SB

Does anybody know what I can do to stop these growing at such a rapid rate.
Alternatively can these be deleted on a daily basis?

Cheers

shunty

yes, disable circular logging, just make sure your server doesn't go down.....
I will send you 2 life-saving exchange documents, some of it related to what you want to know, the rest will be at some time

also check out www.slipstick.com & www.exchangeadmin.com

shunty

shunty

oopps forgot to ask, exchange 5.5 I presume.

shunty

SB

Thanks, its 2k though.

The growth rate is just astronomical though, getting concerned.
Not sure if it caused by someone relaying or?

shunty

just mailed you twice
spotted your other thread after replying & mailing you
can't think what else on 2k might be causing that......

shunty

SB

Yes, i tried to do a bit of research of some of the standard exchange sites to come up with some answers.
Do you know whether you can safely delete them, I know this would affect any possible restore but #??????????

Many Thanks

shunty

why not move them for now:

http://www.msexchange.org/tutorials/MF001.html

I take it you have space on other drives ??

shunty

shunty

forgot to add, you can only safely delete them once they have been "committed" or written to the database.

shunty

Miles

Ugh, don't manually delete them unless you enjoy playing with fire. Exchange may throw a wobbly and you may end up with a sick server on your hands.

Are you using Exchange aware backup storage? If not, I can't recommend it enough. If you are it should remove the log files. Remember W2K Backup (the one included with the OS) is Exchange aware and hence will sort out your logs.

Switching on circular logging (enabled by default in Ex5.5, disabled by default in Ex2K) is dangerous for the integrity of your data, only use it if you understand what it does.

shunty

going off the subject slightly, you used exmerge before ? if so, a mate is trying to point at a clustered solution & it's not talking to the info store's....any ideas. I have used exmerge a fair bit, but not on clustered stuff......

nice smilies btw, your obviously an eseutil's man

shunty

[Edited by shunty - 12/17/2002 9:11:00 AM]

SB

Shunty

***you can only safely delete them once they have been "committed" ***or written to the database.

Thanks for your assistance, could you shed some light on the above comment

shunty

as Miles said earlier, let your backup software delete the old log files that have already been committed, circular logging enabled keeps the free disk space there by overwriting the old log files with the new data, it does this when it reaches the maximum size of 5 meg.....
however if you need to recover, it is better to have all the log files for full data preservation.....it's always a tradeoff between having the space to keep everything.

look at eseutils.exe /? & isinteg.exe /? on your ex server, do a search.....

shunty

SB

Cheers

Will be looking at the box later today.

Many Thanks

Miles

I have used Exmerge a few times before, but like you, never on clustered kit. However I have put together a clustered box in the lab in preparation for rolling out a couple of clustered servers.

Thinking about it Exmerge may not be cluster aware and hence it won't be able to access the Exchange virtual server. But in saying that, I can't find anything on the MS site to suggest it won't work - all it seems to need access to is the information store. Wild and dangerous idea: could the information stores be restored to a non clustered server to be recovered from there?

Eseutil and I have made friends with each other at 3am before now with a downed server on me hands . I'm also good friends with his brother Isinteg....

On a side note, have you seen, Ontrack's Powertools? Access an offline .edb file, oh yeah baby...

shunty

lol @ miles reply

as regards clusters & exmerge, my mate has a call logged with MS, I will let you know the outcome

hey, those ontrack utils look fantastic, cheers for the link.

shunty

Miles

Would be very interested to hear the result of that MS call. I probably be in this situation myself eventually and it'll be nice to be forewarned to prevent the run around!

beanchimp

Ive had no probs at all with migrating to Exchange Clusters, works a treat, and no different to any other migration

As far as the logs go, once you have done a full backup of the information store., the logs will be deleted

I get a lot of customers who have this, and they never do full back ups !!!

Default on Exchange 2k is circular logging disabled, and delete logs after 7 days, you must be sending sh*t loads of mails for the logs to build up so quick if this is the case

If you do enable circular logging (default on exch 5.5 and below), then you will have to restart the info store, and it will take forever, if the log files are huge

I would do a full back up, let it purge the log files, then turn on circular logging, and then restart the IS

Or just make sure you get full backups of the IS every night

Steve

shunty

beanchimp,
my mate got a reply from MS, apparantly hidden recipients in the address book will not be detected by exmerge, so unhide & that fixed his problem...
that's worrying though (if it's true) because if your exchange server goes t1ts-up, exmerge was always the saving grace to pull out your data....obviously a full backup, bricklevel etc being the best solution.

*edited to add* obviously in the past when I have used exmerge, whatever the version, I have been lucky as I have always recovered everyones mailbox....easier with the later versions as more options to recove.r

shunty

[Edited by shunty - 12/19/2002 9:08:24 AM]

beanchimp

Hi Shunty

Thanks for letting us know

I did know about the hidden recipients, but I always double & triple check everything has been migrated across, as I have been caught out in the past with public folder replication & free/busy connector

Steve

Miles

Beanchimp, the server currently with 3000 mailboxs I look after fills up it's 2Gb (Raid 1) drive in two days.

Hence I've got the budget for 2x 2node clusters. Muahahhaha. Shortly there will be about 4000 mailboxes on it.....

[Edited by Miles - 12/20/2002 1:50:09 AM]

Miles

True, it presents itself as just another another Exchange server in the org.

Not necessarily true. As long as your Exchange aware backup software takes a good backup (either full or incremental) the logs will be deleted.

I wouldn't. As you say take a full or incremental backup each night. DON'T switch on circular logging. Please. I talk from bitter experience.

[Edited by Miles - 12/20/2002 2:41:45 AM]

shunty

quote "Hence I've got the budget for 2x 2node clusters. Muahahhaha. Shortly there will be about 4000 mailboxes on it"

4000scary stuff....

shunty