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How To Monitor GroupWise
Diethmar Rimser
Austria
October 2, 2006
Introduction
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Who am I?
Diethmar Rimser, Austria
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[email protected]
owner of GroupWise.at
responsible for the Austrian branch of GroupWise & Friends
I started with Novell in 1985!
CNI since 1994
In 1996 GroupWise (5) has touched me –
since that milestone in my life my business is
GroupWise.
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Agenda
General Considerations
Overview
Installation, Features and Best Practices
Conclusion
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General Considerations
Why Monitoring?
• How do you get the information if one of your
agents is down? By your users?
• Do you know how many messages are
(concurrently) passing the MTA?
• Do you know how many messages are waiting for
being sent to the internet?
• Do you know how many people will concurrently
use WebAccess?
• How do you know where that mail stucks in your
system?
• Did you ever make some trend analysis?
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Why Monitoring?
Reactive Management
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Troubles will be „announced“
Be prepared if troubles occur!
Be well informed if troubles occur!
Proactive Management
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Measure your system (performance, load, characteristics, …)
Find out your „favorite“ troublemakers
A monitoring tool is powerful helper to find out more
about the characteristics and bottlenecks of your
system. This utility should help you the avoid troubles
and to react faster if you are in trouble.
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Overview
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GroupWise Monitor Overview
Watch the agents
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via HTTP or SNMP
General properties – server/agent up or down
Specific surveillance – thresholds
Group your agents
Check the link configuration
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Link trace
Link verification
Performance testing
Reports
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Environment
User, Link traffic
Message tracking
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GroupWise 7 – what‘s new?
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IPV6 Support
The Monitor Agent supports the IPV6 protocol when it is
available on the server. If it is available, the Monitor Agent
detects it and supports IPV6 by default, along with IPV4.
IPV6 support is available on Linux and Windows.
New Monitor Web Console URL
http://Web_server_address/gw/gwmonitor
Monitor Agent Web Console Emphasized
The Monitor Agent Web console includes functionality that the
Monitor Web console does not.
http://Web_server_address:8200
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GroupWise 7 – what‘s interesting?
Enhanced Reports
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Preparation: monitor domain=external domain(+ link configuration),
monitor post office=external post office, external user to represent
the Monitor Agent; forward all gateway accounting messages to that
user. Configure the Monitor Agent to communicate with the selected
MTA.
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Accounting Reports:
In the Monitor Agent Web console, click Reports > Gateway
Accounting to view the accounting files.
Trend Reports
The Trends report presents graphs of agent MIB variables as
sampled over time. Click Reports > Trends.
Downtime Report: Reports > Downtime.
Image Map: visual picture of your GroupWise system,
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Installation, Features and Best Practices
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GroupWise Monitor Agenda
Preparation, requirements
Installation
Maintaining the monitor agent
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Configuration
Thresholds and Notifications
Troubleshooting
Using message tracking
Monitoring through a web browser
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GroupWise Monitor Prerequisites
Setting up the GroupWise agents for
Monitoring
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Enable Message Logging on all MTA’s
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Configuring GroupWise agents…
Define the following settings on each MTA,
POA, GWIA, and WebAccess agent:
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HTTP Port
HTTP User
HTTP Password
Use ConsoleOne to define these settings,
rather than the agent startup files.
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Accessing the HTTP Ports of Agents
HTTP Port of a GroupWise 7 post office agent
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Installing GroupWise Monitor Agent
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The Monitor Agent will run on Linux or Windows
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Identify what domain the Monitor Agent will read when loading.
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Install the Monitor Agent on any NT/Linux Class PC. Can be a
Workstation or Server. Does not need to be a high end box.
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Launch the monitor agent
– by running GWMON.EXE from the install directory or
– Change to cd /opt/novell/groupwise/agents/bin
and start the monitor with
./gwmon --home /domain_directory &
--ipa IP_address --ipp port_number &
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GroupWise Monitor Communication
Monitor communicates with the agents in one
of two ways
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XML over HTTP (primary and preferred method)
SNMP (secondary method)
– GroupWise 5.5 and earlier versions of the agents
– Gateways
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GroupWise Monitor Communication
(cont.)
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Defining a domain for monitor agent
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The monitor agent is pointing to a GroupWise domain
database (WPDOMAIN.DB) in order to read the GroupWise
system configuration.
Consider creating a secondary domain on the monitor
machine.
If using Windows install the agents as services to run against
this particular secondary domain.
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Introduction to Monitor
Reading the main screen
Agent details
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Address
Exceeded thresholds
MIB values
Notes
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Viewing Agent Console
The agent console dialog looks like the NT
agents, no agent console for Linux
MTA’s “Queue Watch” allows you to see
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All of the domains and post offices to which that MTA directly
connects
The state of the link
The state of the queues
Agent settings
Configuration status
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Configuration Menu Items
HTTP
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Set the poll time
Set the rate at which the browser pages refresh
Set the password used when accessed by a browser
Set the port monitor listens on for HTTP requests
SNMP
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Set retries, timeouts, and community strings
Filter
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Lets you filter which agents you want to monitor
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Notification
SMTP
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Notification is done directly from the monitor so that we don't
get messages backed up in the GroupWise system that could
be having a problem
SNMP traps
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Can send traps to an SNMP management system
Can receive traps from GroupWise agents
Sounds
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Sounds can be defined that will play when various events
occur
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Thresholds
Thresholds
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Lets you set thresholds on any of the variables exported by the
agents
You pick the state the agent will be in if the threshold is
exceeded
To give more granularity you can define your own state
This allows you to have a states called “MTA backed up” or
“POA overloaded”
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Log Menu
Log Settings
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Lets you determine the path for the log file, how old they can
be, and how much disk space they can take
View Log Files
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Lets you view the event log files
View History Files
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Lets you view the history log files
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Adding Other Agents
Discover Machine
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Type in the IP address of a machine, (DNS names work as
well), and the monitor will discover all the agents that are
running on that machine
Discover Network
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Type in a subnet, and it will find all the agents on that subnet
Add Agent
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Lets you add a single agent to the list of agent that are
monitored
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Configuring the Monitor Agent
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Create folders to organize agents into groups
Can drag any agent into appropriate folder
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Monitor agent provides hierarchal management of agents via
various groups.
“Parent” group settings can be applied to “child” groups
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Configuring the Monitor Agent (cont.)
May want to configure NT Box to send SNMP
traps if desired. Accessed under Services |
SNMP Service
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Can define community strings, and destination SNMP
Management tool to send traps too.
Enable HTTP User and password protection
on Monitor Agent.
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consider enabling intruder detection.
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Domain Threshold Best Practices
Suggested Domain Thresholds
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Post Office Threshold Best Practices
Suggested Post Office Thresholds
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GWIA Threshold Best Practices
Suggested GWIA Thresholds
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WebAccess Threshold Best Practices
Suggested WebAccess Thresholds
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Configuration Conclusion
A lot of settings, a lot of work (especially
thresholds)
But only one file is holding all the information!
Monitor.xml
Save this file!
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Troubleshooting Tools
Link Trace
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Allows you to trace the links from one domain to another
You see all the intermediate MTAs as well as the state of the
next link (open, blocked, etc.) and how many messages are
backed up going to the next link
Link Verification
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Lets you see how a domain connects to all other domains
This will flag problems with the configuration, such as a loop in
the system
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Performance Testing
Monitor
Corporate
MTA
Utah
Colorado
MTA
MTA
Provo
Denver
Post Office
Agent
Post Office
Agent
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Reports
Environment
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Shows the platform information for each of the agents you are
filtering on
This includes OS version, CLIB version, DS, and TCP/IP
Novell NetWare Loadable Module™ (NLM™) version, number
of packet receive buffers, etc.,
– This list could be mailed directly to support
User traffic
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Lets you see how much traffic a user has sent through a
particular MTA
Requires message logging be active on the MTA in question
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Reports (cont.)
Link traffic
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Lets you see how much traffic an MTA has sent over its links
This report and the user traffic report can be saved and pulled
up into a spreadsheet for graphing or other analysis
Requires message logging be active on the MTA in question
Message tracking
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Tracks a message through the system
This allows the administrator to quickly find a message a user
sent that has not yet been delivered
Requires message logging be active on the MTA in question
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New Reports for GroupWise 7
Enhanced Reports
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Preparation: monitor domain=external domain(+ link configuration),
monitor post office=external post office, external user to represent the
Monitor Agent; forward all gateway accounting messages to that user
Configure the Monitor Agent to communicate with the selected MTA.
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Available via Monitor Agent:port (f.e. 8200)
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Accounting Reports:
In the Monitor Agent Web console, click Reports > Gateway Accounting
to view the accounting files.
Trend Reports
The Trends report presents graphs of agent MIB variables as sampled
over time. Click Reports > Trends.
Downtime Report: Reports > Downtime.
Image Map: visual picture of your GroupWise system
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Conclusion
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Watch Your System
It's so easy to watch your system
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Software for monitoring is included
Use it proactive!
Use it to get the right hints if your GroupWise is in trouble!
Use it to work out how important this GroupWise is for your
company (=trends)!
You need more?
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Third Party Products
Control from IntelliReach
Redline from GWAVA
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