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NetWare Remote Manager includes several tools to assist you in monitoring the health and status of your server. When you are familiar with the normal health and status of your server, diagnosing problems with your server becomes easier.
Performing the following tasks will help you to become familiar with the health and status of your servers:
Monitoring the health of your server can help prevent it from getting to a state in which your users cannot access the server or the data on it.
Using NetWare Remote Manager, you can monitor the server's overall health and the health of specific item.
The server's overall health is indicated by the color of the circle displayed next to the server icon in the header frame for NetWare Remote Manager. Green means the server health is good. Yellow means that the server's health is suspect. Red means the server's health is bad or has a problem. If the circle goes black or a message is displayed that the page cannot be found, the connection to your server might be lost.
The server's overall health is determined by items that are selected in the Include list on the detailed Server Health Monitoring page. By default, all items are checked.
If the status of any item that is selected in the Include list changes to yellow (suspect) or red (bad), the health status indicator light on the header frame changes to indicate there is a problem. If more than one item changes, the worst status will indicate the server's overall status. When the status for all items returns to green (good), then the health light indicator changes back to green (good).
The server's health status, reported by the health status indicator, is updated every five seconds, but the graphic refreshes only if the status changes.
To access the Server Health Monitoring page, click the overall health status indicator or the Health Monitor link in the header frame or click the Health Monitor link in the navigation frame.
The Server Health Monitoring page shows the health status (green, good; yellow, suspect; or red, bad) for all known components of the system, as well as current, peak, and maximum values. When an item is not checked in the Include column, it is not included when determining the overall server health and the values for Status, Current, Peak, and Max are not displayed.
The following items are key indicators of your server's health. You can change the thresholds for the Suspect and Critical values of these indicators.
Additional items are tracked on the Server Health Monitoring page and are displayed depending on the NLMTM programs that are loaded on the server.
If you have a server that runs differently than normal, you might want to configure the suspect and critical threshold values to something other than the default.
To change the criteria for the suspect (yellow/suspect) and critical (red/bad), status indicators, do the following:
From the Server Health Monitoring page, click Configure Health Thresholds and then the Description name link for the item you want to change.
Enter the new Suspect or Critical value and click OK.
If you want to view the health statistics trends for your server, access the Health Statistic Trend Graph Selection page by clicking the Health Monitor or View Statics link in the navigation frame and then clicking the Health Statistics Trend Graphs link on either of these pages.
Use the Statistic Trend Graph Selection page to determine which graphs you want to view and the duration for the trend.
To view one or more graphs, check the check box for each statistic and duration you want to view, and then click Draw Selected Graphs. A graph will be drawn for each check box you select.
If you want to clear all the check boxes and start determining what you want to view again, click the Reset button at the bottom of the selection table.
If you select durations of an hour or more, an average as well as a maximum value for each statistic is shown. The maximum value is always the top line of the graphs.
If you select durations of a week or a month, each graph also has links to display statistics for specific days or weeks depending on the duration you first selected.
The All Data column shows data for each statistic since PORTAL.NLM was started on your server or the Reset button was clicked for a specific item. If the server is shut down, the statistics are still tracked and recorded as 0.
After changing the server configuration or hardware, you might want to reset the data you gather. To reset the data for a specific statistic, click the Reset button at the end of the row for that statistic. To reset the data for all statistics, click the Reset button for each of the statistics.
If you want to draw your own customized graph, you can view the raw data for the graph by clicking the View Hourly Raw Data link and then copying and pasting the numbers into a spreadsheet/graphing application.
All the graph data is saved to files in SYS:SYSTEM with a .TDF extension. These files use minimal disk space compared to the value they provide.
Rather than manually checking the status, you can configure NetWare Remote Manger to send an e-mail to notify you when the server's health status changes to any value other than green (good).
When you want to be notified about the status of an item, do the following:
Check the Notify check box for that item on the Server Health Monitoring page.
If you want to receive an abend log by e-mail when the server has abended, click the Notify check box for the Abended Thread Count item on the Server Health Monitoring page.
Click the Mail Control Panel link on the Server Health Monitoring page.
Enter the required information on the Mail Notification Control page and then click Save.
A primary server and at least one user on the notification list is required.
Reload the PORTAL and HTTPSTK NLM programs from the NetWare Remote Manager configuration page.
If the health status of your server changes to a suspect or bad state, do the following:
Access the Server Health Monitoring page.
Look for the specific health item that has changed status.
View the information for the item that has changed by clicking the Info icon for the item.
This information outlines the specific health criteria (thresholds) for green, yellow, red or statuses in that component. It also provides suggestions in some cases for what might be going wrong in that component if a yellow or red indicator is displayed.
Perform the recommended or appropriate action for the health item that has changed.
You can also track the status of each health item that changes in the Server Health Log.
NetWare Remote Manager lets you build and use server groups. When you build a server group, you can select Health Monitor and Group Operations and then build a Multiple Server Health Monitor page that
To build a Multiple Server Health Monitor page, do the following:
Click the Build Group link in the navigation frame.
Build the server group.
On the Server Group Operations page, complete the Health Monitor and Group Operations options.
For a description of the options, see the online help.
(Optional) If you want to use this server group later, save the group file by clicking the Save Group File button and entering a path and filename for the group. We recommend using a name that represents the group you built.
IMPORTANT: The specified path for the server group file must be a full path on the current server that contains the volume name as the first element. For example:
\SYS\Multiple Health Configuration
VOL1\TEST\HLTHLIST.CFG
Click the Multiple Server Health Monitor button.
To view the Multiple Server Health Monitor page for a server group at a later time, do the following:
Click the Load Group File link in the navigation frame.
On the Server Group File page, enter the path or browse to the configuration file for the server group that you previously saved.
Click the Build Server Group button.
The Profiling and Debug Information page lets you view information about active and suspended threads, their states, the owning NetWare Loadable ModuleTM (NLM) programs, and execution times.
To access the Profiling and Debug Information page, click the Profile / Debug link in the navigation frame.
This information can help you identify processes that might be running abnormally on a server, such as processes that use too much CPU time. Processes that run abnormally might cause the server to abend. Sometimes you can temporarily resolve high-utilization problems on the server by identifying the offending thread and its parent NLM, and then unloading and reloading the NLM.
From this page, you can do the following:
When you access the Profiling and Debug Information page, the Execution Profile Data by Thread table is the default view displayed.
The Thread Name column shows the name of the thread being executed. To get more information about a specific thread, click the thread-name link for that thread.
Thread ID and Thread State detailed information is provided mostly to assist code developers in identifying and debugging problems with their code. At the administration level, this information is usually helpful in identifying problems with a specific NLM or with threads causing the server to hang or run slow.
If the thread was suspended by Abend Recovery, then the information includes details about the thread state at the time it was suspended.
To get information about the NLM program that owns the thread, click the NLM program name.
To profile where a thread is spending its time running, click the Execution Time link for that thread.
To view CPU Execution Profile Data by NLM, click the Profile CPU Execution by NLM link on the Profiling and Debug Information page.
In this view, you can see a 1/2-second profile of the server operating system as it is executing, the place where it is executing, and the NLM programs that the processor is spending its time in.
To see where the processor is spending time within a specific NLM, click the link in the Execution Time column for that NLM. For more information about the NLM program, click the name for the program.
If the server is idle, the main NLM programs listed will be LSL.NLMTM and the SERVER.NLM.
The percentage values shown in these tables are a detail of the overall sever's CPU utilization. If Processor 0 utilization is at 10 percent, the information on this page shows the breakdown of that 10 percent utilization.
To view a list of all the threads in the system, click the Thread Information link on the Profiling and Debug Information page.
This information is usually helpful in identifying problems with a specific NLM or with threads causing the server to hang or run slow.
To get more information about a specific thread, click the thread-name link for that thread.
If you are developing modules to run on NetWare and you want to access additional debug options, click the Additional Debug Options link on the Profiling and Debug Information page.
On the Additional Debug Options page, you can do the following tasks at the specific location while the server is still running:
Running the server configuration report is especially helpful when you want to compare the configuration of two different servers or have a record of your server setting before making any changes.
This report can also be used by Novell Technical ServicesSM to help you diagnose problems with your server that might be caused by running outdated NLM programs. When you view the report, you can also print and save the report for your network documentation.
This report contains the following information:
To run and view a Server Configuration report, click Reports / Log Files in the navigation frame and then click View Config Report on the Reports / Log Files page.
To send this report to someone from the Reports / Log Files page, enter the person's e-mail address in the e-mail address field and then click Send Config Report.
Before you can Send this report via e-mail, you must set up an e-mail server and complete the required information on the Mail Notification Control page. To access the Mail Notification Control Page, click the Configure icon in the navigation frame and the Access Mail Notification Control Page link on the NetWare Remote Manager Configuration Options page.
To print or save this report, view the report from the Report / Log Files page page and then print or save the results using your browser's features.
Running the server security report is helpful when you want to track potential security risk on a server. This report shows only the information that the logged-in user is allowed to view; so to receive a report with the most helpful information, run it when you are logged in to the server as user Admin or a user with rights equivalent to Admin.
From this report, a user with the same rights as user Admin can track the following:
Granting a user privileges at the root directory of a volume gives that user privileges to the entire volume unless those rights are specifically revoked at a lower level. You should be especially cautious about granting the Access Control rights in a root directory. Users with the Access Control right can grant themselves all other rights in any subdirectory on the volume. You can improve network security by granting each user privileges only to the specific directories he or she uses.
Users or objects should have only limited access, such as Read and File scan rights, to common directories on volume SYS: such as PUBLIC and LOGIN.
For example, for the IP protocol, you will see the IP addresses for the server, the DNS name, and a list of open ports on the server and NLM programs that use those ports. NetWare Core Protocol (NCP) information shows the protocols bound to the server and the addresses they use as well as connection information for each connection to the server. Common Internet File System (CIFS) information shows the server name, where authentication is, the name of the worksgroup, and whether Oplocks or ASync has been disabled.The security report also shows Share Points on the server and session information for each connected workstation.
As the number of users with rights equivalent to user Admin increases, your security risks multiply. Any time a user with rights equivalent to user Admin is unattended, anyone can gain access to the server.
A secure network is hard to maintain if an object has a password that is easy to guess. To enforce good security on your network, you should require your users to have a password that is unique, that exceeds five characters, and that expires at least every 60 days or less. You can achieve additional security by setting a grace login limit.
To run and view a NetWare Server Security report, click Reports / Log Files in the navigation frame and then click View Security Report on the Reports / Log Files page.
To send this report to someone from the Reports / Log Files page, enter the person's e-mail address in the e-mail address field and then click Send Security Report.
Before you can Send this report via e-mail, you must set up an e-mail server and complete the required information on the Mail Notification Control page. To access the Mail Notification Control Page, click the Configure icon in the navigation frame and the Access Mail Notification Control Page link on the NetWare Remote Manager Configuration Options page.
To print or save this report, view the report from the Reports / Log Files page and then print or save the results using your browser's features.
Several other logs are available for viewing and managing from the Reports /Logs Files page.
Use to enter and track changes made to the server or to log any other information you desire in order to track server performance or history.
Use to view alert messages and other system operation information that is sent to the System Console and Logger screens.
Use view information about all abends that have occurred on the server.
Use to view all changes in the health status of the server. Using this reports combined with several of the health statistics and trend reports can be useful in diagnosing server problems.
Each of these logs is started automatically when you start your server.
To clear a log and start recording new information in any of these logs, click the Clear link next to the log that you want to restart.
To print or save any of these reports, view the report from the Reports / Log Files page and then print or save the results using your browser's features.
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