GroupWise Protected Memory

Groupwise, being one of the best email systems in the world, could be a pain in the ass. Run solely on a fast and reliable server and you will do just fine, but most times, that's not the way it works. You don't always have a spare server available, so maybe there's also running iManager, or ZENworks on it. But email is more important, especially according to your manager. Downtime is not acceptable, so this is what you do, you run it in protected memory space. This makes sure you can always restart your groupwise services without a chance on freezing the server. What is does, it actually isolates the groupwise software and all needed libraries and modules from the rest of the system, making it think it runs on its own. If you want to unload the software and it hangs, you kill the memory space, reload the software and it runs again.

To configure groupwise to run in protected memory space you have to edit the autoexec.ncf file. Add the following lines to your file, overwriting the old groupwise load lines:

#
# GroupWise begin
# Load GroupWise in Protected Memory Space
# Done by Sjoerd
# 15 july 2008
# sjoerd [@] warmetal.nl
# Tested on Netware 6.5
#
protect grpwise.ncf
delay 10
protect gwia.ncf
delay 10
protect strtweb.ncf
delay 10
#
# GroupWise end
#

You now have three separate address spaces:

• grpwise.ncf
• gwia.ncf
• strtweb.ncf

There are two ways for killing these address spaces:

• Commandline:
  • First unload the modules in the address space
    • unload address space=addr_space_name
  • If that doesn't work kill the entire address space
    • unload kill address space=addr_space_name
      • Note that if you want to script these commands you should put a delay of about 10 seconds in between.
• Novell Remote Manager:

• load address space=addr_space_name <module>
  • example: load address space=gwia.ncf libc.nlm

• unload address space=addr_space_name <module>

• protection
  • This will give you a list of all address spaces and their loaded modules
• Through monitor:
  • Go to virtual memory and select address spaces

Novell links:
Running GW Agents in Protected Memory Space: http://www.novell.com/support/php/search.do?cmd=displayKC&docType=kc&externalId=2953603&sliceId=&docTypeID=DT_TID_1_1&dialogID=41892577&stateId=0%200%2041894234 Load files:
grpwise.ncf

LOAD SYS:\SYSTEM\GWMTA @GWDOMAIN.MTA

LOAD SYS:\SYSTEM\GWPOA @GWPO.POA

gwia.ncf

load SYS:\SYSTEM\gwia @gwia.cfg

strtweb.ncf

load SYS:SYSTEM\gwinter @WEBAC70A.waa