• 64MB RAM
• 10GB IDE disk
• 1 CPU
• PCNet NIC
• Floppy drive
• CD-ROM drive

Start by installing a copy of DOS on the machine. I use MS-DOS 6.22 but DR-DOS will work fine too. I briefly attempted to use FreeDOS but the NetWare installer hung at the EULA screen.

We'll need to partition the drive into a DOS bootstrap partition, and a SYS: partition for Netware. Recommend a small 50-100MB partition for DOS, and the rest for NetWare.

We'll also need a DOS CD-ROM driver and MSCDEX in order to load the NetWare installation CD. These Samsung drivers work pretty well.

Once the drivers are installed and loaded, run the NetWare installer at D:\INSTALL

Select no for SMP, as we're using a single CPU. NetWare supports multiprocessor but there are issues with getting the idle driver to work for SMP in QEMU/KVM.

Select the MPS14.PSM Intel platform support module.

Select the PCNTNW.LAM driver for the NIC, and have it search for the device automatically.

Load this floppy image containing the NetWare Toolbox and an idle driver with LOAD A:\TOOLBOX.NLM.

Copy the idle driver to the SYS drive with COPY A:\NW4-IDLE.NLM SYS:\SYSTEM\

You can manually load the driver with LOAD NW4-IDLE.NLM.

To automatically load it at start, you'll need to edit AUTOEXEC.NCF. Load the configuration tool with LOAD INSTALL and choose EDIT AUTOEXEC.NCF. Add LOAD NW4-IDLE.NLM to the end of the file.

In order to enable long filename support, you'll need to load the LONG.NAM module at startup. Type LOAD INSTALL and select Edit STARTUP.NCF. Add LOAD LONG.NAM to the end of the file.

Reboot and type ADD NAME SPACE LONG TO VOLUME SYS to add long namespace support to the SYS volume.

To add a disk, type LOAD INSTALL, select Driver options, and then Configure disk and storage device drivers, and choose Discover and load additional drivers.

NetWare 4.11 by default only supports up to 8GB disks. You'll have to install Support Pack 9 first for larger disk support.

Installing TCP/IP is fairly straightforward from INSTALL.NLM. However, if you run into an error that TCP/IP is not configured mid-install, you'll need to switch consoles (in libvirt run qemu-monitor-command <domain> –hmp “sendkey alt-esc” and run LOAD INETCFG. Make sure you enable the TCP/IP protocol and bind it to your interface with ETHERNET_II.

This site is a great resource for more information on running NetWare today.

• https://www.zx.net.nz/netware/server/411-kvm-2/