ATT and WWS Present:
Best Practices for Novell GroupWise® 6.5 on Linux

Mike Bills

Novell

Ira Messenger

Novell

Tay Kratzer

Novell

Matt Preston

Novell

What are Best Practices?

A set of methodologies and recommendations based on experience and research that lead to optimal results.

A living document available from Novell's Support knowledge base or GroupWise Coolsolutions.

http://www.novell.com/coolsolutions/feature/9814.html

Are Best Practices different for Linux?

A large portion of the Best Practices for GroupWise are the same across the Linux, NetWare®, and Windows platforms.

Today we will cover:

Highlights of the basic and common Best Practices

Best Practices unique to the Linux based version of GroupWise

Common Best Practices

System Design

Sizing

Maintenance

Security

Internet Addressing

Patches and FTF's

Backup

System Design

No more than One (1) PO per Server

eMail is Mission Critical

POA designed to “Work Alone”

Dedicated E-mail Volume

Dedicated Domain for Gateways

Dedicated Primary Domain

Carefully consider the number of PO’s per Domain

Minimize Rebuilds

Avoid single points of failure

Minimize MTA workload

How many users per post office?

1.You tell us based on some considerations about your company's system and operations.

2. We tell you based on some educated guesses.

If you do not like answer number two, then see answer number one.

Post Office Size Considerations Not unique to GroupWise

Email Retention Policy (if you do not have, get one)

Backup and Restore times

Disk space available or currently used by your post office plus room to grow

Mailbox size restrictions

Business needs

Single points of failure

Laws and Regulations i.e. SOX, HIPPA

Sizing Table

5,000 +

5,000 +

1,500-2,500

Light

4,000-5,000

1000-1500

Medium

2,500 – 4000

700-1000

Heavy

Deskless Workforce (i.e Web/Wireless/ IMap/Pop3

Caching

Online

Mailbox Access Mode

Messaging Utilization

N/A

Maintenance

Proactive Maintenance

Daily Analyze/Fix Structure

Weekly Analyze/Fix Content

Expire/Reduce

Trigger Events

Disk Space Below 200mb

Nightly User upkeep

QuickFinder Indexing

Schedule Repairs to Occur overnight

Security

Anti-Virus / Anti-Spam

Access Points (GWIA, WebAccess and Client)

Third-party solutions

End User Education

Post Office Security Level

High security via Password, eDirectory™ or LDAP Authentication

Firewall / Proxy

Internet Addressing

DO's

Use Internet Addressing

If needed add more than one Internet Domain Name

Use userid@internet domain

If needed use the formats allowed in GroupWise

Set overrides sparingly

DONT's

Use Gateway Aliases

Set overrides on individual users unless absolutely needed

Why Patch?

Latest updates and fixes

Only the latest patch level is supported

Ensures compatibility

Remember to patch all components:

ConsoleOne®

Agents

Gateways

Clients

Where are patches located?

Novell Support Connection CD

Minimum Patch List

Consolidated Support Pack

How to Apply a Patch

ISO Format

Burn to a CD

Two ISO’s Admin CD & Client CD

Expanding Patch

Contains both the Admin files and the client files

Validate the Patch and use it as your SDD

Either run setup.exe and provide it with 6.5 Shipping CD

OR

Copy Domain and PO directories from the CD to the patch

Once Patch Directory is validated you can upgrade directly to 6.5.1 from 6.x or 5.x

Download Patches by browsing to Support.Novell.Com/filefinder

There are two (2) Patch Options

Update Path

1. Extend the Schema (if necessary)

2. Update ConsoleOne and Snapins

3. Update the MTA and POA's

4. Update the Gateways

5. Update the Client

What is an FTF?

FTF – Field Test File

A Field Test File is a pre-release version of a patch

FTF’s are built on the previous released patch

Novell has made them available to the public

FTF

Where Are FTF’s located?

FTF’s Must be downloaded from the Web

http://support.novell.com/filefinder/16963/beta.html

When do I apply an FTF?

Fix refers to FTF

When do I apply an FTF?

Problem

How to Apply an FTF

Backup

Why backup? Users never lose anything and mail never gets lost right?

NetWare®: TSAFS.NLM

Linux: DBCOPY

Best Practices Unique to GW on Linux

System Requirements

Performance & Tuning

File System Access

Installation

Administration

Migration

Backup

System Requirements

OS

SUSE® Enterprise server 8 (Not Sequoia)

SUSE Enterprise server 9

Novell Open Enterprise Server (OES)

eDirectory – Does not have to be on the Linux Server

GroupWise 6.5 for Linux includes eDirectory 8.7.3 for Solaris*, Linux, and AIX*.

System Requirements

ConsoleOne

Version 1.3.6d or later for Linux

Version 1.3.4 or later for Windows

Cross Platform Client

SUSE LINUX Desktop, SUSE LINUX 8.2, or SUSE LINUX 9 Professional, plus the KDE desktop or the GNOME desktop

Red Hat 9 or Red Hat Enterprise 3 WS, plus the GNOME desktop

Macintosh OS 10.3 (Panther)

System Requirements

X Windows required for GUI Install

Text based is available

Version X11R6

Also used by GUI Agent Consoles

GETTEXT for the installation of ConsoleOne

Performance & Tuning

One Post office per server

SWAP partition

On local drive

1.5 to 2 times the size of memory

Dedicated partition for GroupWise

Recommend different physical drive or SAN

Use Rieser or Ext3 file system

Rieser has better performance (Data)

Ext3 has more recovery options available (Root)

C/C++ Compiler and Tools – Used for debugging

Accessing Domains on other Servers

Locations of domains, post offices, gateways, libraries, software directories, etc. are stored in GroupWise databases in UNC format

GroupWise snapins for Linux must “translate” the UNC paths to mount points on the local Linux file system

Accessing File Systems

Use NCP to access domains on NetWare servers

Use SMB/CIFS to access domains on Linux or Windows servers

Using NFS will result in File Lock (820E) errors

Remember that Linux is case sensitive

Determining Mount Points

Consider the following network:

Creating Mount Points

Mount points would be created as follows:

base mount point

for NetWare server

for Linux server

“var” share on Linux server

for Windows server

“GW” share on Windows server

Mounting File Systems

The following commands will mount the file systems locally:

For NetWare:

mount -S ServerName -A IPAddress -o tcp -U user=<DN> -V volume /mnt/NWServer

For Linux:

mount -t smbfs -o username=<username> -o ip=<IP addr or DNS name> //LinuxServer/GW /mnt/LinuxServer/GW

For Windows:

mount -t smbfs -o username=<username> -o ip=<IP addr or DNS name> //WinServer/GW /mnt/WinServer/GW

Installation

The Installation program for the GroupWise on Linux is very similar to any other GroupWise installation

ConsoleOne

GW Snapins

New Domains and Post Offices

Agents

Gateways

ConsoleOne

Install ConsoleOne

Install from eDir for Linux CD

Download and install from Novell website

Requires gettext to be installed

gettext is also required for eDir Installation

Install Snapins for ConsoleOne

Install from GW Linux CD

Install from SDD

Launch ConsoleOne and Authenticate to tree

/usr/ConsoleOne/bin/ConsoleOne &

Create Domains and PO's

Use ConsoleOne to create Domains and POs

GroupWise is GroupWise. You know how to do this.

Use ConsoleOne on Linux or Windows

Once Domains and Post Office are created Install & Configure Agents

Installation Directories

GroupWise Software Distribution Directory:

/opt/novell/groupwise/software

GroupWise agent software is installed to:

/opt/novell/groupwise/agents/bin (executables)

Agent startup files are created in:

/opt/novell/groupwise/agents/share

/opt/novell/groupwise/agents

/opt/novell/groupwise/agents/share

Gateways

Installation

Access to eDir via LDAP is required

Installation needs to add objects to the tree

Use the , (comma) as a delmiter not the . (period) when specifying context for LDAP

Install from SDD /opt/novell/groupwise/software or from CD

For GWIA, disable Postfix

For GWIA, if using GW LDAP, beware of OpenLDAP conflicts

For gateway installs, beware of OpenLDAP conflicts

Administration

Mount Points and UNC Paths

Most common cause of issues

Linux is case sensitive

Load/Unload Agents & Gateways

Installation created scripts

Custom scripts

Console Access

-show command

Web Console

GroupWise Linux Mount Directory

Allows you to specify a base location that contains the mount points for the domains you work with

Default is “/mnt”

GW Diagnostics and UNC Path

GroupWise Diagnostics can be used to compare an objects UNC path with the Mount point.

GroupWise Scripts

Startup grpwise script in:

/etc/init.d

Starts the MTA and POA automatically on reboot

Does not load with interactive screen

Install creates a symbolic link:

S99grpwise in the /etc/rc5.d directory Loads agents into level 5 on restart

Understand the concept of levels

Can use CHKCONFIG to manage auto loading of the agents

GroupWise Scripts

Use the grpwise script in the init.d directory to start, stop, restart the agents without rebooting

You can also create your own scripts to start and stop the agents so that you don't need to reboot the server.

Recommended path is: /opt/novell/groupwise/agents/bin

or any convenient directory.

Should be in a directory that is on your path.

To find out what directories are on your path:

env | grep PATH

You can add the -show command to get a GUI console

MTA Screen

POA Screen

Gateways

Running

Agents installed to /opt/novell/groupwise/agents/bin

Just like the MTA & POA

./gwinter -show @../share/webac.waa &

./gwia -show @../share/gwia.cfg &

/etc/rc.d/grpwise-ia stop

start & status

/etc/rc.d/grpwise-wa stop

start & status

s99grpwise-ia & s99grpwise-wa in /etc/rc.d/rc5.d

To GUI or Not To GUI?

For better performance do NOT use the GUI.

It also requires that an X Windows session be started to load the Agent GUI Console.

The HTTP Web Console can be used just as easily not only from the Linux server but any other web browser.

Migration

Do you need to Migrate your current GroupWise system to Linux?

Only if someone is telling you that you have to get off of NetWare or Windows

If you want the better performance of Linux over Windows

NOT if you are concerned about NetWare being around

NOT if you are concerned that the GroupWise NLMs are going away

Migration

Moving the Message Store

Steps to take prior to moving the data:

Get the 6.5.5. GWCHECK or the latest GWCHECK for Windows FTF

Run GWCheck to fix ngwguard.db and case issues

Structure check of all user and message databases

In Misc support options field type in: storelowercase

The “storelowercase” option changes the case of all *.DBs to be lowercase in the NGWGUARD.DB. On a NetWare or Windows server the case of the *.DBs doesn't matter, but when *.DBs are migrated over to the Linux case does matter!

Migration

Moving the Message Store

/OFFILES is what takes the longest

Begin migrating the OFFILES directory contents before cut over

Use DBCOPY for this – Get the 6.5.5 (FTF right now) FTF for DBCOPY

http://support.novell.com/cgi-bin/search/searchtid.cgi?/2970905.htm

The day of the migration, use DBCOPY to migrate the entire post office over

All BLOBS and OFFILES directories need to be in lowercase

Backing Up GW on Linux

Currently the use of DBCOPY is recommended

An additional admin utility

SDD\Admin\novell-groupwise-dbcopy.rpm

A custom script would need to be created to automate the use of DBCOPY

Disk space for a copy of the post office or domain is required

share directory and are named after the domain or post office that the agent services.

share directory and are named after the domain or post office that the agent services.

You can create your own scripts to start and stop the agents so that you don't need to reboot the server. If you have mutilple instances of agents running on the same server (not recommended) you can create a seperate script to stop and start ech agent. Recommended path is /opt/novell/groupwise/agents/bin or any convinient directory. But, it should be in a directory that is on your path. To find out what directories are on your path:

env | grep PATH

2003-12-08T12:43:39