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ADMINISTRATION
 Painless Upgrade to GroupWise 6
Planning is essential to ensure a trouble-free upgrade.
By Frank Gioffre
The upgrade to Novell GroupWise 6 is surrounded by many myths and half-truths. The biggest misunderstanding is that the upgrade is complex and time-consuming. Nothing could be farther from the truth; the procedure is well-documented and the Setup Advisor takes you through each step. (Refer to the GroupWise documentation for the upgrade procedures at http://www.novell.com/documentation/lg/gw6/index.html.)
Most upgrades occur without any problems, as long as you plan properly and prepare your system. This article focuses on what documentation doesn't address: the planning stages.
Hardware and software requirements
GroupWise 6 has different software and hardware requirements than previous versions. Make sure you meet all the requirements. A common concern from shops with older hardware is the requirement for NetWare 5.1 on the server that runs the agents. If you're wondering whether you can make GroupWise 6 work on NetWare 4x, the official Novell response is that GroupWise 6 isn't supported on any NetWare server prior to NetWare 5.1. So, if you install GroupWise 6 on NetWare 4x and have problems, you're on your own.
With that warning, you may (at your own risk) install the product on NetWare 4x and it will probably function properly. To do this, you must:
- Install NetWare 4x Support Pack 9 (http:// support.novell.com/servlet/filedownload /pub/nw4sp9.exe).
- Enable LONG namespace on the SYS volume (for the ConsoleOne snap-ins).
- Load CLIBAUX before starting the GroupWise agents.
No matter which version of NetWare you install the agents on, it's a good idea to have the latest NetWare Support Pack installed. As of this writing, those support packs are NW4SP9, NW50SP6A, NW51SP4, and NW6SP1. You can find the latest versions of these support packs at http://support.novell.com/produpdate
/patchlist.html.
Installing with GW6SP1
Novell has changed the way it distributes GroupWise support packs. GroupWise 6 Support Pack 1, which you can download from http://support.novell.com/cgi-bin/search/search-tid.cgi?/2960621.htm, contains the entire GroupWise 6 package plus bug fixes and new features, so you can perform your upgrade directly from the support pack. Simply download it, extract the contents, and run SETUP.EXE. However, you'll still need the GroupWise 6 installation CD so the installation routine can verify ownership. After your initial upgrade, be sure to install new agents, clients, and gateways from your patched Software Distribution Directory, not from the original CD.
eDirectory and schema extensions
As with prior versions of GroupWise, you must extend the schema to recognize the new GroupWise 6 objects and attributes. This is a one-time operation for any given tree. The procedure is typically fast and trouble-free. However, problems can arise if you don't have a healthy tree, so you should perform an NDS health check prior to upgrading. At the minimum, check partition continuity (from NDS Manager), time synchronization (from DSREPAIR), and schema synchronization (with DSTRACE). The procedures for these health checks are outside the scope of this article, and should be performed by an experienced eDirectory administrator. Extending the schema for GroupWise 6 doesn't adversely affect your existing GroupWise 5 system, so you can perform this operation weeks in advance of your upgrade.
ConsoleOne and snap-ins
One of the biggest administrative changes in GroupWise 6 is the need to use ConsoleOne instead of NetWare Administrator. GroupWise 6.0.1 (the version you end up with when installing Support Pack 1) requires ConsoleOne 1.32 or higher. I recommend downloading and using version 1.33 because it exhibits substantial speed improvements over 1.32. You can install ConsoleOne and the GroupWise 6 snap-ins well in advance of the upgrade. In fact, the snap-ins are backward-compatible so you can even start administering your GroupWise 5 system with ConsoleOne.
After you upgrade, don't use NWADMIN to administer your GroupWise 6 system. Performing any sort of database maintenance operation from NWADMIN damages the databases, so you may want to disable the GroupWise 5 snap-ins. You can do so by renaming the file SYS:\PUBLIC \WIN32\SNAPINS\GWADMB32.DLL on every server that has the GroupWise 5 snap-ins installed.
Current system health
During the upgrade process, the GroupWise databases (directory store and message store) are updated with the new fields and data structures used by GroupWise 6. It isn't a massive change in structure, as was the case when upgrading from version 4 to 5. This means you might be able to get away with upgrading a less than perfect system, but you're asking for trouble.
Immediately before upgrading, you should perform an Analyze/Fix on Structure for all user and message databases, and a Recover Database on the domain or post office you're upgrading. An Analyze/Fix on Contents typically isn't required because most GroupWise message store problems occur in the database structure. Don't proceed with the upgrade until you can run these procedures without errors.
Mixing agent and gateway versions
There's no need to rush your upgrade. Most components will work with older or newer components in the same system. There are only a few exceptions to this interoperability among different versions. The primary domain must always be the first component upgraded. A GroupWise 6 domain, and associated agent (MTA), can communicate with GroupWise 5 post offices, domains, and gateways. Furthermore, GroupWise 5 and 6 agents -- MTAs and post office agents (POAs) -- can run concurrently on the same server. You just have to be a little creative in renaming or moving the agents because all versions use the same file names (GWMTA.NLM and GWPOA.NLM).
If you run different versions on the same server, be careful about launching agents. You don't want to run a GroupWise 5 agent against a GroupWise 6 database because you risk database corruption. You also don't want to run a GroupWise 6 agent against a GroupWise 5 database, because doing so immediately upgrades that database. After you upgrade the primary domain, you can either upgrade post offices in that domain, or upgrade the secondary domains. The upgrade order isn't important because GroupWise works properly regardless of which components you upgrade first.
You'll also have to consider when to upgrade your GWIA and WebAccess gateways. I suggest upgrading GWIA as soon as you upgrade the domain in which it exists. This only causes problems if you have remote clients accessing their GroupWise account via POP3 or IMAP4. In these instances, users may experience problems until you upgrade their post office.
WebAccess requires a bit more planning. A WebAccess 6 gateway can only access GroupWise 6 post offices, and a WebAccess 5 gateway can only access GroupWise 5 post offices. This means during a gradual migration, you'll have to provide separate WebAccess services for the different post office versions. You can do this by having two distinct WebAccess servers, or by upgrading the gateway application to version 6 and providing different WebAccess agents for the various post offices. The GroupWise 6 installation documentation describes these procedures. Make sure you test access to each post office in your system during the upgrade.
Backup before upgrading
As with any major system upgrade, it's imperative you backup your existing system prior to upgrading. You want to make sure you get a full backup of all files while the system is in a static state. This means you should take down all MTAs, POAs, and gateways prior to performing the backup. The backup itself should be redundant. I like to get one full backup to a reliable and tested tape device, and a full copy (standard file copy) to another server location (same server or different server). The file copy procedure gives you quick and easy access to individual files or entire directories. Regardless of which method you use, make sure you don't skip any files.
Installing agents and gateways
MTAs and POAs are the easiest components to install and upgrade. They hardly ever fail, so there are no danger spots to mention here. However, I suggest you make sure all your current agents are set to verbose logging (not the default) before you start the upgrade. This setting is preserved for your newly installed agents, and lets you see details about what's going on.
The GWIA upgrade procedure is simple and rarely causes major problems. You should make a back-up copy of the GWIA.CFG file prior to upgrading. The GWIA upgrade keeps all existing gateway settings, but the back-up GWIA.CFG file contains those settings in case anything goes wrong.
If there's any component that might give you problems during the upgrade, it's WebAccess. Here again, a smooth upgrade depends mostly on good planning and careful execution. Before you upgrade an existing WebAccess gateway or install a new one, make sure you follow these steps:
- Take down all GroupWise components running on that server. After taking them down, issue a MODULES GW* command at the server console to make sure no GroupWise components (such as the GWENNx.NLM engine) are still running.
- Take down the Web server. If you're using the NetWare or Netscape Enterprise server, it works best to use the NSWEBDN command.
- Unload Java from the server. Before doing this, make sure all other programs that use Java are also shut down.
- At this point, you can install the new gateway. Check the versions of the JVM and servlet gateway the installation routine shows you. Always let the installation routine install the software if it's newer than the version on the server.
If your new gateway doesn't work properly, troubleshooting the issues can be difficult and time-consuming. It's usually more effective to completely remove the existing gateway (and sometimes the Web server itself), and re-install from scratch. Novell TID 10063617 covers this procedure (http://support.novell.com/cgibin/search /searchtid.cgi?/10063617.htm). The issue probably isn't related to the JAVA directory. Furthermore, removing the JAVA directory can cause problems with other Java-based applications that may be running on the server.
Rolling out the new client
You can phase in the new clients gradually. The existing GroupWise 5 client will have no problems accessing a GroupWise 6 post office, so there's no need to rush the rollout. However, a GroupWise 6 client can't access a GroupWise 5 post office, so you don't want to install new clients before upgrading the post office.
There are many ways to handle the installation procedure. Manual installation is always an option if you want complete control over each installation. Pushing a GroupWise 6 package with ZENworks for Desktops (ZFD) works well and lets you control who gets the package and when they get it. In fact, GroupWise 6 even comes with pre-built ZFD packages (found in the software distribution directory in CLIENT\ZEN). The third method is to let GroupWise handle the upgrade through its built-in automatic upgrade facility. This method works well as long as your backbone infrastructure can handle the load.
Tip: Remember that with this procedure, you can only control upgrades down to the post office level. Therefore, if you have a large post office (say, 600 users) and all the users start work at roughly the same time, the morning after the upgrade can put quite a load on your backbone (600 users x roughly 50MB per upgrade = 30GB+ of data flooding your wire at once).
Training
User training isn't an issue for this upgrade. Other than additional menu choices for the new features, there are no major changes to the user interface. Your users will hardly notice the difference.
On the technical side, you should seriously consider administrator training before upgrading to GroupWise 6. The major system features (message flow, troubleshooting techniques, agent responsibilities, etc.) haven't changed from GroupWise 5.5, but there are other changes and additions to warrant training. The biggest change you'll notice is the use of ConsoleOne. The interface changes take some getting used to, but it shouldn't be a major problem.
Everything depends on the planning
The upgrade to GroupWise 6 can be smooth, easy, and fairly quick. However, this depends on proper preparation and careful execution. I've upgraded many systems to GroupWise 6 and have yet to encounter any major problems. However, through the years I've had to clean up messes caused by failed upgrades. Invariably, these disasters were the result of improper preparation and planning. Avoid problems by following the steps I present in this article. You can also download a GroupWise 6 upgrade worksheet from http://www.gioffre.com/groupwise/gw6_upgrade_worksheet.pdf.
Frank Gioffre is an independent consultant who runs Gioffre Consulting. He plans, configures, designs, and troubleshoots systems for clients throughout the U.S. Frank focuses on Novell products (NetWare, eDirectory, ZENworks, and especially GroupWise). His certifications include Master CNE, Master CNI, and CDE. http://www.gioffre.com, frank@gioffre.com. ARTICLE INFO
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