The Gateway service for NetWare was first
included with Windows NT 3.5. As the name suggests, it’s a gateway between workstations
running Microsoft networking clients and a NetWare network. The advantages being that you
don’t need to install Novell clients on workstations to access volumes on a NetWare
server. As Windows 3.11, Win95, and Windows NT workstation all come with client for
Microsoft networks, this saves you from the hassles of setting up additional clients, not
to mention hard disk space. The Gateway service includes a Client service and a Gateway
service. The client service is required for the NT server to logon to a NetWare network,
while the Gateway service is used to give workstations access to NetWare volumes.

The Gateway service is installed like any
other service under Windows NT. Open Control Panel and select Network. Go to the Services
tab and click on the Add button. NT builds a list of Network Services that can be
installed. From here select Gateway and Client Services for NetWare. The system then
prompts you to put in the Windows NT CD ROM. After installation, when you close the
Network window, it builds and stores the binding configuration and asks you to restart the
server.

Now you need to do some work on the NetWare
server for which you are creating the NT Gateway. You should have administrator rights on
the NetWare server because you need to create a group called NTGATEWAY on it. Then add a
user with the same user name and password that you use on the NT server so that when the
NT server tries to access the NetWare resources, it can be validated automatically.
What we’ve configured so far is just the Client part of GSNW. To enable your NT server to
act as a gateway for other machines on the NT server network, you need to configure GSNW.
This can be accessed from an icon called GSNW that gets added to the Control Panel when
you install the component.

Under GSNW, you’ll find a Gateway button in
the main dialog box. This takes you to the configuration setting site. There’s a box
titled ‘Enable Gateway’. Check this to activate gateway services. You can then assign a
special name to the Gateway account and a password (same one as for the NT and NetWare
server password).

Now you are ready to add users who can
access the NetWare server resources. You can map each volume on the NetWare server to a
free drive letter on the NT server. After you’ve created Share accounts for users of the
NT Gateway, you can control access further through the ‘Permissions’ dialog box.

To use the new service from a Win95 or NT
workstation connected to your NT server, click on Network Neighborhood. Choose Microsoft
Networking to bring up the list of servers available. Select your NT server and you’ll
find folders with the share names that you had assigned them. Clicking on a folder takes
you to the NetWare volume that was mapped to it. In case of Windows 3.11, you need to go
to the File Manager, and from there select Connect Network Drive option from the disk
menu. This should show you all the Microsoft workgroups and servers on your network.
Choose your server, and map a drive letter to it. That’s all. Now you can access the
NetWare server through your NT server.

Reprinted from PC Quest,
September 1997.