NW6 NSS Pool lost

[ronfu]

We got this Problem first on ML350 G3 with 5300 Araycontroller and running NW6 SP2 that after 2 weeks the Server had a abend and ASR. when the server was rebooted, Netware didn't start up completely, only the things in the startup.ncf, meaning the c: Partition is available. some research showed that all NSS pools are lost and couldn't restored with nss tools. If you try to reinstall Netware, it recognize that there was a system before but could not update because the SYS Volume is not mounted!
now we have this experience regularly afte one to two weeks the server loose its pool, it doesn't matter if the server is with SP2 SP3 or without. last week the same on a ML370. we have good relations to Novell but it seems we are the first with this kind of trouble!

any help out there??

 

[TheLad]

Firstly, what is the exact abend? Do you have access to an ABEND.LOG that you can post extracts from?

Secondly, are you up-to-date with the firmware on the server, in particular the SCSI card and System ROM?

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"It's true, its damn true!"
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[marvhuffaker]

Can't help you recover what you lost, but definitely put SP3 and the post-sp3 NSS patch on there. That solved quite a few NSS issues that I have experienced.

Definitely also need to find out why the server is abending in the first place.

Also, you mention the ASR is on. Turn that baby off.. You don't want the ASR to reboot the server. If there is a problem, you want NetWare to catch it and log an abend. It's hard to troubleshoot a problem if you let the ASR do it's thing. Sometimes the CPU will become hogged, and then the ASR times out and reboots to recover, and then you have nothing to work with. As a rule, I always turn it off. (hit F10 when booting, go into system config)

Also, what 3rd party programs are you running? McAfee netshield requires a patch to work properly on NetWare 6. It conflicts with NSS specifically, that's why I mention it.

Marv

Marvin Huffaker MCNE, CNE
Marvin Huffaker Consulting

http://www.redjuju.com

 

[terry712]

this issue was in the netware 6 forum

someone said it's to do with the size of the dos partition
if it's been built from a smartstart 6.x and dos partition exceeds 1.5gb then this occurs

fix is load c drive from a working server and copy the contents onto a cd
blow away dos partition on server and create a new one that is under this and then copy cd contents across

i've never seen this but all our partitions are 1gb

 

[BrannoBL]

We've dealt extensively with this issue. If you would like to email me at:

brigetta.brannon@state.co.us

We have documented this, and are still re-doing some servers before they crash.

I can send you the documentation that we are using to assist you.

Brigetta

 

[terry712]

is it only above 1.5

i have lots of these servers and have never encoutered prob but all dos partitions 1gb

 

[ronfu]

hi,
we got an information that all Version 6 Smart Start CDs had this problem and it should be resolved with Version 6.4.

I just learned that we had this issue also on a Server with only 500MB DOS partition!

regards and thanks for the help!

Ron

 

[tcitjh]

Are you use DOSSFAT.NSS?

If so please read Novell TID10071494 carefully as an Abend can cause the FAT tables on C: to be corrupted.

 

[ronfu]

this Novell TID is about corrupt DOS Partitions but this is not the case. the DOS Partition didn't show any problems and kept all data on it! at the moment we don't use any SmartStart CDs, install all manually and had no problems at the moment.