Health Check Prerequisites

     

Before you start a health check, you first need to have a baseline so you know what's already in place in terms of the environment. For instance, suppose your health check results show that there are three Unknown objects in the Users partition; is this an indication of a problem? Generally, Unknown objects are indicative of DS issues. However, if you know that this tree has a mix of NetWare 4.2 servers running NDS 6 and NetWare 5.1 servers running eDirectory 8.7.3 and that auxiliary classes are being used, the presence of Unknown objects could be considered normal (when viewed on a NetWare 4.2 server).

TIP

Refer to the "Auxiliary Class Object Handling" section in Chapter 6, " Understanding Common eDirectory Processes ," to see why Unknown objects may be normal in an environment where there are mixed versions of NDS and eDirectory.


The following is a list of some of the information you should gather before analyzing the health of a DS tree:

  • The number of DS trees on the network.

  • The versions of NDS/eDirectory that are running.

  • The versions and types of operating systems running (such as NetWare and Linux).

  • The service pack level of each operating system.

  • Communication protocols used between DS servers.

  • The network addresses of the DS servers, including internal network addresses of NetWare servers.

  • A drawing of the current tree design.

  • The current replica matrix, showing the number of replicas (including types) and servers holding them.

  • The time server infrastructure, including placement of time provider groups and any custom time synchronization configuration used.

  • WAN link information (number of links, speed, reliability, and so on).

  • Router hardware information, such as model and firmware level.

  • The number of objects in the tree. This does not necessarily need to be an accurate count, which can change, but it should be within 5% to 10% of the actual count.

  • A list of DS-aware applications, both from Novell and third parties. This provides you with information about possible schema extensions and use of auxiliary classes.

  • The server hardware configuration, such as the amount of total disk space, free disk space, and RAM. For NetWare servers, you should also note the size and free space on the boot partition.

  • The NetWare server software configuration ”in particular, Transaction Tracking System (TTS) settings.

You should be certain to have as much of this information as possible before attempting to analyze the health of a DS tree.



Novell's Guide to Troubleshooting eDirectory
Novells Guide to Troubleshooting eDirectory
ISBN: 0789731460
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 173

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