Environment
Novell GroupWise 8
Microsoft Window's 2003 R2 Cluster
Microsoft Window's 2003 R2 Cluster
Situation
The POA is slow in failing over or has problems starting up.
Brief snippets from the error in the Windows 2003 Event Viewer logs may show:
Brief snippets from the error in the Windows 2003 Event Viewer logs may show:
- The following information is part of the event: <name of POA Windows Service>, An invalid configuration option was detected (8F03).
- Command Line Option: Q:\GroupWise\Agents\gwpoa.exe.
Resolution
In the Windows 2003 Cluster Administrator, for the POA resource,
check the Parameters tab. If the Start parameters field is
populated with the path to the agents executable such as
Q:\GroupWise\Agents\gwpoa.exe, then clear out this field as that
parameter is not valid. The path to the agent executable is
already set in the registry as can be seen under the service and
can be verified in the system registry by going to the following
location:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\<name of
POA Windows Service>. Having the Start parameter set to
the path of the agent's executable is like trying to start the POA
twice as it will not work. This will cause the POA to take
longer to start and log the 8F03 to the Event Viewer for the
POA.
Additional Information
Some other items to take into consideration for helping the POA
startup quick on Windows may include some of the following.
For reference here is a copy of the entire error taken from the Event Viewer log:
The description for Event ID ( 107 ) in Source ( <name of POA Windows Service> ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event:<name of POA Windows Service>, An invalid configuration option was detected (8F03).
Command Line Option: Q:\GroupWise\Agents\gwpoa.exe.
- Documentation for running the POA on a Windows Cluster strongly recommends using the /ip switch in the POA's start up file so the POA doesn't have to rely upon the MTA when trying to start up. Using this switch will help the POA start up faster.
- Since the POA has to rely upon a mapped resource in order to get access to it's files, that mapping should not change, instead of using the /home-\\<server name> switch, it may be better to use the /home=Q:\<drive mapping to PO's directory> since it's already mapped and allow for faster start up of the POA without the POA trying to resolve the server name.
- Use the already existent drive mapping for the log directory, if a specific path is set, otherwise leave it at it's default path. This will allow the POA to not try to resolve the server name and rely upon a constant mapping.
- Make sure the in the properties of the Novell Client, under the Advanced Settings tab on each workstation that runs the Windows agent or has ConsoleOne with GroupWise snap-ins with the following changes:
- File Caching set to Off.
- File Commit set to On.
- Rebuild owning domain and post office. This will help insure correct information is up to date and clear out old records that could be dirtying up the start up process.
For reference here is a copy of the entire error taken from the Event Viewer log:
The description for Event ID ( 107 ) in Source ( <name of POA Windows Service> ) cannot be found. The local computer may not have the necessary registry information or message DLL files to display messages from a remote computer. You may be able to use the /AUXSOURCE= flag to retrieve this description; see Help and Support for details. The following information is part of the event:<name of POA Windows Service>, An invalid configuration option was detected (8F03).
Command Line Option: Q:\GroupWise\Agents\gwpoa.exe.