Local Netware Connections may be Dropped

• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 3.5 and 3.51
• Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5 and 3.51
• Microsoft Windows NT Server version 4.0
• Microsoft Windows NT Workstation version 4.0

SYMPTOM

On your computer running Windows NT, your local network connections to NetWare servers are disconnected without warning when you connect to a remote NetWare Server.

This problem occurs if your Windows NT client uses the Windows NT Gateway Services for NetWare (GSNW) to connect to a preferred NetWare server that is across a router and the router is configured to forward SAP packets only in the direction from the remote network to the local network, but not vice versa.

CAUSE

Because the router is configured to forward SAP packets only in one direction, the remote NetWare server is disjointed from your local LAN. Therefore, it cannot learn about the presence of your local NetWare servers and store that information in its bindery for your computer's future use.

Just like all Novell NetWare redirectors, the Microsoft GSNW is not capable of connecting to disjointed NetWare networks simultaneously, because it relies on the bindery of a single NetWare server to obtain the list of available NetWare servers. This is a design limitation of the IPX/SPX protocol.

RESOLUTION

There are three possible resolutions to this problem:

• On the Windows NT server, set up a local persistent share that points to the local NetWare server and ask the local users connect to the Windows NT shares before they access the remote NetWare server.

  -or-

• Set the preferred NetWare servers to a NetWare server on the same subnet as the Windows NT server and establish a persistent connection.

  -or-

• Configure the router to forward SAPs in both directions.