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Mastering the 201-01 Exam: Foundations of Directory Services

The 201-01 Exam, a cornerstone of the Certified Novell Administrator (CNA) program, was a benchmark certification for network administrators in the era when Novell NetWare was a dominant force in the enterprise. This exam rigorously tested an individual's skills in installing, managing, and troubleshooting a NetWare network, with a strong focus on its revolutionary feature: Novell Directory Services (NDS). While NetWare itself is now a legacy technology, the principles of directory services, network file systems, and centralized administration that the 201-01 Exam covered are not only relevant but are the direct ancestors of the technologies we use today, most notably Microsoft's Active Directory.

In this first part of our series, we will establish the foundational knowledge needed to understand the concepts behind the 201-01 Exam. We will decode the exam's original purpose and the role of the CNA. We will explore the critical responsibilities of a network administrator, delve into the core concepts of directory services that NDS pioneered, and briefly introduce the NetWare operating system itself. Crucially, we will discuss why studying these foundational topics remains a valuable exercise for any modern IT professional and provide a high-level roadmap of the exam's objectives to guide your learning journey.

Decoding the 201-01 Exam

The 201-01 Exam was developed by Novell as the primary test for achieving the Certified Novell Administrator (CNA) credential for its NetWare platform. The exam's main purpose was to validate that a candidate possessed the fundamental knowledge and hands-on skills required for the day-to-day administration of a NetWare network. This included managing user accounts, controlling access to files and printers, monitoring server health, and understanding the structure of Novell Directory Services. Passing the exam was a clear signal to employers that an individual was competent in managing this business-critical network operating system.

This certification was targeted at a broad range of IT professionals. This included new network administrators who were just starting their careers, as well as experienced system administrators who were transitioning from other platforms to NetWare. It was also valuable for help desk personnel and IT support specialists who needed a deeper understanding of the network environment to effectively resolve user issues. The 201-01 Exam was designed to be an entry-level to intermediate certification, establishing a baseline of essential administrative skills upon which more advanced certifications could be built.

Successfully passing the 201-01 Exam demonstrated a specific and highly practical skill set. It certified that you could create and manage user objects and other resources within the NDS tree. It proved you could implement a secure file system by correctly assigning trustee rights and understanding how they were inherited. It also validated your ability to set up and manage network printing services, a notoriously complex task in early networks. The CNA was a respected credential that represented a solid foundation in the principles of network and directory administration.

The exam itself typically consisted of multiple-choice and performance-based simulation questions. The simulation questions were particularly important, as they required the candidate to perform actual administrative tasks in a simulated NetWare environment. For example, a question might require you to create a new user, assign them to a group, and then grant that group specific rights to a folder. This hands-on format ensured that a CNA was not just book-smart but had genuine practical ability.

The Role of a Network Administrator

A network administrator is the technical backbone of an organization's IT infrastructure. Their primary responsibility is to ensure the reliable performance, security, and availability of the company's network and server resources. They are the ones who manage the network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare or Windows Server, that provide the essential services that all users rely on, including file sharing, printing, and application access. The skills tested in the 201-01 Exam are a classic representation of the core duties of this indispensable IT role.

The daily tasks of a network administrator are focused on the operational health of the network. This includes creating and managing user accounts and passwords, assigning users to groups, and controlling their access to network resources. They are responsible for monitoring the health of the servers, checking for sufficient disk space, and ensuring that backups are completed successfully. They manage the file system, creating directories and setting the appropriate permissions to protect sensitive data.

Troubleshooting is a major part of the role. When a user is unable to log in, access a file, or print a document, the network administrator is the one who must diagnose and resolve the problem. This requires a deep and logical understanding of how the network operating system, the directory service, and the client workstations all interact. They must be able to methodically trace the source of a problem, whether it is a simple rights issue or a more complex network connectivity problem.

Furthermore, the network administrator is responsible for maintaining the security of the network. This involves not only managing user access but also keeping the servers patched and updated, monitoring for suspicious activity, and ensuring that the organization's security policies are being enforced. The 201-01 Exam was designed to ensure that a certified administrator had a solid grasp of these fundamental security principles.

Core Concepts of Directory Services

The most significant technology covered in the 201-01 Exam was Novell Directory Services, or NDS (later rebranded as eDirectory). NDS was a revolutionary product that introduced many of the core concepts that are now standard in modern directory services like Microsoft's Active Directory. A directory service is a centralized, network-based database that stores information about all the resources on a network, including users, groups, servers, printers, and applications. Its purpose is to provide a single, logical view of the entire network.

The key feature of NDS is its hierarchical structure. All the resources, known as objects, are organized in a logical, inverted tree structure. This tree is composed of container objects, which are like folders that can hold other objects, and leaf objects, which are the end-nodes that represent the actual resources like users or printers. This hierarchical model allows administrators to organize the network resources in a way that mirrors the structure of their business, for example, by creating containers for different departments or geographical locations.

Each object in the directory has a set of properties or attributes that store information about that object. A user object, for example, would have properties for the user's first name, last name, phone number, and password. This ability to store a rich set of information about every resource is what makes a directory service so powerful. It becomes a central repository for all network-related information.

The directory service also provides a single point of authentication. A user can log in to the directory once, and they are then granted access to all the resources on the network for which they have permissions, without needing to log in separately to each individual server. This concept of a single, global network login was a major innovation of NDS and is a fundamental concept that the 201-01 Exam would have rigorously tested.

Comparing NDS/eDirectory to Active Directory

For the modern IT professional studying the concepts of the 201-01 Exam, the most useful way to understand Novell Directory Services is to compare it to its modern and dominant counterpart, Microsoft Active Directory (AD). NDS was the clear forerunner to AD, and many of the core concepts are remarkably similar, albeit with different terminology. Understanding these parallels can make the legacy NDS concepts much easier to grasp.

Both NDS and Active Directory are hierarchical directory services that organize network resources into a logical tree. In NDS, the main container objects are the Organization (O) and the Organizational Unit (OU). In Active Directory, the primary containers are the Domain and the Organizational Unit (OU). The concept of using OUs to group objects for administrative purposes is identical in both systems.

Both directory services represent network resources as objects with attributes. A user account in NDS and a user account in AD are both "user" objects with a set of properties like name, password, and group memberships. The concept of creating groups to simplify the management of permissions is also the same in both worlds.

Both systems provide a mechanism for scalability and fault tolerance through replication. In NDS, you could create partitions of the directory tree and replicate them to multiple servers. In Active Directory, the equivalent concept is the domain partition, which is replicated to all Domain Controllers within that domain. The fundamental idea of distributing copies of the directory database to provide redundancy and to place information closer to the users who need it is a core principle of both NDS and AD. Studying NDS is, in many ways, like studying the origin story of Active Directory.

The Novell NetWare Operating System

The 201-01 Exam was specifically for the administration of Novell NetWare. NetWare was a highly specialized Network Operating System, or NOS. Unlike general-purpose operating systems like Windows or Linux that can be used as both a desktop and a server, NetWare was designed from the ground up to do one thing and do it exceptionally well: provide high-performance file and print services. For many years, it was the undisputed leader in this space due to its speed and efficiency.

One of the key architectural features of NetWare was its non-preemptive kernel. This design meant that it was very lightweight and could dedicate the vast majority of the server's CPU and memory resources directly to servicing file and print requests. This made it incredibly fast and able to support a very large number of concurrent users on relatively modest hardware compared to its competitors at the time.

The file system in NetWare was also highly advanced for its era. It featured a robust security model, built-in file compression, and support for very large storage volumes. The administration of this file system, including creating directories, setting trustee rights (permissions), and managing disk space, was a major part of the CNA's role and a key topic area for the 201-01 Exam.

To access the resources on a NetWare server, a workstation needed to have a special piece of software called the Novell Client. This client software integrated with the workstation's operating system (like Windows) and allowed it to communicate with the NetWare servers using Novell's native IPX/SPX protocol suite or, in later versions, TCP/IP. The client was also responsible for handling the user's login process to the NDS directory.

Why Study for the 201-01 Exam Today?

Given that Novell NetWare is an obsolete technology, one might wonder about the value of studying the topics of the 201-01 Exam in the modern IT landscape. The value lies not in the specific product, but in the timeless and foundational principles of network and directory administration that the exam curriculum teaches so well. The concepts you learn by studying for this exam are highly transferable and provide a deep understanding of the "why" behind modern network systems.

The most valuable knowledge you will gain is a fundamental understanding of hierarchical directory services. By learning NDS, you are learning the core concepts that underpin Active Directory, which is a required skill for virtually every system administrator today. The principles of objects, containers, hierarchical design, replication, and context-based naming are all directly applicable. Many senior Active Directory administrators credit their early experience with NDS for their deep understanding of directory services.

Similarly, the NetWare file system security model, with its concepts of trustee rights, inheritance, and filtering, is a masterclass in network file permissions. While the terminology is different, the challenges of assigning granular permissions to users and groups, managing inheritance, and calculating a user's final effective rights are exactly the same challenges an administrator faces when managing NTFS permissions on a Windows file server today.

Studying these foundational technologies provides a historical perspective that is invaluable for a well-rounded IT professional. It helps you understand the evolution of network operating systems and appreciate the design decisions that were made in the modern systems we use every day. It is an investment in learning the first principles of your craft, which is a skill that will never become obsolete.

Deep Dive into Novell Directory Services (NDS)

After establishing the historical and conceptual context of the 201-01 Exam, we will now perform a deep dive into its most significant and enduring topic: Novell Directory Services (NDS), later known as eDirectory. NDS was the heart of the NetWare 5 environment and represented a paradigm shift in how network resources were managed. Its hierarchical, object-oriented nature provided a single, logical view of the entire network, a concept that was revolutionary at the time. A thorough and practical understanding of NDS was the most critical requirement for passing the 201-01 Exam.

In this second part of our series, we will dissect the architecture and core components of NDS. We will explore its hierarchical structure of containers and leaf objects, and the critical concept of context and naming which every user and administrator had to master. We will also delve into the mechanisms that made NDS so scalable and resilient: partitioning and replication. We will conclude with a discussion on the importance of time synchronization and the fundamental principles of NDS security, including object and property rights.

The 201-01 Exam Perspective on NDS

The 201-01 Exam approached Novell Directory Services from the viewpoint of a day-to-day administrator. The exam's focus was on the practical skills required to manage a directory environment, rather than on the deep internals of the directory database. The questions were designed to ensure that a Certified Novell Administrator (CNA) could navigate the NDS tree, understand how objects were named and located, create and manage common object types like users and groups, and understand the basic principles of NDS security and fault tolerance.

A major emphasis of the exam was on the logical design and structure of the NDS tree. You would be expected to understand the difference between container objects, which hold other objects, and leaf objects, which represent end resources. The exam would test your knowledge of how to design a simple NDS tree that logically mirrored an organization's structure, using containers like Organizations (O) and Organizational Units (OUs) to represent departments or locations.

The concept of "context" was one of the most heavily tested areas. NDS context determines a user's position in the directory tree and is fundamental to how users log in and how administrators access and manage objects. The exam would have required you to be able to read and write the distinguished names of objects and to understand how setting a user's name context correctly simplifies their login process. Many troubleshooting questions would have revolved around incorrect context.

Finally, the exam's perspective included the foundational concepts of NDS health and availability. This meant understanding, at a high level, the purpose of partitioning and replication. You would need to know why creating replicas of your directory data on multiple servers was essential for fault tolerance and performance. This practical, operational focus ensured that a CNA had the necessary skills to manage a living, breathing directory service.

The NDS Hierarchical Structure

The power and elegance of Novell Directory Services stemmed from its hierarchical structure. The 201-01 Exam required a complete understanding of this inverted tree model. At the very top of the structure is the [Root] object, which represents the entire directory. Directly beneath the [Root] are typically one or more Organization (O) objects. An Organization object usually represents the entire company.

Beneath the Organization are Organizational Unit (OU) objects. OUs are the primary containers used to organize the directory in a way that makes sense for the business. You could create OUs for different geographical locations (e.g., OU=London, OU=NewYork) or for different departments (e.g., OU=Sales, OU=Finance). These OUs can be nested to create a multi-level hierarchy, allowing for very granular and logical organization of your network resources.

The objects that represent the actual network resources are called leaf objects. Leaf objects are the "leaves" of the tree and cannot contain other objects. The most common leaf object is the User object, which represents a person who logs in to the network. Other common leaf objects include Groups, Servers, Volumes, and Printers. All these leaf objects are placed inside the appropriate container (O or OU) in the tree.

This hierarchical structure is what provided the single, logical view of the network. An administrator could use a tool like NetWare Administrator to browse this tree and manage any object anywhere on the network from a single location, regardless of which physical server the resource was actually located on. The 201-01 Exam would have tested your ability to interpret and design these logical tree structures.

NDS Objects and Properties

In Novell Directory Services, every resource on the network—every user, server, printer, and group—is represented as an object in the directory. The 201-01 Exam required you to understand this object-oriented approach. An object is simply an entry in the NDS database. Each object is of a specific class, which defines what kind of resource it is (e.g., a User class, a Printer class).

Each object, in turn, has a set of properties (also called attributes) that store information about that specific object. The properties that are available for an object are determined by its class. For example, a User object would have properties like Given Name, Last Name, Login Name, Password, and Telephone Number. A Printer object would have different properties, such as Network Address, Location, and Default Print Queue.

The administration of the network is essentially the management of these objects and their properties. When you create a new user, you are creating a new User object in the NDS tree and filling in the values for its properties. When a user forgets their password, you are modifying the Password property of their User object. This object-based model provided a consistent and structured way to manage all network resources.

This concept is directly analogous to Active Directory. A user account in AD is a user object with attributes like givenName and samAccountName. By learning the NDS object model, you are learning the fundamental principles that govern all modern directory services. The 201-01 Exam would have expected you to be familiar with the common object types and their most important properties.

Understanding NDS Context and Naming

Perhaps the most challenging concept for new administrators, and a critical topic for the 201-01 Exam, was NDS naming and context. Every object in the NDS tree has a unique name that precisely identifies its location in the hierarchy. This is known as its Distinguished Name (DN), or full name. The DN is composed of the object's own name plus the names of all the parent containers leading up to the [Root].

For example, a user named JSmith in the Sales OU, which is in the London OU of the ACME Organization, would have a Distinguished Name of .JSmith.Sales.London.ACME. The leading period indicates that the name is being specified from the [Root] of the tree. The object's own name, JSmith, is called its Relative Distinguished Name (RDN) because it is unique relative to its container.

The concept of "context" refers to your current position in the NDS tree. When an administrator is working in the NetWare Administrator tool, they are always "in" a specific container. This is their current context. If your current context is .Sales.London.ACME, you can refer to the user JSmith simply by his RDN. However, to refer to a user in the Finance OU, you would need to specify a more complete path.

Context is most important for the user login process. To log in, a user must provide their login name, their password, and the context where their user object is located. To simplify this, an administrator would configure the Novell Client on a user's workstation with a default name context. If the default context was set correctly to .Sales.London.ACME, then the user JSmith would only need to enter "JSmith" as their username to log in. The 201-01 Exam would have had many questions testing this crucial concept.

NDS Partitioning and Replication

For an enterprise-level directory service to be effective, it must be both scalable and fault-tolerant. The 201-01 Exam required a conceptual understanding of the NDS features that provided these capabilities: partitioning and replication. The NDS database, or tree, was not required to be stored as a single, monolithic file on one server. Instead, it could be broken up into smaller, more manageable pieces called partitions.

A partition is simply a logical division of the NDS tree. An administrator could decide to create a new partition starting at a specific container. For example, you could create a partition for the .London.ACME OU and all the containers and objects beneath it. This would logically separate the London part of the directory from the rest of the tree. Partitioning allows for better administrative control and can improve performance by localizing traffic.

The real power comes from replication. Once you have created a partition, you can create copies, or replicas, of that partition and store them on multiple servers. This is the key to fault tolerance and performance. If you have three servers in your London office, you could store a replica of the London partition on each of those three servers.

There are different types of replicas. The first replica of a partition is the Master replica. There can only be one Master replica for any given partition. You can then create Read/Write replicas, which contain a full, modifiable copy of the partition's data. You could also create Read-Only replicas. By placing replicas on multiple servers, you ensure that if one server fails, the directory information is still available from the other servers. This also improves login performance by placing a copy of the authentication data close to the users.

Time Synchronization in a NetWare Environment

A critical but often overlooked component of a healthy NDS environment, and a key topic for the 201-01 Exam, was time synchronization. For NDS replication to work correctly, all the servers in the directory tree must have a consistent and accurate sense of time. If the clocks on different servers drift apart, it can cause serious problems with the synchronization of changes between replicas, leading to data corruption in the directory.

To solve this, NetWare included a built-in time synchronization service. When you installed a NetWare server, you had to configure its role in the time synchronization hierarchy. This ensured that all servers in the NDS tree would get their time from a common, authoritative source. This is conceptually similar to the way modern networks use the Network Time Protocol (NTP).

There were several types of time servers. A Single Reference time server was used in smaller networks and acted as the sole authoritative time source for all other servers. A Reference time server was a server that was configured to get its time from an external, highly accurate source (like an atomic clock) and then provide that time to the rest of the network.

Other servers in the network would be configured as Primary time servers or Secondary time servers. Primary servers would vote with other Primary and Reference servers to determine the correct network time and then provide that time to Secondary servers. Secondary servers simply consumed the time from a Primary or Reference server. The 201-01 Exam would have expected you to understand the importance of time synchronization and the roles of these different time server types.

Mastering NetWare File System and Security

Having explored the logical universe of Novell Directory Services (NDS), we now ground ourselves in the physical realm of the NetWare file system. The primary reason businesses invested in NetWare was for its legendary performance and robust security as a file server. The 201-01 Exam placed a heavy emphasis on an administrator's ability to manage this file system, control access to its data, and automate the user environment. These skills formed the core of the daily, practical work of a Certified Novell Administrator (CNA).

In this third part of our series, we will conduct a deep dive into the NetWare file system and its intricate security model. We will examine the core components of the file system itself. The majority of our focus will be on the powerful security features: trustee rights, the concepts of inheritance and the Inherited Rights Filter (IRF), and the crucial skill of calculating a user's final effective rights. We will also cover file and directory attributes and the powerful automation capabilities of login scripts, all of which were essential topics for the 201-01 Exam.

File System Concepts for the 201-01 Exam

The 201-01 Exam tested an administrator's practical knowledge of how to structure and manage the NetWare file system. The questions would have been designed to ensure that a CNA could perform common tasks such as creating directories, assigning appropriate permissions to users and groups, and understanding how those permissions controlled a user's ability to interact with files and folders. The exam's focus was on the application of the security model to solve real-world business requirements, such as creating a secure departmental share or a private home directory for a user.

A critical area of focus was the clear and absolute distinction between NDS security and file system security. NDS rights control what an administrator can do to objects in the directory tree (e.g., the right to rename a user object). File system rights, on the other hand, control what a user can do to the files and directories stored on a server's disk volumes. The exam would have rigorously tested your ability to differentiate between these two separate but related security models.

The concept of "effective rights" was a cornerstone of the file system section of the 201-01 Exam. Effective rights are the final, actual permissions that a user has on a specific file or directory. These rights are calculated by combining all the different ways a user might have been granted permissions—through a direct assignment, through membership in one or more groups, or through inheritance from a parent folder. The exam would have presented complex scenarios and required you to correctly calculate a user's effective rights.

Finally, the exam's perspective included the automation of the user's environment through login scripts. You would need to demonstrate an understanding of how to use login scripts to perform essential tasks upon user login, such as mapping network drives to specific volumes and directories. This practical skill was essential for providing a consistent and user-friendly experience on the network.

The NetWare File System (NSS)

The file system used in the version of NetWare relevant to the 201-01 Exam was the Novell Storage Services, or NSS. While you would not have been tested on the deep internals of NSS, a high-level understanding of its structure was required. The physical storage on a NetWare server, such as hard disks, was organized into one or more volumes. A volume was the highest-level unit in the file system, and it was the first thing that could be shared on the network.

A volume had a name, and by default, it was named based on the server name and the suffix _SYS (e.g., FS1_SYS). It was a best practice to create additional volumes for user data, typically named _DATA or similar, to keep the operating system files on the _SYS volume separate from the user files. These volumes were then mounted by the server, at which point they became accessible to the network.

Within a volume, you would create a standard hierarchical structure of directories (folders) and subdirectories to organize your files. For example, on a DATA volume, you might create a directory for each department (SALES, FINANCE) and within each departmental directory, you might create a directory for each user's home folder. This hierarchical structure of volumes, directories, and files is the canvas upon which the NetWare security model is applied.

The 201-01 Exam would have expected you to be comfortable with this basic terminology. You should be able to describe the relationship between a physical disk, a volume, and a directory. The management of these volumes, including creating them, mounting them, and monitoring their free space, was a key administrative task.

File System Security: Trustee Rights

The heart of the NetWare file system security model, and a primary topic for the 201-01 Exam, is the concept of trustee rights. A trustee is any NDS object (such as a User, a Group, or an OU) that has been granted rights to a specific file or directory. The rights themselves determine what the trustee is allowed to do. There are eight fundamental trustee rights, which can be remembered by the acronym S R W C E M F A.

The most powerful right is Supervisor [S]. The Supervisor right grants the trustee all other rights to that directory and all of its subdirectories and files. Crucially, the Supervisor right cannot be blocked by an Inherited Rights Filter, making it an absolute and overriding permission. This right was typically granted only to top-level administrators.

The other seven rights are Read [R], which allows a user to open and read a file; Write [W], which allows a user to change the contents of a file; Create [C], which allows a user to create new files and subdirectories; and Erase [E], which allows a user to delete a file or directory. The Modify [M] right allows a user to rename a file or directory and to change its attributes.

The final two rights are File Scan [F], which allows a user to see the names of the files and directories in a listing, and Access Control [A], which is a powerful right that allows a user to grant rights to other users for that file or directory. The 201-01 Exam would have required you to know the specific function of each of these eight rights.

Understanding Inheritance and IRF

A key feature that simplifies the management of file system rights, and a critical concept for the 201-01 Exam, is inheritance. When you grant a set of trustee rights to a user for a specific directory, those rights automatically flow down, or are inherited by, all the subdirectories and files within that directory. This means you can set permissions at a high level in the directory tree, and they will automatically apply to all the content below. This avoids the tedious and error-prone process of setting permissions on every single file.

For example, if you grant the Sales group the Read and File Scan rights to the \DATA\SALES directory, then all members of the Sales group will automatically be able to see and read all files in that directory and any subdirectories created within it. This makes the security model very efficient to manage.

However, sometimes you need to block this automatic inheritance. For this purpose, NetWare provided a mechanism called the Inherited Rights Filter, or IRF. The IRF is not a way to grant rights. Instead, it is a mask that specifies which rights are allowed to flow down from a parent directory. By default, the IRF for a directory allows all rights to pass through.

An administrator could modify the IRF to block certain rights. For example, you could remove the Erase [E] right from the IRF of a specific subdirectory. This would mean that even if a user inherited the Erase right from the parent directory, they would not be able to delete files in this specific subdirectory because the IRF would filter out that right. The only right that cannot be blocked by an IRF is the Supervisor [S] right. The 201-01 Exam would have tested your understanding of this filtering mechanism.

Calculating Effective Rights

One of the most classic and challenging types of questions on the 201-01 Exam involved calculating a user's effective rights. Effective rights are the final, actual permissions that a user has for a specific file or directory. These rights are determined by a specific calculation process that combines all the user's potential sources of rights and then applies the Inherited Rights Filter. Mastering this calculation was a key skill for any CNA.

The calculation starts by determining all the rights the user gets through their explicit trustee assignments. This includes any rights granted directly to the user's own object, any rights granted to groups that the user is a member of, and any rights granted to a container (like an OU) that the user's object resides in. All of these rights are combined together. For example, if the user has Read and the group has Write, their combined rights are Read and Write.

Next, you need to consider inheritance. The rights that are granted to the parent directory automatically flow down to the child directory. These inherited rights are then combined with the explicit rights that the user has at the child directory level.

The final step is to apply the Inherited Rights Filter (IRF) of the child directory. The combined rights from the previous steps are passed through this filter. Any right that is not present in the IRF is removed. The result of this final step is the user's effective rights for that directory. Remember, the Supervisor [S] right is special; if a user has the Supervisor right from any source, their effective rights are all eight rights, and the IRF is ignored.

Login Scripts

Login scripts were a powerful and essential feature of the NetWare environment for automating the configuration of a user's workstation at login time. The 201-01 Exam required a solid understanding of how login scripts worked and how to use them to perform common tasks. A login script is a simple text file containing a series of commands that are executed automatically when a user logs in to the network.

There were three main types of login scripts that were processed in a specific order. The first to run was the container login script. This script was associated with a container object (an O or OU) in the NDS tree. This script would run for every single user object located within that container. It was used to set up environment settings that were common to all users in a department or location.

The second script to run was the profile login script. A profile was an NDS object that contained a login script. You could associate a profile with multiple user objects, even if they were in different containers. This was useful for setting up common drive mappings for a group of users who had a similar role but were in different departments.

The final script to run was the user login script. This script was a property of the individual user object and was used to set up any specific, personal settings that were unique to that user. The most common commands used in login scripts were the MAP command, which was used to assign a drive letter to a network directory path, and the # or CAPTURE command, which was used to redirect a local printer port to a network print queue. The 201-01 Exam would have expected you to know the order of execution and the syntax of these common commands.

Network Printing and Client Management

After exploring the core server-side components of Novell Directory Services and the NetWare file system, our focus now shifts to the essential services that connect the user to the network: printing and client management. In any business environment, the ability to reliably print documents is a critical function, and in the era of the 201-01 Exam, managing network printing was a complex but vital task for an administrator. Equally important was the management of the client software that enabled workstations to connect to the network and interact with its resources.

In this fourth part of our series, we will delve into the architecture of the Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS), the framework for managing network printing. We will discuss the client software that acts as the bridge between the user's desktop and the NetWare server. We will also cover the user login process, the management of the user's environment, and the basic server monitoring and troubleshooting tasks that a Certified Novell Administrator was expected to perform. These topics round out the practical, day-to-day skill set tested by the 201-01 Exam.

Advanced Topics in the 201-01 Exam

The advanced sections of the 201-01 Exam were designed to test an administrator's ability to manage the full ecosystem of a NetWare network, moving beyond the core file and directory services. The questions in this domain would have focused on the more complex, multi-component services like network printing, and on the client-side software and configurations that were necessary for users to access the network. A successful candidate had to demonstrate an understanding of not just the server, but also how the client workstations interacted with it.

A major focus of these advanced topics was the Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS). The exam would have required you to understand the architecture of NDPS, which was a significant improvement over older, queue-based printing systems. You would need to be able to identify the different components of NDPS, such as the Printer Agent and the Print Manager, and understand the role that each one played in the printing process, from the user clicking "Print" to the page emerging from the printer.

Another key area was the Novell Client software. The exam would have tested your knowledge of the purpose of this client and the basic configuration required to get a workstation connected to the network. This included understanding how the client located a server on the network and how it handled the user authentication process against the NDS directory. A well-configured client was the foundation of a stable user experience.

Finally, the advanced topics included the fundamentals of server health monitoring and basic troubleshooting. While the 201-01 Exam was not a deep troubleshooting certification, it did expect a CNA to be able to use the basic server console commands and tools to check the server's status and to diagnose common user problems related to logins, file access, and printing.

Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS)

Printing in a large network environment can be a significant challenge. The version of NetWare relevant to the 201-01 Exam introduced a sophisticated new architecture called Novell Distributed Print Services (NDPS) to simplify and centralize the management of network printing. NDPS was a key topic on the exam, and you were expected to understand its main components and how they worked together.

The heart of the NDPS system was the Printer Agent. The Printer Agent was a piece of software that represented a single physical printer on the network. It was responsible for all communication with that printer, for managing the print jobs sent to it, and for reporting its status (e.g., "Ready," "Out of Paper") back to the network. Each printer on the network had to have a corresponding Printer Agent.

To manage a large number of Printer Agents, NDPS used a component called the NDPS Manager. The NDPS Manager was a server-side process that was responsible for creating and managing the Printer Agents. An administrator would use a tool like NetWare Administrator to connect to an NDPS Manager to create a new network printer.

To allow non-NDPS-aware clients or applications to print, the system used NDPS Gateways. For example, a gateway could be configured to make an NDPS printer look like a traditional NetWare print queue or to accept print jobs from other protocols like LPR/LPD from Unix systems. This architecture provided a much more intelligent and manageable printing environment than the older, passive queue-based systems. The 201-01 Exam would have required you to know the roles of these three key components.

Conclusion

Just like users and servers, printers in an NDPS environment were represented as objects in the NDS directory. The 201-01 Exam would have tested your knowledge of the conceptual steps required to set up a new network printer. The process involved creating the necessary NDS objects and linking them to the physical print device.

The process would begin in the NetWare Administrator tool. An administrator would first need to load the NDPS Manager on a server. Then, they would create a Printer Agent object in the NDS tree. During the creation of the Printer Agent, the administrator would specify the NDPS Manager that would control it and would configure the details of the physical printer, such as its manufacturer, model, and its network address.

Once the Printer Agent object was created in NDS, the NDPS Manager would load the agent, which would then establish communication with the physical printer on the network. At this point, the printer was available for use by network clients. An administrator could then manage the printer through its NDS object, for example, by pausing it, viewing its active print jobs, or shutting it down for maintenance.

To make it easy for users to find and install printers, an administrator would typically use login scripts or other tools to automatically install the required printers on a user's workstation when they logged in. This centralized, directory-based management of printers was a significant improvement in usability and a key skill for a CNA.

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