Environment
Novell GroupWise 7
Novell NetWare 6.5 Support Pack 5
Novell NetWare 6.5 Support Pack 6
Situation
The Post Office Agent will not load or will abend on startup,
specifically at the point when the POA screen reads: 'Listening for Inbound Connections'.
The POA will load correctly on a test server, but will
not load when connected to its parent MTA and/or to its user and
message database structure.
Resolution
If the POA loads fine against a test system, but not
against its own system, then it is something within the environment
causing the problem. It is always best to remove pieces
of the environment until the POA will load
successfully.
1. Load the POA in a separate directory structure where
it does not have access to its user and message databases. If
it loads then it is a problem with those components.
2. Load the POA after removing the link to the MTA to
see if the communication between the two is causing it to
fail. If so, then validate the domain database and possibly
rebuild the Domain and Post Office via ConsoleOne.
The problem in this instance was a user database that had
grown to 4 GB in size. Look in both places 'ofuser' and'ofmsg' to find the problem database. Rename or remove the
database and then drop it from the guardian as per TID-10062697
entitled 'How to Drop a User or Message or Other Database from
the Guard'.
Log in as the user or send the user an email while the
POA is loaded and the database will be recreated. If
the bad database is a Message Database then the procedure is
the same, except that the POA will automatically recreate the
database once it receives a new message.
Restoring a User or Message Database from backup where the
database is less than 2 GB in size will also work; however, this
will lose the mail that was received from the recreate or restore
date. Novell does not support data retrieval from databases
that have reached the 2 GB limit, though administrators can try a
couple of things to 'save' the database.
Usually databases that reach this size have done so because
of looping mail or system-mail sent to specific
users. Try the 'SUBJECTLIST' and 'SUBJECTPURGE'
switches as per KB 7003293 titled 'GWCheck Special Options
Available in 6.0.1 and Later Code'. If these steps do not
work, Novell Support and even Novell Development most likely cannot
save the databases.
Additional Information
At 2 GB in size, FLAIM databases are at their limit of
functionality. This should never happen under normal
circumstances with a user database as it contains only pointers and
no actual attachments. 2 GB equates to over one million
message pointers, contacts and appointments. This scenario is
highly unlikely unless a message loop or other corruptive event has
occurred. Message databases in GroupWise 6.5 and earlier
would occasionally hit this limit when no email retention policy
was in place so Novell development changed GroupWise such that it
creates now 200+ message databases rather than the traditional
25.
In the observed issues surrounding the writing of this TID,
the databases had reached 4 GB in size. A 4GB
database demands special considerations in GroupWise, NetWare
and all 32-bit applications/operating systems. Thus problems
occurring from a 'working file' of that size might be partially
unavoidable. Currently the abend phenonemon is under
investigation by Novell development.