Novell

VMware

N3090 Training

This week I have a Belgian company called IMAS for the main part of N3090. The last day’s we’re going to do same custom labs for eDirectory.

They have a nice enviroment with Vmware ESX and a couple of OES 2 servers. The funny part is that they experience the same problems with OES2 and Vmware than I do. Bad performance with NSS and a high utilization of NDSD. I will give the same tips and tricks during this week, but maybe its wise to read my other post on NSS performance with ESX.

Hope the like the training we put together for them.

Update 27-1-2009: A question from one of the student was how we can see witch users has a file open. So I googled around and found this script:

#/bin/bash
# description: List open files on OES
# author:      Olaf Zerfowski
# version:     0.01
# date:        04-20-2006

maxcon=`ncpcon connection 2>/dev/nul| sed -ne  "s/.*Connection Slots Allocatedt//pg"`

count=0

if [ "$1" == "" ]
then
searchstring=/media/nss/
else
searchstring=$1
fi

echo "Max Connections=$maxcon"
echo "SearchString=$searchstring"

while  [ $count -lt $maxcon ]
do
conninfo=`ncpcon connections $count 2>nul| egrep "Name|$searchstring"`
if echo $conninfo | grep "$searchstring" 1>/dev/nul 2>&1
then
       echo Connection $count
       ncpcon connections $count 2>nul| egrep "Name|$searchstring"
fi
count=`expr $count + 1`

done

Resyncing NSS metadata to NCP trustee file

If for some case you want to resync NSS metadata to de NCP trustee file (VOL1:._NETWARE.trustee_database.xml) you can issue the following command:

ncpcon nss resync=VOLNAME

This wil sync de .trustee_database.xml file. If you delete or remove the file before executing the command, it will recreate the file.

How to move a NSS LUN (RDM or VDMK) to another VM without losing metadata

The case is simple. I have a virtual machine (VM1) how has a RDM connected to it, on witch a NSS volume is created. I want to move this LUN to another virtual machine (VM2) without losing al it’s metadata.

The procedure is as followed:

1. Decommission the NSS pool from the current OES server.
2. Disconnect the disk/rdm from the virtual machine.
3. Connect the disk/rmd to the new virtual machine.
4. Recommission the NSS pool on the new OES server.
5. Check if everything is fine!

You can decommission and recommission the NSS pools by using iManager.

To decommison the NSS pool from a server:

• In iManager goto Storage > Pools. Deactivate the NSS Pool
• Remove eDirectory objects: eDirectory Administration > Delete Object

To recommission the NSS pool onto the new server:

• In iManager goto Storage > Pools, Activate the NSS Pool
• Update eDirectory by clicking on Update eDirectory.
  You have to repeat this for each NSS Pool. Wait a few second for eDirectory to get in sync.

If you find iManager to slow (like me!) you also can you the decom.pl en recom.pl scripts to do it for you. Simpel run the decom.pl [poolname] script on the server where you want the NSS pool from. Move the disk/RDM to the new virtual machine and run recom.pl [poolname] on the new server.
Make sure NSS is loaded!