Using SMS Service Manager

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Status messages will be, and should be, your first stop when you’re trying to understand an SMS process or to troubleshoot a problem on your site. However, in addition to status messages, you can also study the log files that each component can generate. Log files provide an even greater level of detail in describing how an SMS component is functioning, especially in relation to other components.

Remember from Chapter 3 that log files aren’t enabled in SMS 2003 by default in order to conserve server resources. After all, there are over 40 different SMS components and services that can generate log files. In addition, each log file can hold up to 1 MB of data before archiving that data to an archive log. Altogether, if all component logs and archive logs were full, the server would require over 80 MB worth of storage space just for these files.

On the other hand, log files are enabled on SMS clients by default because the number of client components is considerably less and so that the SMS administrator doesn’t have to visit a client to enable logging. Also, each log file defaults to 256 KB in size. We also explored using SMS Service Manager to enable SMS 2003 log files through the SMS Administrator Console in Chapter 3.

SMS Service Manager is also used to monitor the status of components. Unlike the Status Message Viewer, SMS Service Manager provides an at-a-glance view of SMS components and services running on the site server and on each site system. As shown in Figure 5.44, you can see the status of each component represented both as an icon preceding each entry and in the Status field, the server the component is running on, the last time the component was polled, and the component type. The icon preceding each entry appears only after you query each component for its current status by right-clicking it and choosing Query from the context menu. Using the same technique, you can also stop, pause, and resume component activity.

Tip 

If you want to stop all the SMS Executive threads, stop the SMS_SITE_COMPONENT_MANAGER first and then stop SMS_EXECUTIVE using SMS Service Manager, because the Site Component Manager might attempt to restart the SMS Executive if it’s stopped. The Windows Services administrative tool also enables you to stop these services; however, using SMS Service Manager is the preferred method.

Tip 

Just because an SMS component is listed as stopped doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a problem with the service. Some services, like SMS_NETWORK_DISCOVERY, highlighted in Figure 5.44, run on a predetermined or administrator-defined schedule. It’s important to familiarize yourself with viewing status messages and log files so that you can determine whether a component problem exists.

Figure 5.44: SMS Service Manager, displaying a list of components and services running on the site server.

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