Troubleshooting Tips and Tricks

This section describes a few more troubleshooting scenarios you might encounter, as well as discussing how you might deal with them.

X-Locked Files

GroupWise uses a platform-independent mechanism for locking files in transit. When a transport file is in the process of being created, it is often created with a filename that starts with an X. This is called an X-lock.

A GroupWise agent will not touch any file that starts with an X. You are most likely to see X-locked files for an extended period when a big file is being transmitted, or when a link between a sending and a receiving site is slow. If you see a new file (created in the past five minutes or so) beginning with an X, it is most likely still in transit. If the file is more than a day old, however, it is most likely of no value and can be deleted. This was a failed attempt to transmit a file.

Note

You will see files in the MTA's queues by the name of XNSTORE. These are not typical X-locked files. These are actually queue memory files. Here's how the MTA uses them. If the MTA comes up, and discovers that there are hundreds of files (or more) in a queue, it will get a directory listing of the files in the queue and write that directory listing to the XNSTORE file. This way, the MTA does not have to rescan the queue until it has processed all the files referenced in the XNSTORE. This is just one of those fine-tuning procedures that Novell developers do when they're trying to trim off milliseconds from message processing.

TCP/IP Troubles

Suppose for a moment that the POA is having difficulty talking to an MTA via MTP (TCP/IP). You suspect this because people on CORP complain that they cannot send to anyone outside the PO. You can see that the PO1\WPCSIN\4 directory is full of files.

Where might you start? There are a set of logical places to look to determine the problem. Here's the scenario:

CORPPO POA	IP address 137.65.55.211	MTP inbound port 7101
CORP MTA	IP address 137.65.55.211	MTP inbound port 7100

Here are the troubleshooting steps you can take to resolve this problem:

1.	Look at the POA; press F10 and choose Message Transfer Status. Figure 20.1 shows the Message Transfer Status screen on the POA. Figure 20.1. Message transfer status on a POA
2.	Look at the configuration status on the MTA by pressing F10 and choosing Configuration Status. Look at the connection to PO1. Figure 20.2 shows this screen. Figure 20.2. Configuration status on the MTA
3.	Confirm that the MTA is actually listening on port 7100 by loading TCPCON and choosing Protocol Information, TCP, TCP Connections. Ensure that the local host is using port 7100. Figure 20.3 shows this screen in TCPCON. Figure 20.3. TCPCON information showing that 7100 is in use
4.	Confirm that the MTA will receive connections at port 7100. To do this, run a Telnet program. Be sure to turn on local echo in Telnet, which makes it easier to see what's going on, as shown in Figure 20.4. Figure 20.4. Telnetting to the MTA's port 7100 Note Figure 20.4 is from a Windows 2000 workstation. The Telnet program on Windows NT and 9x is a GUI-based Telnet. You set local from the Terminal, Preferences option.
5.	If you get a connection to port 7100 (see Figure 20.4), enter some characters. You should then be disconnected. If you don't get disconnected, that's a problem. Perhaps you've found that the MTA is listening on port 7100, but you have no guarantee that the POA can reach the MTA on port 7100. See whether the file server running the POA can ping the server running the MTA. Be sure to change the byte size on the ping packet so that it represents a "normal" sort of transmission size (try 1,000 bytes).
6.	On the file server running the POA, load ping and select the IP address for the box running the MTA, changing the packet size to 1,000 bytes.
7.	Next, load the GWIP.NLM with the syntax LOAD GWIP CONNECT 137.65.55.211 7100 to test the connection to the MTA. The GWIP.NLM file can be obtained from Novell's support website and is a simple but useful tool to test GroupWise connections. The name of the download file is GWIP.EXE. See Figure 20.5 for a successful GWIP session. Figure 20.5. A GWIP.NLM session shows a successful connection

Generally, you'll find the TCP/IP connectivity problem along the way as you use these steps. If the problem continues to elude you, try performing a reinitialize system on the box that houses the POA and the MTA. You can do this while people are connected to the POA.