Database Maintenance Guidelines

Novell Cool Solutions: Tip

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Posted: 20 Jun 2002

It is sometimes necessary to perform maintenance tasks on user, resource and message databases. Regular database maintenance is important in maintaining database integrity and stability. Here is a TID that gives you some guidelines to help you setup maintenance tasks for your databases.

For details or updates on this TID, see TID-10008201.

Novell recommends to setup Schedule Events for the POA from ConsoleOne or NWADMN32 (depending on the GroupWise database versions).

The type of events to setup will be Structure and Contents checks on the message store of your post offices.

If the Access Mode to the post office is Client/Server (TCPIP connection between the GroupWise client and POA) then a Weekly Structure and Index check should be sufficient and a monthly Contents check. However, if you are are seeing weekly/daily corruption of post office databases then you should change the Structure checks to run daily (don't check Index for daily event because it may not finish if you have a large post office).

If the Access Mode is Direct Mode (a UNC or drive letter connection to the post office directory) run a Structure check event daily and a Structure and Index Check weekly. A Contents check should be done weekly as well. Post office databases are more susceptible to database corruption when the GroupWise client accesses the post office in Direct Mode.

Implement an Expire/Reduce Event:

To keep your message store from getting out of control a business should implement some e-mail retention policy (the amount of time users can keep/retain messages, appointments, notes, and tasks). This is up to the business to determine. Novell does not make any recommendations due to the varying needs of customers. The size and amount of messages in a post office can lead to performance issues. The larger the databases the more time it takes to complete database maintenance and backups. The database maintenance or backups may not complete by the time your users come to work and impact their use of GroupWise.

Top Down rebuild with NetWare Administrator (or your current version of NWAdmin for GroupWise)

This is highly recommended whenever a server abends containing the GroupWise data store which most likely was compromised from the abend on your system. Also recommended for periodical maintenance.

NOTE: Before proceeding make sure you have a current backup of the entire GroupWise system.

Rebuild the Primary Domain and any Secondary Domains

Note: All GroupWise Agents or Gateways accessing the domain database must be shut down
1. Highlight the Domain object in the NDS View
2. Select Tools | GroupWise Utilities | System Maintenance
3. Select "Rebuild Database" and then RUN
Rename any/all WPHOST.DB files in the Post Office directories Note: All users must be out and no processes (including all GroupWise Agents) accessing GroupWise can be running)
Rebuild all Post Offices in each domain
1. Highlight the Post Office object in the NDS View
2. Select Tools | GroupWise Utilities | System Maintenance
3. Select "Rebuild Database" and then RUN.
** At this point you can start the GroupWise Agents and allow users to login to GroupWise
To complete the top down rebuild using NetWare Administrator:
1. Select the post office in the NDS View
2. Select Tools | GroupWise Utilities | Mailbox/Library Maintenance
3. Select Structural Rebuild from the Action pull down, then select Run
Steps to complete the top down rebuild using GroupWise Stand-alone GWCheck (GWCHK32.EXE):
1. Select the path to the post office and type in the name of that same post office
2. Select "User/Resource" and type the word "All" in the box below
3. Select "Structural Rebuild" from the Action pull down, then select Run
4. When this completes, go back to the Action pull down and select "Analyze and Fix"
5. Unselect "Structure", select only "Contents" and "Fix Problems", then select Run

Optional:

If you want or need to recover some disk space:

Select Expire and Reduce Messages
Since "Reduce Only" is selected by default, select Run

This recovers disk space left in the databases (User.db & Msg.db) when message items are deleted by the users

The expire option will allow you to expire message items older than the date you specify. Use caution when running this option, as once message items are expired they CANNOT be undeleted. They can only be recovered by restoring system backups.

For details or updates on this TID, see TID-10008201.