Novell clients do not connect with local Novell eDirectory services running on Linux

Document ID:3133475
Creation Date:31-Jul-2007
Modified Date:16-Mar-2012

Environment

Novell Client 4.9 for Windows NT/2000/XP
Novell eDirectory 8.6 for Linux
Novell eDirectory 8.7.1 for Linux
The default setting for IP address costing is: "2" (calculate the address cost via an ICMP ECHO packet)

Situation

Novell clients to not create service connections with local Novell eDirectory services running on Linux

Resolution

Change the default TTL setting on LINUX to 128

As a temporary solution:
"echo "128"> /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_default_ttl"
As a permanent solution on RedHat LINUX:
apply the following setting to the /etc/sysctl.conf:"net.ipv4.ip_default_ttl = 128" and restart
As a permanent solution on SUSE LINUX:
apply the following setting to the /etc/sysctl.conf :"net.ipv4.ip_default_ttl = 128" and restart

Change the Novell Client IP Address costing setting to:

0 = disable IP address costing
1 = calculate the address cost via sorting by subnet mask

Additional Information

With IP address costing turned on Novell clients use the returned TTL value in the ICMP Echo Reply packet to identify the nearest eDirectory server for a given object.

The TTL value defines the maximum amount of router devices (hops) a given IP Packet can pass through and will be initialized by the sender of a datagram. Used values are 32, 64 or 128. Each router device will reduce the TTL value by one before forwarding the datagram. A packet with a TTL value of zero will be dropped and the sender will be notified with an ICMP message (ICMP type 11, time exceeded)
With NetWare and Windows NT based systems the default TTL value is "128"
With LINUX the default TTL value is "64"
For IP costing this will cause any NetWare server to have a higher priority than any LINUX server with eDirectory
unless the LINUX server is local (TTL=64) and the NetWare server is 64 hops away (TTL=128-64).

Formerly known as TID# 10090660