Howdy all,

I've been using IPX to successfully mount a Netware fileserver for several months. The configuration that works is:

Dell desktop i686
RH 8
kernel 2.4.18-27.8.0
ipxutils 2.2.0.18-11
ncpfs 2.2.0.18-11

Here's the perplexing part:

I have a new notebook that came with RH 9 preinstalled, and it is very stubborn in not talking to the NetWare server.

Sony Vaio PCG-GRX700P i686
RH 9
kernel 2.4.20
ipxutils 2.2.1-1 (also tried latest = 2.2.3-1)
ncpfs 2.2.1-1 (also tried latest = 2.2.3-1)

Installing/configuring IPX works, up to the point that I can get the right response with "slist"

However, when I try mounting the server listed by slist (with the same exact commands that work on the RH 8 box - so I know the server/path/user/pw are correct), I get the following error:

"ncpmount: No such device in mount(2)"

Over at the freshmeat site for ncpfs (http://freshmeat.net/projects/ncpfs/?topic_id=142), someone said "That error can appear if you are trying to mount a mountpoint on the filesystem without specifying the target filesystem you want to mount." Thing is, I know the target filesystem is valid because the same exact command works for the other configuration.

I have tried the same kernel/ipx/ncpfs combination as on the RH8 box, and get the same error. I have upgraded ipx/ncpfs to the latest (RawHide) version, same error. It's very consistent!

Any suggestions?

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By the way, I've also tried doing an end-run by using NetWare NFS, but the Novell fileserver doesn't allow anyone except root to write to the mounted drives, which is annoying. (Translating permissions between Novell and NFS is funky; I believe there is a later NetWare NFS patch that fixes this. Our IT guy is working on installing it.)

I've also tried SAMBA, with no success.

I am having the same problem with RH 9.0.93. I have ncpmount/ncpumount working fine with RH 7.3, RH8, RH 9 even. I am using RH9 , stock RH 2.4.20-19.9 kernel, ncpfs-2.2.1-1, ipxutils-2.2.1-1.

I am not able to get this working under RH 9.0.93 though. I get the same error:
ncpmount: No such device in mount(2)

I am using RH 9.0.93, stock RH 2.4.21-20.1.2024.2.1.nptl kernel. I have tried using the following with no luck:

ncpfs-2.2.1-2
ipxutils-2.2.1-2

ncpfs-2.2.1-1
ipxutils-2.2.1-1

kernels have the same ipx options turned on too.

This is really weird.

Aha. I think I discovered something significant.

I'm using a variant of the stock kernel, optimized for my notebook hardware. The people who sold me the notebook gave me the idea to try the stock kernel as an alternative. It worked.

So I think my problem has something to do with the kernel modifications, and not with RH 9, after all?

This has been one of the more annoying problems I've encountered, because of the lack of information available online about what the error means.

It has to be the kernel. I noticed that if I cat /proc/filesystems that on systems where ncpmount works I have nodev ncpfs listed. On systems where it doesn't work, I don't have this in /proc/filesystems. So, somewhere in the kernel, ncpfs filesystems is not turned on.

Yeah, I saw that, in your private email. Good point!

Here's a stupid question:
How do I figure out which version of RH 9 I'm running?

You can find out some info about your system by using the following commands:

uname -r

cat /etc/redhat-release

There are others, but this should give you kernel info and redhat version.

Red Hat Linux release 9 (Shrike)

Hmm. I guess I don't have any fancy Red Hat version numbers after the 9.

The kernels are essentially what I reported, above, except they're notebook-optimized.

Thanks for posting your experiences. They led me in the right direction.
I use Slackware 10 and kernel 2.6.8. I couldn't get the Netware
volume to mount and got the error "no such device in mount". What
you said about the kernel made me relook at my kernel configuration.
You need IPX support and NCPFS support compiled into the kernel.
I also had to run the command "ipx_interface add -p eth0 802.2"
so the NIC could see the IPX packets.

Now I can mount my Netware volumes with the ncpmount command.

John

FWIW - same thing happened to me on a customer machine - reason was an online update which replaced the Kernel (SuSE) to a newer version, erasing the currently running kernel's modules with a directory for the new kernel ... machine wasn't restarted afterwards (production machine ... has to be scheduled ...), but loading the module ncpfs.ko manually worked fine, ncpmount flawlessly mounted the novell partition ...