RE: MTADATA
Tom- This is be design...see technet article Q178021 for addtional information... The highlights from the article: When you look in the Microsoft Exchange Server Mtadata directory, you may find a large number of .dat files, for example, DB000123.DAT. Many of these files are only 1 byte in size. This is also true, even if the Exchange Server message transfer agent (MTA) does not have any messages in the queues held for delivery. CAUSE = This is by product design. In Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5, the MTA creates DAT files for all messages. After the messages have been delivered, instead of deleting the DAT files themselves, the data is deleted from the DAT files and the files are reset to 1 byte. The DAT files can be reused for future messages. (had the same question internally this morning!) -Original Message- From: Cross, Tom [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, March 06, 2002 11:18 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: MTADATA NT4 6a / Exch 5.5 SP4 We had a problem with a remote server that has since been fixed, but I noticed a bunch (6900+) items in the mtadata directory. The problem involved the MTA and IMS, there was a corrupted message in the queue. When I cleaned it out and the MTA/IMS was restarted, the MTA queue reflected the items and it eventually cleared. The items are still in the mtadata directory, which kind of caught me as strange. I looked at a couple local servers and there are a few items in the directory, but no where near the amount I see on the remote. What is the story with this directory? Is this something that needs to be manually cleaned? Thanks in advance, Tom Cross Viasystems Group List Charter and FAQ at: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm List Charter and FAQ at: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm
RE: Force logout of users
Since the users have been notified, just go ahead and do it. If a user has a mailbag open when the move occurs, their mailbag will move and their client (outlook, exchange) will get an error -- they'll have to shutdown their client and re-launch it...and then they will be on the new server. No mail is lost. Good luck! Ken Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- From: Zangara, Jim[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Reply To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 6:36 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Force logout of users what was the hack? Jim Zangara, MCSE+I IT Manager Special Projects Engineer Premiere Radio Networks A Division of Clear Channel Communications 15260 Ventura Blvd Suite 500 Sherman Oaks, CA 91403 Direct: (818) 461-8620 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] -Original Message- From: Jamie Domingue [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 2:46 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Force logout of users Never mind I found a reg hack that will take care of this. Thanks Jamie Domingue Systems Integrator II Global Data Systems 337-291-6535 List Charter and FAQ at: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm
RE: How to do a proper RDISK if you can't fit the files on the fl oppy ???
Title: RE: No budget backups of exchange server on a SBS box, How to??? Do an "rdisk /s-" -- the files go into the repair directory...copy them from there to another box. While doing a repair, you can use (you have a choice) the files from the floppy or from the repair directory. If the system is really hosed, you can install NT into a different directory, then copy the files from the other server back to the failed repair directory. -Original Message-From: Howie Pince [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Wednesday, January 16, 2002 9:45 AMTo: MS-Exchange Admin IssuesSubject: How to do a proper RDISK if you can't fit the files on the floppy ??? Rdisk has always given me the, "not enough space on the disk to complete" error? How do you work around this one, so that you can restore if needed? Thanks much... Howie Howie Pince Network Administrator A+, MCSE 2000 Higher Dimension Research Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] 651-256-1987 www.superfabric.com -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 4:39 PMTo: MS-Exchange Admin IssuesSubject: RE: No budget backups of exchange server on a SBS box, How to??? There is a utility with NT that will create a recover diskette (rdisk). One of the things it does is write the SAM to diskette (providing of course it will fit on a diskette). big maybe Create a recovery diskette set on your main DC Go to the "recovery" server and use recovery mode (I'm not sure how, I think it is an F-Key) Restore the backed up SAM to the recovery server reboot and give it a whirl /big maybe or another idea I just had is SWAG Or, backup to tape including registry using NT backup. Restore registry from tape to your recovery server. Then try IS/DS restore. /SWAG Just off the top of my head here. I'm not making any promises. I don't even remember the name of the utility to back up the SAM. See if Q103280, or Q126464 You may need Regback.exe from the NTRK or BORK. Kelly -Original Message-From: Howie Pince [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 4:44 PMTo: MS-Exchange Admin IssuesSubject: RE: No budget backups of exchange server on a SBS box, How to??? THANK YOU KDL!!! That IS the point I CAN NOT use the backed up dir.edb unless I can pull the SAM on the target box, MS suggests a "recovery server" as a BDC in the domain to has a correct copy of the SAM. KDL, your Idea is interesting, can one just pull the SAM off the source box and replace it on the target box? You'd think the SAM is live, and cant be copied, so boot disk time correct? Thanks guys. gals! Howie Howie Pince Network Administrator A+, MCSE 2000 Higher Dimension Research Inc. [EMAIL PROTECTED] 651-256-1987 www.superfabric.com -Original Message-From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 2:58 PMTo: MS-Exchange Admin IssuesSubject: RE: No budget backups of exchange server on a SBS box, How to??? Everyone seems to have missed that he can't properly setup a recovery server. SBS only allows a DC not PDC and BDC. What about backing up the SAM using recover disk and restoring it (the SAM) to therecover server first? Just a thought. -Original Message-From: Ray Zorz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 3:58 PMTo: MS-Exchange Admin IssuesSubject: RE: No budget backups of exchange server on a SBS box, How to??? I figured as much. Doesn't Exchange on SBS make NTBackup Exchange-aware? -Original Message-From: Lefkovics, William [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 1:48 PMTo: MS-Exchange Admin IssuesSubject: RE: No budget backups of exchange server on a SBS box, How to??? That was my 'preferred' solution. -Original Message-From: Ray Zorz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2002 12:45 PMTo: MS-Exchange Admin IssuesSubject: RE: No budget backups of exchange server on a SBS box, How to??? I must've missed something. Why can't NTBackup be used? Multiple servers? -Original Message-From: Lefkovics, William
RE: Defragging the IS
About 3 months ago I defragged a 28GB IS (exch 5.5 sp3) down to about 22GB...it took about 12 hours (this was on faster hardware than the production machine -- I was doing testing in our test lab). Why not build the new server on your SAN (different server name, part of the same site) and move the user mail bags to the new server? You'll have to leave the old server up for awhile (we do for about 2 weeks) so that the users email client will automatically update to the new server. -- From: Crosby, Tim (Sarcom)[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Reply To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 1:49 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Defragging the IS OK, what would be a more realistic estimate then? I'd like to be able to give them some idea. -Original Message- From: Don Ely [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 1:49 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Defragging the IS Don't do a defrag for a measly 16MB! 2-3 hours for a 36GB IS!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah, rggghhh. D Mistakes: It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others. -Original Message- From: Crosby, Tim (Sarcom) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Friday, December 07, 2001 10:40 AM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: Defragging the IS Tomorrow we are scheduled to move our single server Exchange 5.5 site over to a new Compaq DL380 server that is part of a SAN. Old server is NT4, SP6. New server will be Windows 2000, SP2 but will still have Exchange 5.5, SP4. My boss wants us do a complete backup of the server tonight, then come in tomorrow and do a defrag of the database, back it up again, and restore it to the new server. It seems to be the general consensus on this list that defrag=bad. But what about in this situation where we are moving to a new server and we are scheduled to have the server down for 24 hours anyway? I checked the event logs and, as of last night it shows that the database has 16 megabytes of free space after online defragmentation. Is this the white space that I've heard about? And is that all the space we will gain by doing a defrag? If that's the case, I will suggest we don't take the time and risk of doing a defrag of the IS. I'm guessing it will take at least 2-3 hours to defrag our 36GB database Or will there be a performance increase by doing a defrag now? Thanks for your input. Tim List Charter and FAQ at: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm List Charter and FAQ at: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm List Charter and FAQ at: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm List Charter and FAQ at: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm
RE: Information Store memory utilization is out of control
Just wondering...have you looked at any of the other performace counters, not just memory utilization? How quickly are messages being delivered into the store? Is the OS thrashing (high pages per second in/out of virtual memory)? What is the virtual memory (OS) setting on the server set to? You'll probably see a big difference after running the optimizer (which you said you'll do). Our Exchange 5.5 SP3/SP4 servers (20 directly managed are SP4) and most have 384-512 MB ram and usually store.exe is using 400-550MB of ram. We reboot the servers monthly (unless something hangs -- usually the MTA starts non-responding forcing a reboot earlier). We are running virus scanners on the servers (trend's scan mail for exchange). -- From: Geoff Waycik[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Reply To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 5:54 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Information Store memory utilization is out of control By fine, I mean it sits at 0 to 5% most of the time, even when memory is out of control. -Original Message- From: Geoff Waycik [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 5:48 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Information Store memory utilization is out of control CPU is fine and no Groupshield. -Original Message- From: Benjamin Winzenz [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 4:03 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Information Store memory utilization is out of control It shouldn't use so much that it will kill the server, but what you read is wrong. Don't limit the amount of RAM used via Optimizer. That is band-aiding the real problem. Store.exe will use ALL available memory if it can and needs it. My server has 1gb of mem and Store.exe is humming happily along using about 620mb worth of it. Are you running Gropeshield (I mean Groupshield) on your server? I'm pretty sure there was a advertised problem. How's your CPU usage? High as well? Let us know. Ben Winzenz, MCSE Network/Systems Administrator Peregrine Systems, Inc. -Original Message- From: Geoff Waycik [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 2:43 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Information Store memory utilization is out of control But so much that it kills the server? I read Q182505 and from this it looks like Exchange server will use TotalRAM/4, so in the case of the server witn 512M, Exchange will use up to 128M. Am I miss-reading something there? I have not used perfomrance optimizer yet, but will. Thanks. -Original Message- From: Preston Jeffares [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 2:10 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: RE: Information Store memory utilization is out of control This is common. STORE.EXE will use all available memory unless manually limited in the Optimizer. -Original Message- From: Geoff Waycik [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 1:07 PM To: MS-Exchange Admin Issues Subject: Information Store memory utilization is out of control I look after two servers for clients with Exchange Server 5.5 SP4 installed. Recently, one of the server's STORE.EXE process (lets call it SERVER1) started going out of control with respect to memory utilization. It starts at a reasonable 5M to 10M of memory used, then gradually climbs to about 300M. If I stop and restart the IS service, 400M to 500M of memory will clear up and STORE.EXE will drop down to it's usual 5M to 10M. If I don't stop and restart, the server starts to crumble, complaining about running out of memory. Software Installed on both Servers Are: Microsoft Small Business Server 4.5 Inoculan for Small Business Server (i was young and foolish) ArcServe for Small Business Server (ditto) Latest Service Packs and hotfixes for OS SP4 for Exchange, no hotfixes Memory for SERVER1 = 512M Memory for SERVER2 = 384M The one thing they have done recently is to upgrade their Internet service to DSL. SERVER1 network was upgraded first and almost immediately they began having this problem. The other server's network was upgraded last week but am not sure that the memory problem exactly coincided with the upgrade. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks. Geoff Waycik MCSE Tel: 613 384-4210 Fax: 613 384-8981 [EMAIL PROTECTED] List Charter and FAQ at: http://www.sunbelt-software.com/exchange_list_charter.htm
