Novell Sees The Light on Maintenance

We processed our renewal today, and learned that Novell is now including unlimited support with the software maintenance MLA customers purchase each year. This prevents you from needing to buy Premium 1000 or 2000 (or more), and be worrying about how many times you call.

This is much more consistent with enterprise vendors like Oracle, IBM, and Sun, and is a welcome change. Unfortunately, it's a case of too little, too late. We're done waiting for Novell to do what customers like us have told them for 4, 5 or 6 years. As the saying goes down here, "Even a good dog will only stay on the porch for so long."

I'm told that more changes are coming over the next year, and I'm definitely interested in hearing what they are. I suspect it will address many of the complaints and confusing practices we've called out here, leaving only the question of "What took you so long?" for them to answer.

OES Linux and 8 Character Passwords

Did you know that OES on SLES is incapable of using passwords for the Root user longer than 8 characters?

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Did you also know that OES on SLES allows you to blank out the Root user password using the passwd utility?

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Did you know that lots of stuff is dependent on the Root user, and that password cannot be controlled through NAMCD or eDirectory?

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Hoo boy.