Recently in SP5 Category

I'm of mixed mind about this one (purely selfish reasons of course), but Novell has released what they're calling, "OES SP2, NW6.5 SP5 Update 1". Which you can download here. This is not exactly new for Novell, since they frequently release 'update collections' for the Novell Client (I think "C" was released a week ago or so). But the important thing here are the patches they included in the update. From the TID:
This file contains the following files which have been previously released separately and are provided together in this patch kit as a convenience for installation:
nw65os5a.exe 2973639
n65nss5a.exe 2973412
nwlib6h.exe 2974119
wsock6i.exe 2973892
I was planning on applying three of the four, but the WinSock one I hadn't. Perhaps I should integrate that into my patch process, eh?

In the bigger picture, I think we just saw how Novell is going to handle getting between SP5 (a.k.a. OES SP2) and OES2.0 (a.k.a. SP6).

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NW65SP5 rolls on

Today it hit the NDS servers, tomorrow... WUF!

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NW65SP5 incoming

In the next week I intend to put SP5 for NetWare 6.5 onto our servers. Since SP5 came out in January, things have progressed quite a bit in the realm of post-SP5 patches. So here is the list of patches I'll be applying:

Patch
Explanation
nw65os5a.exe
SERVER.EXE update that fixes a lot of memory allocator problems. Highly recommended.
n65nss5a.exe
Post-SP5 NSS update that is in 'public' release. Includes a fix for an AFPTCP abend we've had a time or two.
nile65sp5a.exe
Security fix.
ncp65sp5a.exe
Fix of 'Salvage' bug introduced by SP5. Highly recommended.
httpstk5.exe
Security fix.
ethertsm_msm.exe
Specific to the server brand I'm running. Fixes some memory problems. Hey, anything helps.
iprntnw65sp5d.exe
Many fixes to NDS/iPrint. NDPSM is the big one for us, several of the listed fixed problems we are seeing.
nwlib6h.exe
It's a LibC fix. How could I NOT apply it?
tsa5up19.exe
Post SP5 TSA fixes. Anything that improves backup speeds.
nsclasses.exe
Fixes bug introduced in SP5 in NetStorage.
nsxdav.exe
Fixes NetStorage WebDav problems, and memory leak in interupted upload/downloads in NetStorage.
dprpc_security.exe
Security fix in iPrint.

The patches in red are the ones I recommend for everyone. Everything else I'm applying due to policies here, and demonstrated need. Everyone probably doesn't need the LibC patch, but I absolutely do, so it's in there. The NetStorage patches are because I use that product, which not everyone does. The httpstk and nile patches are because all of my servers face the public, and I need to be able to defend against such malicious SSL trickery.

With all of the above, SP5 is looking pretty solid so far. In the support forums, at least. We'll see how well it works around here. We've already pushed the eDir update, so departments who are not me have already put SP5 into production here at WWU, and I haven't heard any problems yet.

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