Question

How To Overwrite a GroupWise Restoration Management Location with a Recent Backup

Asked by: tset63

Is there a way to overwrite an existing Restoration Management restore location using a backup without getting "file in use" or "file is locked" errors?  Since the Post Office appears to keep the wphost.db file locked while the restoration area is in use, our backup cannot overwrite these files without taking the Post Office down.

Since the purpose of the Restoration Management area is to allow users to restore older emails they may have deleted, I would think there would be a standard practice available that will let you overwrite this area with a complete restore of the PO without having to take the GroupWise system down?  We would like to do a monthly update to this restore area.

Any suggestions?  I thought I came across a Cool Solution article that addressed this issue a couple years ago, but could not find it.

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Asked On
2008-03-06 at 08:30:21ID23220090
Tags

Novell

,

GroupWise

,

7.02

Topics

Novell Groupwise

,

Novell Netware Network Software

Participating Experts
2
Points
250
Comments
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Answers

 

by: billmercerPosted on 2008-03-06 at 10:22:56ID: 21063165

I believe the official recommendation is to use a standby server for the restoration area, so as to prevent this. If you don't have spare hardware for this purpose, you could also create a second POA instance on the existing server.

 

by: tset63Posted on 2008-03-07 at 07:01:43ID: 21070704

Is there not a way to point the Restoration area to another location without taking the POA down and then restore a previous backup to the area and point it back?  If the wphost.db is still locked after you point it to a new location, can't it be unlocked?  You would think Novell would have a way to keep this restore are updated as needed, wouldn't you?

Can you explain how a second POA instance would be setup and what a user or administrator would need to do to restore mail?

 

by: DSPoolePosted on 2008-03-07 at 18:26:47ID: 21075577

First of all you should never attempt to restore directly back to the working directory of your GroupWise post office and domain - you would use Console One and create a new restoration location (don't forget to give the appropriate users access).

Then you would restore the GroupWise postoffice to that location and after that you can use the GroupWise client and select File | Open Backup (point to the restore location) and access the messages there without overwriting your live post office.

http://www.novell.com/documentation/gw7/gw7_admin/index.html?page=/documentation/gw7/gw7_admin/data/acbt9jp.html

http://www.novell.com/documentation/gw7/gw7_admin/index.html?page=/documentation/gw7/gw7_admin/data/abcggai.html

http://www.novell.com/documentation/gw7/gw7_admin/index.html?page=/documentation/gw7/gw7_admin/data/a488b2t.html

 

by: tset63Posted on 2008-03-10 at 11:32:18ID: 21088904

To DSPoole:
Thanks for your input, but the problem is not the locking of the wphosts file on the live PO, but in the RESTORATION AREA ITSELF!  You cannot overwrite that file as the GroupWise System is locking that file since it is being used by the users for restoration.

I guess the best solution would be to do a restore to a new location and point the GroupWise System to that new area when the restore is finished and delete the old.  The problem is the server doesn't have a lot of free space.

Tset63

 

by: DSPoolePosted on 2008-03-10 at 13:40:52ID: 21090190

Restore to another server then.

 

by: billmercerPosted on 2008-03-10 at 15:08:08ID: 21090927

The fundamental issue you're describing is being unable to replace files on the server while they are in use by an application, which is pretty much going to be true for any application.

Why not temporarily redirect the restoration area to an alternate location? It needn't have actual live data, could be basically empty. Then restore your backup to the original location, and redirect back to it.

 

by: tset63Posted on 2008-03-13 at 10:20:06ID: 21118507

I did try that, but I believe the GroupWise system still keeps that wphost.db file locked even when it is pointed to a new location unless you restart the POA.  I haven't tried using a file unlock utility to see if it will relesa it, though.

 

by: billmercerPosted on 2008-03-14 at 08:31:51ID: 21126438

> I did try that, but I believe the GroupWise system still keeps that
> wphost.db file locked even when it is pointed to a new location
> unless you restart the POA. I haven't tried using a file unlock utility
> to see if it will relesa it, though.

Well I would not recommend trying to force unlock a file like that, as it's locked for a reason.

Let me ask another question: Why do you want to avoid restarting the POA? Is there some specific reason why you need the POA to remain running constantly?

Unless you've got a really large system, the restart should only take a matter of seconds, and most users would probably never even know it had been done, since the GroupWise client would automatically reconnect.

As I see it here are your possible scenarios for doing a restore:

1. Shut down the POA, restore backup database to the restore area, then restart POA. PO is down for a long time and inconveniences users.

2. Restore backed up GroupWise data to a location on some server, then redirect the restore area to this location and restart the POA. POA is down for a very short time and minimal inconvenience to users.

3. If you don't have enough room on your servers to hold two backups of your GroupWise system,  do a two-stage process: Turn off your current restore area, restart POA, restore from backup, turn on restore area again, restart POA again. More complicated, but still only minor impact on users.

As far as I know, there is no SAFE way to overwrite a GroupWise restore area while it is still actively in use. This makes sense, really, it's no different than overwriting any other file while it's in use. You simply don't know what would be lost or overwritten in the process, because the files are not in a static state.


You might want to consider adding more storage if keeping two backup copies at the same time is problematic.

If you're concerned about user perception of system downtime, you might want to look at using Caching Mode for your clients. This is similar to GroupWise Remote, and essentially adds a layer of isolation between the GW Client and the server.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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