how to...

[ameyUK]

I am new to novell environment,, we got a novell NDS running on VM Server.. what command do i use to restart diretory services

 

[sstoppel]

Well, you shouldn't really have to do that. What are you experiencing that makes you want to restart eDirectory?

 

[marvhuffaker]

That is a rather odd question for someone that is admittedly a newbie. Restarting NDS is something you rarely have to do.

You can do this:

SET DSTRACE=*.

That will cause NDS to restart.. However, I agree with SSTOPPEL -- there must be a reason, and it may be something that has a better solution.

A lot of newbies have been trained (by MS Operating Systems) that Restarting stuff fixes most problems. That's not the case with NetWare. If it's broke, its broke.

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[sstoppel]

Marvin, I forget which thread it was but you posted something like "It's not a Windows server. Remove your finger from the power button and slowly back away."

I use that line all the time.

 

[ameyUK]

situation was, the power went off, we had a UPS running for all servers.. when power came back , no one was able to login.. kept saying the server was unavailable.. i was able to ping the server..

 

[sstoppel]

Are you using the novell client? If so, here is an easy test.

Go to advanced login and in the server name field put the IP address of the server. IF you can log in then, the problem is probably with SLP.

 

[sstoppel]

During the outage did the server itself go down? If you are on a SAN, did it stay up?

 

[ameyUK]

yep tried with IP address, didnt work.. the server stayed on, during the outage,, outage lasted only for max 30sec. nope its not a SAN..

 

[blister911]

What is the sync status between the servers? Are they communicating between each other? From the system console run: load dsrepair

Check "Time synchronization" and "Report synchronization status" --- Esc will get you back out

These may also help you to narrow down where a problem may exist

 

[marvhuffaker]

The thing you have to look at here is this... What typically happens when a server is powered off abruptly (on any OS, not just NetWare)? If you have files open, they get corrupted. Volumes get corrupted.. etc. This is because the handles and links don't get written to correctly because of the unexpected power outage..

So on NetWare, it's common for your SYS volume to become corrupt and not mount at all until it is repaired. Since you say you can ping the server, I am led to believe that the SYS volume DID actually mount (commands that load IP services won't happen unless SYS volume mounts)..

So since the server is most likely up, the next probable reason / problem is that the core NDS database is corrupt. These NDS files ARE open all the time, so it's possible to corrupt it with an abrupt power off. (Although I don't see this happen very often - NDS is very robust)..

So assume that NDS is corrupt and didn't open correctly when the server came back up. Restarting NDS won't fix this. But restarting probably WILL tell you if there is a problem - usually with an error code or whatever. (When the server starts, you'd see the same errors, but most likely didn't notice or it scrolled by too quickly to catch).

Also, if you run DSREPAIR and then REPORT SYNC STATUS -- If NDS is not open, you will get an error saying that the database is not open. So that will give you another indicator that NDS is pretty corrupt.

If you are actually able to run a Report Sync Status, then that means that the NDS database is actually open and that's not the problem. HOwever, it could be some other minor NDS items - so then you have to look closer at the logs when you run the status and troubleshoot the errors as you see them.

Hope this makes sense and helps.

Marvin

Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[ameyUK]

Got it sorted.. thankyou guys so much,

 

[terry712]

was it the server or the switch?