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Problem monitoring available disk space with Remote Manager
I'm trying to use Remote Manager to view trends in available disk space on a Netware 6 file server. I read that the negative numbers are a cosmetic problem- just ignore the negative sign. But beyond that I really can't make any sense of the graphs I'm getting. For example, over the past month, available space (observed daily by other means) has varied up and down by several G. Just in the last few days it has gone from 17.6 to 17.1 to 14.5 to 12.7. When I ask for a graph of the past week's activity however, I get a graph of G vs time in 1 hour samples that has a straight line across at -1.470428946E9 G. (Actual disk space at the time the graph was taken was 12.5G.) When I ask for a plot of the last month's activity I get an even more bizarre plot with the same flat line at the same level except for a single day dip far into (unlabeled) positive territory. (I have a jpg of this last plt but don't know how to attach it.)
On the Server Health Monitoring screen of Remote Manager, Available Disk Space shows-17,592,183,918,811MB
Can anyone tell me how to interpret these strange graphs and figures.
Thanks for any help.
Anne Marshall
On the Server Health Monitoring screen of Remote Manager, Available Disk Space shows-17,592,183,918,811MB
Can anyone tell me how to interpret these strange graphs and figures.
Thanks for any help.
Anne Marshall
SOLUTION
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Hmmm.....has the server been rebooted or NoRM unloaded/reloaded since the Volume was expanded?
ASKER
Yes, it has been rebooted more than once since then. That was done last July and we had an eventful hurricane season after that! (No damage to the servers but extensive periods without power.) Additionally, we had another problem in the meantime with a battery on a scsi raid controller card that required a couple of reboots.
Just an FYI, I have NetWare 6.0 SP5 (plus assorted post-SP5 patches) and run volume reports via NoRM quite frequently, and do not have any negative numbers issues like you're reporting - and my main pool is around the size you're talking about on more than one server.
We still don't know what SP you're on, or had confirmed whether it's 6.0 or 6.5... That has a great deal of bearing on this issue. Enter "version" on the server console (colon prompt) without the quotes, and let us know what it says.
Also, what version of NSS is running - enter "M NSS*" (without the quotes) on the server console.
I wouldn't necessarily trust Windoze Exploder to give you an accurate picture of space utilization, either. I'd fix the problem you're having, so you get accurate results from NoRM. I agree with your assessment of your "management" company, if they accept an obvious bug that has likely been addressed. I'd be concerned further about whether you have other, hidden issues if they don't seem to care about this.
We still don't know what SP you're on, or had confirmed whether it's 6.0 or 6.5... That has a great deal of bearing on this issue. Enter "version" on the server console (colon prompt) without the quotes, and let us know what it says.
Also, what version of NSS is running - enter "M NSS*" (without the quotes) on the server console.
I wouldn't necessarily trust Windoze Exploder to give you an accurate picture of space utilization, either. I'd fix the problem you're having, so you get accurate results from NoRM. I agree with your assessment of your "management" company, if they accept an obvious bug that has likely been addressed. I'd be concerned further about whether you have other, hidden issues if they don't seem to care about this.
ASKER
Sorry, here's the version: Novell NetWare 6 Server Version 5.60.05.
NSS: Build 666 MP, Version 3.05, May-10-04
I remain concerned about hidden issues and not so hidden issues and feel certain that things are not running as efficiently as possible. However, as they have 'managed' the network for 12 years and I was promoted last June to this position with almost no background in networking, my boss told me I had to 'play nice' and let them have their way. I asked that he get an independent network audit done but got no answer. Since then, I just try to figure out how to work in spite of them.
By the way, when I first asked for a way to monitor available disk space trends over time with Netware, I was told that Netware didn't provide a way to do that. That was an absurdity on the face of it so I searched it out and that is when I found this mess.
Thanks for your help as always.
NSS: Build 666 MP, Version 3.05, May-10-04
I remain concerned about hidden issues and not so hidden issues and feel certain that things are not running as efficiently as possible. However, as they have 'managed' the network for 12 years and I was promoted last June to this position with almost no background in networking, my boss told me I had to 'play nice' and let them have their way. I asked that he get an independent network audit done but got no answer. Since then, I just try to figure out how to work in spite of them.
By the way, when I first asked for a way to monitor available disk space trends over time with Netware, I was told that Netware didn't provide a way to do that. That was an absurdity on the face of it so I searched it out and that is when I found this mess.
Thanks for your help as always.
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ASKER
I provided your suggestion to my network support guy and was told flatly that it doesn't apply to this case since we have no user space restrictions and are running SP5 where the bug is fixed. He now says that if I insist on having this function availble (which he continues to indicate is an absurd request), that they will need to do 'maintainence on the volume' which he suspects won't fix it, and that he would then have to consult with Novell where we may or not be able to get a fix. His bottom line is that it is going to cost us a lot of money to get this fixed and I'm silly for wanting it. So I guess that is where I'm at since I don't have authorization to do anything to the servers without their permission. Thanks so much for your support which I always depend on to keep myself sane.
<rant>
Dang, they're idiots. It's a simple procedure, spelled out clearly in the TID, and if they can't see their way to do it, they should be gone. I would not tolerate such a response, and I'd hope your PHB would see that and do something about it.
It's not "maintenance on the volume." It's simply turning off user the user space restrictions setting, and then turning it back on. It won't hurt anything. It's not a pool rebuild or anything like that that could result in data loss. It's just resetting some stats. Geez.
Note to the morons: just because user space restrictions is turned on for a volume, does not mean that you're using use space restrictions. It only applies restrictions if you set them. Maybe it's not turned on now - but maybe it was turned on when the server was at SP2, and the stats never reset after the fix was applied with a later SP.
Message to the PHB: If issuing two simple NSS commands is too hard for them, they're useless as a wart on a dog's ass, IMHO, and if he's worried about them charging an hour's labor for a one minute operation, he should let you do it.
</rant>
Dang, they're idiots. It's a simple procedure, spelled out clearly in the TID, and if they can't see their way to do it, they should be gone. I would not tolerate such a response, and I'd hope your PHB would see that and do something about it.
It's not "maintenance on the volume." It's simply turning off user the user space restrictions setting, and then turning it back on. It won't hurt anything. It's not a pool rebuild or anything like that that could result in data loss. It's just resetting some stats. Geez.
Note to the morons: just because user space restrictions is turned on for a volume, does not mean that you're using use space restrictions. It only applies restrictions if you set them. Maybe it's not turned on now - but maybe it was turned on when the server was at SP2, and the stats never reset after the fix was applied with a later SP.
Message to the PHB: If issuing two simple NSS commands is too hard for them, they're useless as a wart on a dog's ass, IMHO, and if he's worried about them charging an hour's labor for a one minute operation, he should let you do it.
</rant>
ASKER
Sorry I spread my own frustration about. I agree with you entirely but figuratively my hands are bound AND my mouth is gagged. I was so pleased to get this job thinking that we could finally get some improvements in place but, frankly, now all the pleasure is gone from it and I have little ambition to even learn more as it just frustrates me more when I do. I just hoped (Wasn't it Einstein who said to keep expecting a different result from repeating the same procedure?) that if I had something to actually suggest to them, they might act on it. Surreal is the only word to describe my work environment here. And the crazy part is that I've worked here for 8 years. The partners that promoted me KNEW that I have never been one to float along satisfied with the status quo yet they seem to have expected me to do just that (as the person before me did). Oh well.
ASKER
I had asked my rep at the company that 'manages' (and I use ther term loosely) our network about this and he had responded by telling me to ignore the negative sign and then basically by telling me not to use Remote Manager- instead just to look at the available space each day via Windows and record it for myself. (Which would work but ...) After that answer I posted this question. Today I spoke with him again and he finally agreed that RM is not providing accurate information at all. He told me that when he added a new drive to the volume several months ago that resulted in a 'segmented' volume and he thought that perhaps that was why Remote Manager is delivering inaccurate results. He did not however, suggest a way to fix what was obviously a misconfiguration by him in the first place.
Sorry for delivering information about the problem piecemeal but that is how I've gotten it. The question (if my rep is right) now appears to be, what does one need to do after adding drive space to a volume (--> a segmented volume) to make Remote Manager accurately report available drive space.