How to down and restart an SFT III server.

(Last modified: 19Oct2001)

This document (10017147) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

goal

fact

Novell NetWare 4.11 SFT III

Formerly TID 2925165

fix

Halting and restarting a single IOEngine:

1. Decide which IOEngine needs to be halted; either the primary or the secondary.
2. Use ALT-ESC combination to toggle through the screens until you get to the IOEngine you want to halt.
3. Type halt on the IOEngine prompt and it will Ask you to type "EXIT" to go to a dos prompt. If the IOEngine is the Primary, the Secondary will automatically become the Primary.
4. To start the IOEngine type "mserver" at the NetWare startup directory (the default is C:\NWSERVER).

Taking the Whole SFT III Server Down:

1. Toggle to the MSEngine prompt.
2. Type "down".
3. Both servers should now have prompts at their respective IOEngine consoles after dismounting volumes, etc.
4. Type "exit" at both IOEngine prompts to take the servers down to a dos prompt.

Starting SFT III from DOS:

1. From the NetWare startup directory on both servers type "mserver", this activates the IOEngine. This will bring up both ioengines and the msl board should also establish connection with the other server. (Some customers have the mserver command in their autoexec.bat file, so by rebooting the server the IOEngine will get loaded automatically).
2. After the MSL connection is active, toggle to the IOEngine you want to act as Primary and type "Activate Server". Only one IOEngine can have "activate server" typed on it; make sure it is the one that you want to be primary. This will bring up the MSEngine and memory will then be synchronized. At this point the the users should be able to login to the MSEngine. The drive mirroring may have to take place, but SFT III is essentially ready.

With NetWare 3.11 SFT III it mattered which side was declared primary because NetWare would think this side has the most current data (so if you have 3.11, choose the server with the most current data on it to type "activate server"). With NetWare 4.10 and 4.11 SFT III, it does not matter which server has the most current data; SFT III will figure it out (by comparing time stamps on the partitions) for the user and mirror the data correctly keeping the newest copy. However, when the IOEngine was brought down if there were any orphaned partitions, or partitions out of sync, or anything out of the ordinary (on the IOEngine that does not have the current data), do not take the chance and "activate server" there - this could cause results that lead to data loss. Only do this procedure when both servers were working perfectly before going down and the partitions were syncing normally.

Do not bring SFT III up with *ONLY ONE* IOEngine running that holds non-current data and "activate server" on it. SFT III will time stamp the partition(2) as the most current data. Then, when the IOEngine that has the most current data is brought into the network, it will be over-written with data from the other server. You will lose current data if you do this.

Aside:

Do not ever put "activate server" in IOSTART.NCF. If both IOEngines were activated, this would result in duplicate server names and internal IPX numbers.

document

Document Title:	How to down and restart an SFT III server.
Document ID:	10017147
Solution ID:	1.0.21176101.2331810
Creation Date:	22Sep1999
Modified Date:	19Oct2001
Novell Product Class:	NetWare

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