Novell Licenesing Problems

[batmaas]

I'm a Technology Coordinator for SFPS, a lab teacher at our academy school while doing an upgrade from nw5 to nw5.1 used some invalid licenses. Proper licenses were then acquired, but when she tried to install them, Novell refused saying the licenses were already installed. She rebooted and now the server will not boot at all. From what I understand, I'm going to recommend a system wipe and new install using her backup tapes. Is this the proper course or is there a better way? Does anyone know why this would happen?

 

[marvhuffaker]

When you say you were upgrading from 5.0 to 5.1, are you saying that you never completed the install? Or is the licensing problem after the fact...

And... what SPack was the 5.0 server on, and did you use an original 5.1 install cd to upgrade? And did you overwrite or not overwrite newer files?



Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[batmaas]

Ok, the server has gotten past its freeze (not sure how). A ctrl-esc at the startup screen seemed to get it through. She is trying to upgrade to nw6, but can't from 5.0 so she upgraded to 5.1 first. Because this upgrade was only temporary, they gave her temp licenses that didn't work. With the current license, she has only two users, admin and one other user. She has new licenses, but nwadmin is not letting her add them. Is there a way to add them at the command prompt?

 

[marvhuffaker]

I've upgraded servers from 4.11 all the way to 6.5 in a single step with no problems. I'm not sure why you can't go from 5.0 to 6.0.

If licenses are a problem, do the NW6.0 install and skip the license install. Wait till after you have the server up and functional before you add them. YOu will use the License disk at one point when it asks for cryptography stuff, which is on the license disk. but its not the same as adding the license.



Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[batmaas]

Very good, she told me that they (she and the network person from Albuquerque she hired to do the install) were told by Novell that they wouldn't be able to upgrade directly from 5.0 to 6.5 ( I now know they are upgrading to 6.5).

Your comments make more sense to me and I have passed the info on to her. Thank you for all your help sir , truly first rate.

 

[marvhuffaker]

I believe that the recommendation is made by Novell in order to avoid certain problems that may arise. Some people might not be experienced enough to get around them.

But I just looked at an Official Novell 6.5 upgrade grid and it says you can upgrade from NetWare 3.2 straight to NetWare 6.5 using the Migration Wizard.

Going from NW 5.0, you can use either the In Place upgrade or the Migration Wizard, or the SCU (server consolidation Utility 2.5). No need to install 5.1 or 6.0 first.

My preference with NW6.5 is to do a clean install and use the Migration Wizard to move your NDS info and files.



Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting

http://www.redjuju.com