EMC DOCUMENTUM XTENDER DOMINO NSD ANALYSIS

Transcription

1 White Paper EMC DOCUMENTUM XTENDER DOMINO NSD ANALYSIS Abstract IBM Lotus Domino being one of the supporting servers by Xtender can experience issues related to crash or hangs which could severely affect the customer s mail journaling. Whenever there is a hang/crash an NSD (Notes system diagnostics) log file is generated at IBM_TECHNICAL_SUPPORT under the notes data directory. The purpose of this whitepaper is to provide an understanding of the NSD file through which we can identify the root cause. January 2012

2 Copyright 2012 EMC Corporation. All Rights Reserved. EMC believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date. The information is subject to change without notice. The information in this publication is provided as is. EMC Corporation makes no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to the information in this publication, and specifically disclaims implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Use, copying, and distribution of any EMC software described in this publication requires an applicable software license. For the most up-to-date listing of EMC product names, see EMC Corporation Trademarks on EMC.com. Part Number H

3 Table of Contents Executive Summary... 4 Audience Xtender... 4 IBM Lotus Domino... 4 IBM Lotus Notes... 4 What is a Lotus Domino hang and crash?... 4 What is an NSD log file?... 4 Steps to debug NSD Crash dump... 5 Conclusion... 5 References

4 Executive Summary The information provided in this white paper is intended to help support and users to troubleshoot IBM Lotus Notes and Domino hang and crash issues. This document explains detail and easy steps on how to troubleshoot the Notes crash dump logs (NSD Logs). Audience This white paper is intended for support and users who can perform an analysis of the NSD file and narrow down the root cause for a domino hang/crash issue. Xtender Xtender (EX) is a comprehensive, integrated system that automatically collects, organizes, retains and retrieves messages and attachments. EX is software designed for enterprise level messaging system. IBM Lotus Domino Lotus Domino is one of the mail server product supported by Xtender. IBM Lotus Notes IBM Lotus Notes is the desktop client software What is a Lotus Domino hang and crash? A domino server hang is a situation where the server is running but some of the notes tasks are not running. A domino server crash is a situation where the server is terminated completely. All the clients will not be able to connect to this server. What is an NSD log file? NSD (Notes Systems Diagnostics) file is generated when the domino server/ notes client experiences a hang or crash. NSD file can be found at IBM_TECHNICAL_SUPPORT under the notes directory. The format of the NSD file is nsd_@.log 4

5 Steps to debug NSD Crash dump 1. When there is a domino server/notes client hang or crash, request the support to provide with the NSD log file. 2. Based on my experience with Xtender, the initial NSD file collected from the customer environment may hardly give any clue to the root cause due to the partial stack trace 3. Search for the keywords FATAL or PANIC and this will give indication of the Extender component that triggered the crash/hang 4. Build an exact version of the identified component and generate a pdb file for the same. 5. Provide the customer with the binary as well as the pdb file and request to reproduce the issue again. The pdb file should be located at the same location of its corresponding binary. It will help in getting a clear stack trace. 6. When the issue is reproduced and a NSD log file is generated, we will have a clear stack of the function calls which led to the crash. 7. Search for keyword FATAL and check the below stack trace which will show the function responsible for the crash. 8. From the trace follow bottom to top to check the sequence of function calls that led to the crash. 9. The stack trace section of the NSD file is the core area which provides a breakdown of the code path of each thread in the current process that has traversed, before causing the crash/hang. 10. If the NSD file does not contain any of the keywords like FATAL or PANIC, do check for the keyword Segmentation. The segmentation section describes the segmentation faults. 11. Segmentation faults occur when the there is any issue during accessing the shared memory. Conclusion The steps mentioned above gives an understanding of decoding the lotus notes/domino crash dumps(nsd log) and finding the root cause for issues like crash/hang which otherwise are very time consuming and severely affect the customer production environment. References The Powerlink website ( contains the downloadable packages for Xtender Archiving Solution product versions along with the release notes and other relevant documentation associated with particular product versions. To locate product documentation, navigate to Support > Technical Documentation and Advisories > Software ~D~Documentation, then select the product name and version number. 5