Console 1 / GroupWise snapins on x86_64

As Novell is moving more and more to Linux, I felt lucky today and once more was in the desperate hope that one more task which I have to do so far using an RDP session on a Windows machine can finally be handled natively on my openSUSE 11.2 installation: Administering the corporate eDirectory and GroupWise system.

After all, we have been migrating plenty of servers from Novell Netware 6.5 (OES2 Netware) to OES2 Linux based and the GroupWise systems were migrated as well. so it’s all running on Linux servers (well, not all yet.. but we’re eventually getting there).

So, you would say it should be a matter of installing some RPMs and having fun? Me too… but not so Novell 🙁

Installing Console1 is a no-brainer and works just as you would expect (no, not by adding a repository and selecting the right packages; that would be too advanced and too Linux like). Rather, you’ll issue a
> sudo sh c1-install
And get through the assistant. I remarked it did not install the .desktop and png file in /usr/share/applications resp. /usr/share/pixmaps, so I copied them myself (shame!).

Best of all: It even works and basic administration of eDirectory can be done.

Now up to the GroupWise snapins… let’s see. there is a nice graphical installer, when going through it and installing the snapins, it tells me ConsoleOne would not be installed. Aha. I was sure I just started it before???

Oh well: no worries. After all there is just a novell-groupwise-admin-8.0.1-88138.i586.rpm in the admin folder. Let’s install it using rpm -i. No error, so apparently all deps satisfied? GREAT.

Let’s start ConsoleOne… and it does start… with an error.:

“An error occured during ConsoleOne startup.
(Run ConsoleOne with the –debug and –windowout options
and review the debug information for more details.)

ERROR: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no gwadj2 in java.library.path”

As fun as it is: this has been reported and can be found on the Support page of Novell: Novell TID 7003500
Ok, up to what it says in this article: Added export C1_JRE_HOME and extended LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

Starting C1 and surprise? YES: I get a dialog to select the path to the domain. That already DOES Look very promising.
I have the Novell client installed on my openSUSE 11.2 (M8) and so I just ‘map’ a drive to it, select it and end up with the next error:
ERROR: java.lang.NoclassDefFoundError: java/lang/StringBuilder

So all in all: still no joy. It seems it’s just not meant to be run on a x86_64 installation. Sadly.

Of course, I would like to add: C1 / GW snapins work perfectly fine on the OES2 Server with GW installed, on a i686 box (which would be capable of x86_64 too, what a waste).

Do you have any additional tips to get in? I’ll gladly make a follow-up post with proper instructions to get it work for everybody (and maybe get in touch with some team to make a repository?)