POA Admin Threads Test

This test reports the performance metrics pertaining to the admin thread executing on a GroupWise Post Office Agent (POA).

Target of the test : A GWPOA application

Agent deploying the test : A remote agent

Outputs of the test : One set of results for the distinguished name specified.

Configurable parameters for the test
Parameter	Description
Test Period	How often should the test be executed.
Host	The IP address of the host for which this test is to be configured.
Port	The port at which the server listens.
SNMPPort	The port at which the monitored target exposes its SNMP MIB; The default value is 161.
SNMPVersion	By default, the eG agent supports SNMP version 1. Accordingly, the default selection in the SNMPversion list is v1. However, if a different SNMP framework is in use in your environment, say SNMP v2 or v3, then select the corresponding option from this list.
SNMPCommunity	The SNMP community name that the test uses to communicate with the firewall. This parameter is specific to SNMP v1 and v2 only. Therefore, if the SNMPVersion chosen is v3, then this parameter will not appear.
UserName	This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. SNMP version 3 (SNMPv3) is an extensible SNMP Framework which supplements the SNMPv2 Framework, by additionally supporting message security, access control, and remote SNMP configuration capabilities. To extract performance statistics from the MIB using the highly secure SNMP v3 protocol, the eG agent has to be configured with the required access privileges – in other words, the eG agent should connect to the MIB using the credentials of a user with access permissions to be MIB. Therefore, specify the name of such a user against this parameter.
Context	This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. An SNMP context is a collection of management information accessible by an SNMP entity. An item of management information may exist in more than one context and an SNMP entity potentially has access to many contexts. A context is identified by the SNMPEngineID value of the entity hosting the management information (also called a contextEngineID) and a context name that identifies the specific context (also called a contextName). If the Username provided is associated with a context name, then the eG agent will be able to poll the MIB and collect metrics only if it is configured with the context name as well. In such cases therefore, specify the context name of the Username in the Context text box. By default, this parameter is set to none.
AuthPass	Specify the password that corresponds to the above-mentioned Username. This parameter once again appears only if the SNMPversion selected is v3.
Confirm Password	Confirm the AuthPass by retyping it here.
AuthType	This parameter too appears only if v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. From the AuthType list box, choose the authentication algorithm using which SNMP v3 converts the specified username and password into a 32-bit format to ensure security of SNMP transactions. You can choose between the following options: MD5 - Message Digest Algorithm SHA - Secure Hash Algorithm SHA224 - Secure Hash Algorithm 224 bit SHA256 - Secure Hash Algorithm 256 bit SHA384 - Secure Hash Algorithm 384 bit SHA512 - Secure Hash Algorithm 512 bit
EncryptFlag	This flag appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPversion. By default, the eG agent does not encrypt SNMP requests. Accordingly, the this flag is set to No by default. To ensure that SNMP requests sent by the eG agent are encrypted, select the Yes option.
EncryptType	If the EncryptFlag is set to Yes, then you will have to mention the encryption type by selecting an option from the EncryptType list. SNMP v3 supports the following encryption types: DES - Data Encryption Standard 3DES - Triple Data Encryption Standard AES - Advanced Encryption Standard AES128 - Advanced Encryption Standard 128 bit AES192 - Advanced Encryption Standard 192 bit AES256 - Advanced Encryption Standard 256 bit
EncryptPassword	Specify the encryption password here.
Confirm Password	Confirm the encryption password by retyping it here.
Timeout	Specify the duration (in seconds) within which the SNMP query executed by this test should time out in this text box. The default is 10 seconds.
Data Over TCP	By default, in an IT environment, all data transmission occurs over UDP. Some environments however, may be specifically configured to offload a fraction of the data traffic – for instance, certain types of data traffic or traffic pertaining to specific components – to other protocols like TCP, so as to prevent UDP overloads. In such environments, you can instruct the eG agent to conduct the SNMP data traffic related to the monitored target over TCP (and not UDP). For this, set this flag to Yes. By default, this flag is set to No.
EngineID	This parameter appears only when v3 is selected as the SNMPVersion. Sometimes, the test may not report metrics when AES192 or AES256 is chosen as the Encryption type. To ensure that the test report metrics consistently, administrators need to set this flag to Yes. By default, this parameter is set to No.
POAName	The distinguished name of the POA. To know how to find out the name of POA, refer to Determining Name of a POA.

Measurements made by the test
Measurement	Description	Measurement Unit	Interpretation
Thread status	Indicates the status of the admin thread.	Number	If the value is 1, it indicates that the thread is running. If the value is 0, it indicates that the thread is not running. Therefore, start the thread. If the value is –1, it indicates that the status is "unknown". In such a case, restart the POA.
Message processing rate	Indicates the rate at which admin messages were processed by this MTA during the last measurement period.	Msgs/Sec	A high value may be indicative of an excessive load on the admin thread.
Error messages	Indicates the rate at which admin message errors were detected by this MTA during the last measurement period.	Msgs/Sec	If this value is high, check the Post office DB status.
Messages in queue	Indicates the number of admin messages waiting to be processed.	Number	If this value is high, check the admin thread status and Msgs_processing_rate, and then, act accordingly.
Database status	Indicates the status of the Post office database.	Number	The status indicators are: 1 - Normal 0 - Database error -1 - Unknown 0 indicates a critical database error. The Post office database cannot be recovered. Rebuild the database using ConsoleOne. The POA admin thread will not process any more administrative messages until the database status has returned to Normal. If the value is –1, restart the POA.
Database recoveries	Indicates the number of DB recoveries performed during the last measurement period.	Number	If the frequency of db_recovery is more, it may be indicative of a critical database error.

Determining Name of a POA

To know the distinguished name of a POA, do the following:

First, execute Novell's ConsoleOne utility. This utility allows you to manage eDirectory objects, rights, and schema, and Netware file system resources.
Upon logging into the console, you will find a tree-structure in the left pane that hosts an NDS container (see Figure 1). Expanding this container will reveal the eDirectory trees that you are currently logged into. Expand the eDirectory that hosts the POA application to be monitored. Upon expanding, the list of contexts defined within the tree will appear. Next, expand the context within the eDirectory, which houses the POA application.

Figure 1 : The Novell ConsoleOne window
The complete list of objects within the selected context will then be available to you. The objects in the list that are prefixed by the symbol represent the post offices within the context (see Figure 1). Now, click on the post office that hosts the POA application to be monitored. When this is done, the POA application that exists in the selected post office will appear in the right pane (see Figure 1).
From the right pane, select the POA application to be monitored, right-click on it, and select Properties (see Figure 2). Click on the GroupWise tab to open the Identification tab page. In this page, look for the distinguished name of the POA application (see Figure 3). The distinguished name should be in the following format:

<The name of the POA application>.<The name of the post office>.<The name of the context>
Accordingly, the distinguished name of the POA application in the example of Figure 3 will be: POA.chennai.NOVELL.

Figure 2 : Selecting the Properties option from the POA application’s right-click menu

Figure 3 : Viewing the distinguished name of the POA application