Considerations Related to Moving a Post Office

First of all, it's impossible to move a GroupWise post office to a different domain. If you are reorganizing and need to move a post office to a new domain, you need to create the post office anew in the new domain and move all the users to the new post office. Have a look at Chapter 13, "Moving Users," if this is what you need to do.

This discussion talks about moving a GroupWise post office. You are going to be moving a post office from one physical UNC location to another. Here is the information from the scenario:

• The post office to be moved is called PO-X.

• DOMAINA is the domain that owns post office PO-X.

• The file server on which PO-X originally resided is called FS1.

• The file server on which PO-X will reside is called FS2.

• The old location of PO-X is \\FS1\EMAIL\PO.

• The new location of PO-X is \\FS2\EMAIL\PO.

That's the scenario; the next few sections talk about important preparatory steps to take.

GroupWise Client Connectivity

Most customers have configured their post offices to support client/server connections from the GroupWise client to the GroupWise POA. The GroupWise client knows that it must contact the GroupWise POA via an IP address. Each time the GroupWise client loads, it reads the IP address out of one of the following locations:

• eDirectory

• The Windows Registry where the GroupWise 32-bit client is installed

• In the USER.DB file for any GroupWise caching or remote client

If these locations don't provide the client with a valid IP address, it might check domain name services (DNS) for the NGWNAMESERVER POA.

Note

If the local machine has a value defined in the Registry at HKLM\SOFTWARE\Novell\GroupWise\Client\5.0\DefaultIPAddress and DefaultIPPort, the GroupWise client will not check NGWNAMESERVER to find a POA.

The trick is to communicate the new IP address to all GroupWise clients. If you specified the IP address for the POA using a DNS name (for example, POA.POX.WORLDWIDEWIDGETS.COM), the change is an easy one. Just change the DNS translation table for POA.POX.WORLDWIDEWIDGETS.COM so that it reflects the new IP address of the POA when running on FS2. In this way, the settings that the clients have stored will still be correct. The client will look to DNS to resolve the hostname the same way it did before the PO was moved, and DNS will give the client the new address.

If you have specified the IP address for the POA using numbers (which most customers do), for example 10.100.221.2, you have to depend on the client to perform an eDirectory lookup, or a DNS lookup for NGWNAMESERVER. This walkthrough shows you how to configure your system so that those lookups succeed.

DomaintoPost Office Connectivity

The GroupWise MTA for DOMAINA has to know how to connect to the PO-X post office. Otherwise, messages will not move from the DOMAINA MTA to the POA running on PO-X.

GroupWise WebAccess and GWIA Connectivity

Your GroupWise WebAccess Agent needs to know about the change to PO-X's location and/or IP address. If your GWIA is configured for POP3 or IMAP4 support, it will also need to know how to get hold of the newly moved PO-X post office. These two gateways connect directly to the post office to provide alternative types of mailbox access, as discussed in Chapter 10 and Chapter 11. If they do not know about the post office's POA's new IP address, you will have WebAccess, POP3, or IMAP4 users who cannot get to their mail.

Libraries with Additional Document Storage Areas

If a library is contained in the post office you're moving, you might have an additional concern. Usually, you can simply copy the entire post-office structure, library directories and all, and be fine. The problem comes in when there are document storage areas (DSAs) defined outside of the post office directory.

If the DSA needs to be moved, consult Novell's knowledgebase to see what caveats the latest GroupWise code may have with moving a Document Storage Area. DSA Moves can occur independently of post office moves. If the DSA does not need to be moved, all you need to do is make sure that, when the POA runs at the new location, it still has full access to the DSA.

If you are moving a post office to a Linux server, please be aware that a GroupWise for Linux post office cannot have a Document Storage Area outside of the post office.

Warning

If you move a post office to a new location but keep the DSA at the old server path, you might have problems loading your GroupWise POA. You might get a DF17 error, and the POA will not load. You need to correct the DF17 error; but to get things up and running, you can add a /noconfig switch to the POA's startup file. You still must make sure that the POA can connect to the DSA.

The Software Distribution Directory (SDD)

Software Distribution Directories are similar to document storage areas in that they can be moved independently of the post office. You have three basic options with regard to your Software Distribution Directory:

• Assign the PO to a new Software Distribution Directory. It might be that with the PO move, a different server is used to deliver applications to users. If there is another SDD there, it makes sense to assign that one to the PO you are moving.

  Warning

  If you assign a post office to a new Software Distribution Directory, keep in mind the bump and build numbers. If you do not want your users to get prompted to update the GroupWise client, make sure that the BUILD number is tweaked accordingly. See Chapter 12, "Administering the GroupWise Client," for more details on the bump and build numbers.

  
  

• Move the Software Distribution Directory. This should be your choice if the SDD resides on the same server as the users. In this case, you need to copy the SDD to the new server and edit the path of the SDD using the software directory management tool discussed in Chapters 6, "Using GroupWise System Operations," and 8, "Configuring the Post Office Agent."

This section talked about all the things to keep in mind when moving a post office. The next sections include an actual scenario for moving a post office.