micasad not starting

  • 7006414
  • 08-Jul-2010
  • 27-Apr-2012

Environment

Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES 2) Linux
Novell Common Authentication Service Adaptor (CASA)
Novell Cluster Services
Novell Apple File Protocol (AFP)
Novell Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP)
Novell Domain Name System (DNS)
Novell Common Internet File System (CIFS)

Situation

After a reboot of a Novell Open Enterprise Server 2 (OES2SP2) several Services that rely on CASA, like Novell Cluster Services, Novell DHCP and Novell Apple File Protocol (AFP) fail to start.
 
First make sure that you are not suffering from lost CASA credentials after the reboot as described in KB 7005275.
 
Non the less, if this is not the case and all services that rely on CASA fail to start, you may be suffering from a stale, leftover micasad PID file.
Verify if the micasad is running using rcmicasad status.  
If this shows that this deamon is "dead", try to stop and start the service using rcmicasad stopfollowed by a rcmicasad start.
 
Be aware that starting the service does not spawn an error when it fails, verify if the service still is "dead" or not according to rcmicasad status.

Resolution

When the micasad still did not start, more then likely the PID file from the previous session did not get cleared.
 
First verify if there is no stuck CASA thread running using ps aux | grep -i casa
 
When this shows a a stuck micasad thread ( /usr/bin/micasad-init /usr/bin/micasad.exe) it should be sufficient to kill -9 [pid] that process.
Then verify if it indeed got killed using the ps aux command used earlier.
Next step is to verify the existanse of the file /var/run/micasad.pid, delete it if it does exist and start the service usingrcmicasad start.
Verify that the CASA deamon is running usingrcmicasad status
 
When the server does not show a running or stuck micasad process, verify if there is a file /var/run/micasad.pid
If this file exists, remove that file and start the service using rcmicasad start
rcmicasad status should then show that the service is running.
 
As soon as the CASA deamon is verified to be running, it should be possible to manually start the services that use CASA for it's authentication, though it is recommendable to restart the complete server. This to ensure that all services are started in the fashion required.