Generating a Fresh User Database Without Losing Items

This walkthrough helps you create a new USERxxx.DB file for the user without losing any GroupWise messages and calendar items.

Exporting a User's Mailbox

Those of you familiar with the Archive feature might wonder why this section is called an exporting process. Users' mailboxes aren't just composed of messages; they're also the folder structure the users have created, their address books, their calendar items, even their trash items. People are rather sensitive about their mailboxit can be an office of sorts. You won't be able to restore shared address books, shared folders, rules, and personal preferences, but you should take care to restore everything you possibly can.

Configuring the Archive Directory

You first need to specify an archive location in order to create an Archive mailbox. Before we get into how to do this, take some precautions. We have had experience in the past with Windows caching data rather than writing it to the hard drive. When you are archiving so much data, it is often better to specify the archive path to a NetWare server. The NetWare client does a much better job than Windows does of handling data, which decreases the likelihood of corrupting the Archive mailbox when you're archiving a lot of data at one time.

Here are the steps for specifying the Archive directory:

1.	From inside the user's mailbox, select Tools, Options, Environment, File Location, Archive directory.
2.	Specify an Archive directory. Be sure to specify a new archive path; do not archive to an existing Archive mailbox. Using an existing mailbox would mix messages that the user intends for the Archive mailbox with messages intended for the master mailbox.

Configuring the Mailbox Folder Structure for Export

Many users have created an elaborate folder structure under their mailboxes and cabinets. When you archive messages, the folders containing messages are automatically created in the Archive mailbox. When you eventually unarchive the items, those folder names are re-created in the live mailbox. Folders containing no messages, however, will be lost. Again, the idea is to try to make the mailbox look as it did before it was deleted.

Following are the steps for preserving a mailbox folder structure:

1.	Find one small message item in the user's mailbox that you will use for helping you to easily export the folders in this mailbox.
2.	Highlight the item and select Edit, Move/Link to Folders.
3.	In the resulting Move/Link Selections to Folder dialog box, place a check next to each folder within the Cabinet object. If the user has other folders under the mailbox that are not in the Cabinet, you can place check marks next to those. Figure 23.7 shows an example of this step. Figure 23.7. Linking a message item to all folders
4.	With the check marks in place, click the Move button. This makes a virtual copy of this message in every folder in the mailbox. Get out of the Move/Link option. When you archive the folders, every folder will be created because there is an item in each of the folders.

Exporting All Messages Items

Now you are going to export the real meat of the mailbox. The easiest way to see that you get everything in the mailbox is to use the Find feature in the GroupWise mailbox.

When you choose Tools, Find, make no additional selections from the Find dialog box, and click the OK button, you are actually telling GroupWise to find everything. And you'll see, everything will come up in the Find window. If this user is tidy, or if you have an aggressive email retention policy, perhaps you'll see just a few hundred items. However, you are more likely to see thousands and thousands of items. The problem with this is that the Find window will not display that many items. You might therefore need to alter your Find query to find only items from a certain time period or of a certain type.

You can, for example, alter the scope of the query by using the Date range section. You can specify a three-month range, and issue the Find, archive the items, and then modify the find from the Find window by selecting Tools, Modify Find. The idea is to get a maximum of about 4,500 items in the Find window, and then modify the Find window to get the next batch of items. Your goal is to eventually find, and then archive, all the message items in the user's mailbox.

Here are the basic steps for doing this; you might need to deviate from them to narrow the query a bit:

1.	Inside the user's mailbox, select Tools, Find. Make sure that the Find tab is active, not the Find by Example tab.
2.	Accept the defaults and click the OK button. If you suspect that this user has more than 4,500 items in the mailbox, modify the find by using the Date Range feature.
3.	Select the first 500 or so items with a Shift-click of the mouse. Select Actions, Move to Archive.
4.	Repeat step 3 (and possibly step 2) until all items are moved to the Archive mailbox.

This process of archiving the items from the Find query should find calendar items, be they group or personal calendar items, and all message items, whether sent or received. Ideally, this process will move all message items from the master mailbox to the Archive mailbox. When you get finished, the mailbox should look like a ghost town, perhaps containing a bunch of empty folders.

Tip

Although this manual method works very well, it can be time-consuming. In the past we've been using tools created with the Advansys Formativ development framework which completely automates the archiving and unarchiving of a mailbox, including the users' address books. You can find more info about Formativ at www.advansyscorp.com.

Exporting the TrashIt's Quick!

You might think this is crazy, but exporting the trash adds to the psychological effect of what you are doing. If you bring back the user's trash, that person will think you performed wonders, yet it takes just a minute:

1.	Create a new folder in the cabinet of the user's mailbox (not the Archive mailbox), called trash2.
2.	Go to the trash and Shift-click to select all items. Drag them to the new trash2 folder you created.
3.	Go to the trash2 folder you created under the cabinet, Shift-click to select all items, and select Actions, Archive.

Note

Later, you will move these trash items in the trash2 folder back to the trash bucket in the user's live mailbox.

Exporting the Address Book

Every user has at least two address books and quite often more than that. These two address books are the Frequent Contacts address book and the address book named as the user's full name. The user you are working with might even have more. You can export the user's address books, and then later you will import them into the new mailbox.

Following are the steps for exporting personal address books:

1.	Go to the GroupWise Address book by selecting Tools, Address Book.
2.	Choose a personal address book to export by clicking the tab of the address book (not the Novell GroupWise address book; that's your system address book, not a personal address book).
3.	Inside the address book, choose File, Export, Entire Address Book. Figure 23.8 shows this dialog box. Figure 23.8. Exporting the GroupWise personal address books
4.	Save the file as a *.NAB file. You might want to name the *.NAB files according to the name of the address bookfor example, TKRATZER-Frequent Contacts.NAB.

You've exported everything you possibly can. Now you need to rename the user's database and drop it from the guardian database (NGWGUARD.DB).

Following are the steps for removing a user's database and dropping the user's registration from the NGWGUARD.DB file:

1. Note TKRATZER's FID: Determine what TKRATZER's FID is. If GroupWise is loaded, and you're logged in as TKRATZER, choose Help, About GroupWise. The FID is in parentheses next to the user's name.

2. Rename TKRATZER's user database: Now you need to rename TKRATZER's user database file. You know that TKRATZER's FID is 5NW. The file you are looking for, USER5NW.DB, is in the OFUSER subdirectory of the user's post office directory. Rename the file to USER5NW.OLD.

Note

As discussed earlier in the chapter, the POA might need to be unloaded before this database can be renamed.

Renaming TKRATZER's USERxxx.DB file is not enough. The USER5NW.DB file is registered in the NGWGUARD.DB. Now you must "drop" the USER5NW.DB file (that you renamed to USER5NW.OLD) from the NGWGUARD.DB. Following are the steps for doing this:

1.	Run the standalone GWCheck utility, as shown in Figure 23.9. Figure 23.9. Using GWCheck to drop a USERxxx.DB file from the guardian database
2.	Specify the following: Database Type: Post Office. Database Path: Specify the path to the post office that TKRATZER is on. Post Office Name: Specify the name of the post office that TKRATZER is on. Object Type: User/Resource. User/Resource: USER5NW.DB. Action: Structural Rebuild (not a structure Analyze/Fix Databases). Databases: User.
3.	Click Run.

The GWCheck log will indicate an error 26; you should expect and want this error. See Figure 23.10 for an example of this. These are the items to pay attention to:

• Access and test the clean mailbox: It's time for a sanity check. Launch GroupWise as the user (using the /@u-? switch). The mailbox should be empty. Make sure that you can no longer duplicate the problem the user was having. If you can still duplicate the problem, this whole exercise is pointless. You probably did not correctly determine the specificity of the problem.

  Tip

  Remember, if you get a C05D error when loading the GroupWise client, you need to bring the post office's POA down and back up again.

  
  

• Restore items from the archive: Assuming that the problem can no longer be duplicated, it is time to begin the process of moving items from the Archive mailbox back into the master mailbox. See the next section for how to do this.

Figure 23.10. GWCheck should give an error 26

Importing a User's Mailbox

When you get into TKRATZER's live master mailbox, the steps are nearly the reverse of the export process steps, of course. First, though, in order for the Find feature to work on the Archive mailbox, you must access the Archive mailbox, and then exit GroupWise. GroupWise needs to rebuild the QuickFinder index on the Archive mailbox. Exiting GroupWise after GroupWise has discovered that it has new indexing to do causes the QuickFinder index for the Archive mailbox to be rebuilt, which helps the Find feature work properly.

Importing Mail/Folders and Trash Items

Following are the steps for importing folders and trash items from an Archive mailbox to a master mailbox:

1.	Get into the user's live GroupWise mailbox.
2.	Go into Tools, Options, Environment, File Location, Archive directory. Specify the Archive directory that you specified earlier in this chapter.
3.	Go into the Archive mailbox by selecting File, Open Archive. Then exit GroupWise. (On older GroupWise clients, this allows GroupWise to reindex the Archive mailbox.) The index is essential when using the Find feature in step 4.
4.	Get back into GroupWise and select File, Open Archive. From within the Archive mailbox, select Tools, Find. Find items in the same manner in which you did when you archived messages into the Archive mailbox. Be sure to select the Find tab, not the Find by Example tab. (If the Find feature does not find any items, try exiting GroupWise again.)
5.	Select the items in the Find Results view and choose Actions, Move to Archive (this actually unarchives the items and moves them back to the master mailbox).
6.	Repeat step 5 until all items are unarchived. Get into the master mailbox (rather than the Archive mailbox). You should see your message items, and all the folders that were created. You still need to deal with the trash.
7.	Make sure you're in the master mailbox, not the Archive mailbox. Go to the trash folder under the cabinet. Delete this trash2 folder under the cabinet, as well as all the messages in the TRash2 folder. This will move the messages to the trash bucket on the master mailbox.

You restored/imported all the message data, and it should show up in the master mailbox. There is more data that needs to be imported, as explained in the next section.

Importing the Address Books

The import process is, of course, the opposite of the export process you performed earlier.

Inside the GroupWise address book, you should see at least two personal address books. They are the Frequent Contacts address book, and the address book with the same name as the user's full name. Follow these steps to import them both:

1.	Highlight one of the address book tabs for an address book you will import, and select File, Import.
2.	Specify the correct *.NAB file for this address book. This is going to be the *.NAB file that you exported earlier.
3.	If the user has more than the two default address books, you have to create the address book tabs for these address books before attempting to import the *.NAB file. To do this, select File, New Book, and create the address book with the same name it had before.

Now the user's personal address books are imported.

Final Notes on the Import Process

The import process did not import the following less common attributes about a mailbox:

• Rules

• User preferences

• Saved Find folders

• Button bar settings

Earlier in the solution, you might have linked a message item to several folders, in order to re-create the folder structure. You don't want that item linked to all the folders. Do the following:

1.	Find one instance of that message item that is linked to all the folders.
2.	Forward the message as an attachment from Tay Kratzer to Tay Kratzer. This way, the message isn't lost.
3.	Archive the one item, and it will no longer be in all the folders. Then you can delete the archive; it's no longer needed at this time.

Here are the final things to pay attention to in order to set the mailbox as close to how it was before it was re-created:

• Set the archive path back to the original archive path that TKRATZER had, if they had an archive path. Do not select the option to move items.
  
  
• Set up proxy access.
  
  
• Set up shared folders.
  
  
• Request shared folders from others who have shared folders with TKRATZER.
  
  
• Set up shared address books.
  
  
• Request shared address books from others who have shared address books with TKRATZER.
  
  

Now you've completely re-created a mailbox database.