Build MySQL database on NetWare

Running a MySQL database on a NetWare server is the same as running on a Linux, UNIX, or Windows system. NetWare, as a file and print server operating system, is also a platform to build a network database. Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle have made Windows nt/2000 more widely recognized, but they are also able to run SQL databases on NetWare. Novell typically introduces Oracle to NetWare, and recently provides support for popular open source database MySQL.

What is MySQL?

MySQL is a database of open source code that supports SQL database language. MySQL is licensed under the GPL, which means that you can use MySQL for free if you don't develop and sell MySQL based applications. However, if you want to sell a MySQL based application, you can purchase a commercial license.

Like most SQL databases, MySQL's syntax is slightly different from the SQL used by Oracle or Microsoft SQL Sever. The difference is similar to the difference between American, Australian and English. MySQL does not change much is the support of the operating system. Because it is open source, MySQL has been ported to a number of different operating systems. MySQL supports the following operating systems, different from NetWare, such as:

Windows

Linux

Solaris

Freebsd

Mac OS X

For the purposes of this article, I will discuss MySQL 4.013, which is now a version of all operating systems in the MySQL enterprise environment. MySQL 4.1 and MySQL 5.0 are now in beta and alpha testing phases respectively. However, there are no beta versions of NetWare. In the enterprise, you will not want to run the beta version anyway. So this is not a problem.

Get MySQL and Installation preparation

You can get MySQL for Netware from the MySQL download page. You must fill out a form before downloading the software, and then you will be linked to a download image page where you can select a site to download MySQL. The file you downloaded (Mysql-standard-4.0.13-pc-netware-i686.zip when this article was published) is only 5.7 MB. So the download process does not take much time.

Extract the files to a temporary directory on the server, but do not install them immediately. First, you must make sure that your NetWare server is ready to run MySQL. According to the documentation, MySQL can only run on NetWare 6 and newer versions, so if you are running NetWare 4.x or 5.x, then you seem less fortunate. I did not have any problems with MySQL on my own NetWare 5.1 test server. However, it should be noted that since NetWare 5.1 is not officially supported, you may not be applying it to the enterprise environment.

In addition, you must also run Support Pack 2 or newer upgrade packs on NetWare 6, and the latest C libraries for NetWare. Eventually, you must have a NSS volume label on the NetWare server to support MySQL's data directory.

Install libc

C libraries, the libc in Novellspeak, provides support for NetWare multithreading and multiprocessor applications. If you have never used any Third-party software on a NetWare server before, you probably haven't installed the software yet. Because libc and MySQL are in the midst of frequent developer upgrades, you should make sure that you get the latest version of LIBC to ensure it is compatible with MySQL.

Click the binaries download link. Then you will download the Libc.exe to your server. Because the size is only 5.4MB, the download takes approximately the same amount of time as MySQL.

After you download Libc.exe, run the program from the administrator workstation. You'll be amazed. The discovery program starts with a Windows wizard. As the wizard progresses, the libc files will be stored on your administrator workstation.

From now on, things will get a little complicated. You must manually copy the libc files from the admin workstation to your server. Although this may not seem like a hassle, you must copy the files to the C:\nwserver directory on the NetWare server. Do not confuse this directory with NetWare volumes. The file must be in a DOS partition on the NetWare server. You can use a Third-party program rconsole to access C:, such as Jcmd. The method is to turn off the server and then boot from the floppy disk or use the Dosfat that supports NSS. For more information about how to use Dosfat, see "Using Dosfat to access a DOS Partition for NetWare server."

The specific LIBC installation process is not covered in this article. Follow the instructions in the second part of the Readme file provided by LIBC. You need to reboot the machine before installing MySQL.