User Admin in NW6 got deleted

OK, first, in the NDS environment, there is no "Supervisor" user - that user was a creature of NetWare v3.x and earlier (Bindery). User "Admin" in the NDS environment is just another user account, it just happens to have the "S" NDS right at the root of the NDS tree. As you've unfortunately found out, "Admin" can be deleted just like any other user. This is good in that because the administration-privledge-level account does not have a fixed name, it makes it harder for an intruder to get in (this contrasts with the NT/AD environment, where 1/2 of the administration-level credentials - the user name - is unchangeable, so all the intruder has to do is guess/brute-force the password).

The mistake you made, and its unfortunately a common mistake, is that you made your account equivalent to Admin, instead of having the Admin account grant your account the "S" right at the root of the NDS tree. Thus, when you deleted Admin, you destroyed your privledges.

The fact that you did this a month ago means that even if you have an NDS-aware backup system (and I hope you do!), you probably don't want to back-rev the NDS database that far. At this point, you have two choices:

1) Destroy your current NDS installation and re-install the directory service from scratch. This means trashing the entire tree, all the user accounts, and loss of the filesystem trustee rights. The latter you could backup and then put back in with a script, and with something like JRB Utilities (http://www.jrbsoftware.com) you could automate restoration of the user accounts, but this is still a messy and brutal process.

2) Contact Novell TS (if you don't have a support contract, you're going to have to shell out some $$$) and get them to perform the necessary tree surgery to either re-create the Admin account or, better yet, assign your account the "S" privledge at the root of the tree.

Personally, I'd go for the second option unless I had a small, single-server tree with only a handful of user accounts.

I am just a newbie in NDS, professional set up the server for me and disappeared
I just made my account equivalent to admin, so when admin is gone, my rights are gone! By deleting the tree, are all the print queues, print server things are destroyed too? My network has only about 15 users so re-build user accounts is not a big deal but I hate to set up the printing things. How do I rebuild the tree?
Just another thought, if I set up another server and migrate all the settings and files would that be an alternative?

Yes, you'd have to do it all over again.  Migration needs admin on both servers.  The best you could do is set everything up "the same" with a different tree name, then copy over the data files.  The users passwords will all have to change, too, unless you are like some installations where the Administrator assigns the passwords and keeps 'em on a piece of paper...which I DON'T recommend, no matter how small or "cozy" your organization is.

You can think of it as a good learning experience, and look forward to the successful completion, upon which you can pat yourself on the back and buy yourself a beer. ;)

 - Don't forget to grant your user ID "S" NDS rights to [ROOT].

"I am just a newbie in NDS, professional set up the server for me and disappeared"

Doesn't sound like they were too professional if they didn't at least offer to document their work.

Your options remain as I indicated earlier - toss out your current NDS database, including printing info, users, file permissions, all of it; and re-install from scratch - or contact Novell Technical Support and they may be able to do the necessary tree surgery that will get your account the access it needs.

Damn. No, I'd never seen that. That's way cool. Novell TS in a box.

I downloaded the emadmin.nlm and created the account
Tried to install sp5, system tells 'username do not have the right to extend schema' so installation can't go on. Did I miss anything? How do I get the right to extend schema? I guess I have the right in root but still can't carry on this patch.
I've used the account I created to grant rights, but no luck
Any more ideas please

I've not used EMADMIN, so mebbe an Expert who has will chime in. In what context you create the account? If you are in ConsoleOne and right-click on your tree's Root object and select Trustees of this object, is the account listed there?

Yes, the account is there, NDS rights of the object is

>xxxx CN
>Role Based Server.xxxx
>Security
>admin.xxxx
>[Public]
>[Root]

Do I miss anything?

Thanks for all, I mixed all the clues in the answers from you guys, I worked it out finally, with a bit of luck
Thanks