Time it takes to run ISINTEG and ESEUTIL

[jaimeortega]

The priv1.edb is ~85GB. The pub1.edb is ~9GB.

The HW is a dual 1Ghz processor.

Since I've never ran any of these 2 tools I have no idea how long they would take. I'm not too worried about HD space but I do want to make sure that the database is consistent. Minizing the downtime is also of great importance to us since we run a 24/7 operation. With that in mind, is there any way to run the consistency checks on a different server?

Also, when I look at the mailboxes in the exchange system manager, I have some users that seem to be all messed up.

Mailbox: A
Last Log on By: Person B (that has nothing to do with A)
With a size of: 0
Total Items: 26,000

The only data I trust is correct is the name of the mailbox and the # of mails. Is this a sign of corruption??


Thanks
-Jaime Ortega

 

[ashleym]

Eseutil will take approximately 4G/hour to run so that will take about 22 hrs based on the size of your priv.edb. There is no way to run this offline that I am aware of, and you will also need 1.5x the disk space (so 127G of free space) of your prive.edb to do this, you can redirect it to a mapped drive on another server if you don't have that much disk space locally. Are you running this because you are getting errors or you hav a problem? If not, I would not suggest running it unless you have to. Make sure you have a backup mx record so email doesn't bounce during the 22hrs your exchange server will be offline to run this.

AM

 

[jaimeortega]

thanks for the reply.

There is no way I can bring down the exchange server for 20+ hours. It would cause a riot. To make it even worst, I don't have 130GB to run the utilities either. Buggers...

The reason I wanted to run a consistency check is because Veritas backups are complaining about corrupt files whithin mailboxes (which doesn't necesarely mean the are corrupt) and more importantly because the Exchange System Manager tool is giving me "wrong" data (size of mailboxes and last logged on by).

What are my options then? Can I move the edb's to a clean exchange server on different HW and run it there?

Cheers
-JO

 

[Squishy29]

For what its worth i ran into a similiar problem with veritas. I did run eseutil to try and remedy the situation with veritas but it only shrunk the size of my priv file. I was able to fix the problem by unchecking " backup single instance" in Veritas on the particular job. Problem solved

 

[wallst32]

Are those backup errors coming from the bricklevel of database backups? I used to use Veritas Netbackup 3.4 on Exchange 5.5 There was a bug where it could not handle a filename if it was too long, or something along those lines (I don't remember exactly). It would report these as "corrupt" messages in bricklevel backups.

If a user other than the mailbox owner shows up as the person last logged on, it could be due to sharing a folder, such as your calendar or contacts.

There is a bug in Exchange 2000 where the mailbox sizes may not show up correctly. There was a fix for this posted after SP3, and in fact, it might be included in the post SP3 rollup. But again, I don't recall specifically, and you'll have look it up.

One way to run the database integrity checker without taking down your production Exchange server is to restore it to a recovery server (you'll need some hardware of course). This will also validate your backups. I would restore the most recent backup you have. A recovery server is just another Exchange server in its own AD forest (typically you install AD on this machine). The same orginizational name is required, and the store names and locations must also be the same. Search the web for "exchange 2000 recovery server" for more information, there is tons available. I use this method to restore mailboxes; exmerge mail out, and then into your production.

 

[jaimeortega]

Thanks for the replies...

I decided to follow wallst32 suggestion and have restored exchange to a different server. After a couple of failed tries, I have managed to restore exchange to a new box. I am now running isinteg on it. Couple of questions though...

1.- Even though the file stores mount, I can't see the actual mails on the M drive. Is this normal? I see the user folders though.

2.- I'm running isinteg as
isinteg -s exchange -test maibox
should I run it with different switches? I just want to verify that there is no corruption on my db.

3.- After completion of the isinteg, I get Test Folder Results: 2 errors 3885 warnings. Err.. Am I in trouble?

Thanks again
-Jaime