VCU can't copy files larger than 4 GB

  • 3930743
  • 06-Sep-2007
  • 26-Apr-2012

Environment

Novell Open Enterprise Server (NetWare based)
Novell NetWare 6.5 Support Pack 6

Situation

Using VCU.NLM to copy data from one NSS volume which contains files larger than 4 Gig to a new NSS volume.

Resolution

VCU was originally written as an upgrade path for copying data from Traditional
NetWare volumes onto NSS volumes. It was never designed to be an NSS-to-NSS
volume copy utility. While it does work in most cases, there are many design
issues which make this a not-recommended use of VCU.

VCU uses 100% traditional file system APIs for it's file copy operations.
These Traditional APIs only have 32 bit file sizes, and they use local
code-page ASCII for all file name representations. This raises two major
limitations for VCU

1) It can only copy files whose sizes fit the "Traditional NetWare FileSystem"
size limitations -- because the Traditional NetWare maximum was 4Gig.

2) It cannot correctly copy filenames on mixed-language systems, where the
ASCII codepage might be english (437) but where unicode characters from other
languages may exist in the filenames.

To make VCU work correctly with NSS-to-NSS copies in the area of filename
preservation and handling over 4Gig is a major rewrite of the utility to do
something it was not originally intended to do.

Status

Reported to Engineering