL's), inheritance, inheritance mask - nice, easy, obvious, powerful, all you can ever need. Unix totally sucks at file and directory permissions. Sorry to say that - I love Linux - but anyone who's ever administered NetWare has to agree...

Re:Good, or bad.

[deviator]

Netware's file system (& NDS-linked trustee system) is one of my reasons for sticking by Netware... it really does make so much more sense than almost everything else out there. Rights simply "flow" down the hierarchy... plus you have a lot more attributes available, and it's not an "all or nothing" deal like Unix... you could give every user on your network a different set of rights to a file.

I hear AFS does a lot of this, though...

Re:Good, or bad.

[Radical Rad]

I almost hate to bite on such an obvious troll...

If you can bite on that then you should go on Fear Factor. Those Madagascar cockroaches wouldn't bother you a bit. :)

I just downloaded PHP for Netware today though I haven't installed it yet. I don't know if I can port my Linux PHP scripts over until they get PostgreSQL running on Netware (which is in the works). But I hope they update PHP to version 4.2x since a lot of the Postgres functions I used are only in the latest versions.

As long as we can access an Oracle database running on another box from the Netware PHP/Web server then this is going to resolve a lot of problems for us.

Re:Good, or bad.

[billcopc]

Well, I'm seeing Netware from a user's point of view. That's what they use at my workplace, and although I'm sure they've got it horribly misconfigured, it's just a big pain in the ass. Now perhaps Netware itself is ok, I honestly don't know a thing about it, but all the Novell apps that run on it seem like pure crap that just exists as a political statement. Especially Groupwise.. unstable, inflexible, won't even talk to our NT servers.. we're just stuck supporting multiple standards that don't want to coexist. Windows talks to linux, linux talks to windows, Novell talks to its shadow while giving everyone else the finger. We're lucky to have a GroupwiseSMTP gateway, otherwise our entire network would be a big black box.

Re:Good, or bad.

[deviator]

It's too bad that your GroupWise system sounds like it's so badly set up and run... I actually think GroupWise is the best thing since sliced bread. It's extremely flexible and stable when compared to MS Exchange/Outlook, and pretty impervious to viruses. If your GroupWise system isn't stable, then it's time to get a new e-mail administrator who knows what the hell they're doing.

Plus, it's a breeze to manage because of its integration with NDS.

It's really too bad you haven't had a better experience with it.

old and cruddy...

[deviator]

and stable, and fast, and flexible, and dynamic, and scalable, and runs java faster than you can possibly imagine.

Old and cruddy....yeah right

[mklinux_dude]

NetWare is good at what it does. Don't get me wrong, I'm an admin for a network with approx. 90 nodes, and have more NT machines than any other server OS. Heck, I'm also currently working towards a degree as a W2K admin. Our two mirrored NetWare 4.11 servers have around a 160 day uptime right now, and they're used in a nearly 24x7x365 environment (newspaper publishing). I have NEVER seen an NT machine that didn't have to be rebooted for whatever reason after more than 2 or 3 months. Most common offender seems to be the spooler service, stopping and starting it doesn't help sometimes. For those who are about to say "But W2K is an improvement on NT!", I agree, but I'm comparing two server OS's from the same time period, NetWare 4.x and NT 4.

Re:Old and cruddy....yeah right

[deviator]

Win2K is an improvement over WinNT, but I'd still use NW4.11 over Win2K - feature for feature they're about the same (actually, NW4.11 is slightly more advanced in some respects.) If you need good IP support though, use NW5.x or better. NW6 these days has loads of really innovative features tacked onto it... Win2K is pretty "utilitarian" in comparison.