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Specifying server preferences

his chapter describes how to specify server preferences for the following tasks:

Starting and stopping the server

 From the Server Preferences|Start/Stop The Server form, you can view the status of the server to see whether it's running or stopped.

To start or stop the server from the Collabra Server interface:

  1. Choose Server Preferences|Start/Stop The Server.

  2. To start the server, click the Start button.

  3. To stop the server, click the Stop button.

If, for some reason, your server has paused and will not accept new connections, you will see the following option on the form: Release Throttled Server. You should check the server status and your log files to determine why the server has paused. After you've identified and fixed the problem, you can release the server by clicking the Release Throttled Server button.

Activating connection security

This section describes how to activate connection security if you want your server to run in secure connection mode.

Secure connection mode means that encryption is turned on for all incoming connections to your server. Communications between clients (including other servers who connect to your server to send discussion groups) and your server are encrypted before transmission.

You must run in secure connection mode if:

Before activating connection security, there are several steps that you must complete, including generating a key pair file and obtaining and installing a valid server certificate. If you have not yet completed these steps or you want more information about running in secure connection mode, see Chapter 6, "Understanding security."

After you have completed the steps outlined in Chapter 6, you can activate connection security as follows:

  1. Choose Encryption|Activate Connection Security.

  2. Click the Encryption On button.

  3. Specify a port number for incoming connections. The standard port number for secure servers is 563.

  4. From the pull-down menu, you can choose an alias for the key pair file and certificate file. If there is no alias, you must create one by using the administration server interface.

    Note: You generate keys, manage certificates, and specify key file aliases and certificate aliases from the administration server interface. See the administration server online documentation or the printed manual, Managing Netscape Servers for more information.

  5. Click OK.

  6. Restart your server to enable use of the security features.

The Reset button resets any changes to the form that you have not yet submitted.

About port numbers: For servers running in secure connection mode, the standard NNTP port number is 563. You should always use port number 563 for servers running in secure connection mode. You can use other port numbers, but Netscape does not recommend that you do so.

Disabling connection security

If you want to temporarily disable security for some reason, you should first remove any private discussion groups from public access.

To disable connection security:

  1. Choose Server Preferences|Activate Connection Security.

  2. Click the Encryption Off button.

  3. Click OK.

The Reset button resets any changes to the form that you have not yet submitted.

Specifying search options

The Collabra Server provides full-text search capabilities across multiple discussion groups. This feature enables users to easily monitor and track discussions on a wide variety of topics.

The Collabra profiling feature stores the results of a search in a virtual discussion group that is updated periodically. To users, the virtual discussion group looks like any other discussion group.

You can enable or disable searching and profiling options as follows:

To specify search options:

  1. Choose Server Preferences|Search Options.

  2. To enable or disable searching, click the associated button:

    Note: To specify which discussion groups are indexed for searching purposes, choose Discussion Groups|Full Text Indexing. See Chapter 4, "Specifying indexing information," for more information.

    Note: If you disable searching, some newsreaders might still be able to search headers within a discussion group.

  3. To enable or disable profiling, click the associated button:

    Note: You must enable profiling to enable users to store search results in virtual discussion groups. For information on specifying how often profiles are updated, see "Specifying background tasks."

  4. Click OK.

The Reset button resets any changes to the form that you have not yet submitted.

Specifying directory service information

The Directory Server Control Options form specifies the user ID and password the Collabra Server uses to connect to the directory service, either the Netscape Directory Server or the local directory service, when accessing discussion group information.

If, for some reason, this ID or password changes, you must specify the new ID and password as follows:

  1. Choose Server Preferences|Directory Server Control Options.

  2. In the User for this server field, type the user ID that identifies the Collabra Server to the Directory Server.

  3. In the Password and again fields, type the password associated with the Collabra Server ID.

  4. Click OK.

Note: If you get an error when you click OK, the user ID and password you specified are probably incorrect. The Collabra Server cannot access information stored in the directory service until you specify the correct user ID and password.

The Reset button resets any changes to the form that you have not yet submitted.

Note: You choose your directory service from the administration server interface. For more information, see the administration server online documentation or printed manual, Managing Netscape Servers.

Controlling connections to your server

By controlling the type of connections you allow, you can, for example:

To specify the type of connections you want to control:

  1. Choose Server Preferences|Connection Control. The status of the server appears. The status indicates the type of connections the server is accepting.

  2. You can reject connections for:

  3. Click the associated checkbox to disable connections for new articles or for reader connections.

    To prevent both newsreaders and other servers from connecting to you server, click both checkboxes.

  4. In the associated field, type an explanation for the rejection. The text you type is sent to any user who attempts to connect to your server while the connections are disabled.

  5. Click OK.

The Reset button resets any changes to the form that you have not yet submitted.

Specifying SNMP configuration

SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) is the protocol used to remotely monitor and manage IP devices across a network. If you want your Collabra Server to be visible on an SNMP network, you must specify SNMP configuration for your server.

Unix. If you want to run SNMP on Unix, you must first configure and start the SNMP master agent. You do this by using the administration server interface. For more information, see the administration server online documentation or the printed manual, Managing Netscape Servers.
Windows NT. If your Collabra Server resides on a Windows NT machine, you must install the SNMP service on your machine. See your Windows NT documentation for more information.
To configure SNMP for your server:

  1. Choose Server Preferences|SNMP Setup.

  2. Unix-only. The Master host field shows the name of the master host. (This field is only applicable to Collabra servers running on Unix. You will not see this field if you are running the Collabra Server on a Windows NT machine.)

  3. In the Description field, type a description of your server. For example, Collabra Server.

  4. In the Organization field, type your organization's name.

  5. In the Location field, type the physical location of your machine.

  6. In the Contact field, type the name of the person to contact about this server. Usually, this is the server administrator.

  7. To make your server visible on the SNMP network, click the SNMP Monitoring On button. (You can take your server off the network by clicking the SNMP Monitoring Off button.)

    Windows NT. On Windows NT, after clicking the ON button, you must restart the SNMP service. See your Windows documentation for more information.

    Unix. On Unix, your server will not be visible to the SNMP network until you start the Collabra Server subagent. See "Managing SNMP subagent status (Unix only)" for more information.

  8. Click OK.

The Reset button resets any changes to the form that you have not yet submitted.

Unix. You can view the SNMP management information base (mib) in the following directory:

          server-root/news-serverid/extras/news/nntp.mib
Windows NT. You can view the SNMP management information base (mib) in the following directory:

          server-root/news-serverid/bin/news/nntp.mib

Managing SNMP subagent status (Unix only)

 If you are running SNMP on Unix, your Collabra Server is an NNTP subagent that communicates with the SNMP master agent. For more information about the SNMP master agent, see the administration server online documentation or the printed manual, Managing Netscape Servers.

To view and manage the subagent status:

Note: If you add another server instance and you want this instance to be part of the SNMP network, you must restart the subagent.

Note: If you stop the Collabra Server, the NNTP subagent is not stopped. If you want to stop the subagent, you must do so from the SNMP Control form. To stop the master agent, you must do so from the administration server interface (Global Settings|SNMP Control).

Specifying technical settings

The technical settings for your server specify information about:

When you install your server, most of the technical settings already have default values. For example, default values are already specified for background tasks and limits. The port number reflects the server port number you specified when you installed the server.

You might want to change these settings for various reasons. The following sections describe how to view and change technical settings for your server.

Specifying background tasks

The Collabra Server automatically runs certain tasks, such as expiring articles and sending discussion groups to other news servers, periodically. You can specify when and how often the Collabra Server should perform these "background" tasks.

To specify information about background tasks:

  1. Choose Server Preferences|Technical Settings.

  2. From the pull-down menus, choose values for the following:

    Send outgoing news. This option determines how often your server sends discussion groups to your designated replication sites. You can choose a time interval from every 5 minutes to every 60 minutes. The default value is every 60 minutes.

    Frequent sends keep your replicated sites more current, but places greater load on the system.

    This option affects outgoing discussion groups only. Incoming discussion groups are handled whenever they arrive; that is, whenever a server connects to your server to send discussion groups.

    Update indexes. This option determines how often index batch files are processed. After the batch file is processed, the articles in the batch file are available for searching and profiling. You can choose a time interval from every 5 minutes to every 60 minutes. Netscape recommends a value of 15 or 30 minutes. The default value is every 15 minutes.

    Update profiles. This option determines how often search profiles are updated. You can choose a time interval from every 5 minutes to every 60 minutes. The default value is every 60 minutes.

    Frequent updates keep the search profiles more current, but places greater load on the system.

    Get display names from directory server. This option determines how often display names of discussion groups are retrieved from the directory service. You can choose a time interval from every 5 minutes to every 60 minutes. The default value is every 30 minutes.

    Frequent updates keep the display names more current, but places greater load on the system.

    Perform daily tasks. This option determines when the server performs its daily maintenance tasks (that is, when news.daily is run). You can choose a time from 12:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. You should choose a time when the system is least busy. The default value is 4:00 a.m.

  3. Click OK.

The Reset button resets any changes to the form that you have not yet submitted.

Specifying limits

To specify limits:

  1. Choose Server Preferences|Technical Settings.

  2. Scroll to the Limits section. Type values for the following:

    Connection timeout (seconds). This option specifies how long the Collabra Server will wait for another request from a newsreader before closing the connection. This option prevents idle newsreaders from consuming system resources. The default value is 1500 seconds.

    Maximum newsreader connections allowed (1-1000). This option limits the number of newsreaders connecting to your server concurrently. The default value is 50.

    By limiting the number of newsreaders, you can improve server performance. If you set the maximum newsreader connections too high and your server isn't configured to handle this many connections, server performance might be very poor. The number you enter should represent a realistic number of users.

    Maximum article size (bytes). This option limits the maximum article size the server will accept from a newsreader or another server. The value you specify depends on your business requirements.

    The default value is 0, which means that no maximum article size is enforced.

  3. Click OK.

The Reset button resets any changes to the form that you have not yet submitted.

Specifying organization name

When people post articles to your server, they generally have an organization header associated with their name. This header might be the name of the company they work for or the name of the school they attend.

The organization header may be set as an option in the user's newsreader. If someone posts an article that does not have an organization header to your server, you can specify that a default organization header be added.

To specify a default organization header:

  1. Choose Server Preferences|Technical Settings.

  2. Scroll to the Organization Name section and type the organization name.

  3. Click OK.

Changing the port number

 To change the port number your server listens to:

  1. Choose Server Preferences|Technical Settings.

  2. Scroll to the Port Number section and type the port number in the field.

  3. Click OK.

The Reset button resets any changes to the form that you have not yet submitted.

The server checks to see if this port is in use by some other server to prevent re-use. After you confirm the change, you must restart the server for the change to actually take place.

Warning!
Changing the server port number has many implications for all clients, including other news servers attempting to connect to your server. If a client is unaware of the port number change, the client can no longer connect to your server.

Changing the spool directory location

 All of the articles on your server are kept in a hierarchy under the spool directory. Articles are stored in subdirectories corresponding to their discussion group names.

For example, you might find these subdirectories: music, dance, and theater. Under music you might find the directories rock, classical, and so on. For each discussion group in a discussion group hierarchy, there is a corresponding directory.

When you install the server, the spool directory is automatically created. You might want to point to another spool directory or you might want to create a new spool directory.

If you are creating a new spool directory, you must do the following before changing your spool directory location:

  1. Create the directory where you want to keep the spool. The new directory must have the same ownership and permissions as the original directory.

  2. Create the following subdirectories:

    The subdirectories must have the same ownership and permissions as the original directory.

To change the spool directory location:

  1. Copy the spool hierarchy to the new directory.

    Note: If you are copying the entire spool, you do not need to create the subdirectories (in.coming, out.going, over.view, news.archive).

  2. Choose Server Preferences|Technical Settings.

  3. Scroll to the Spool Directory Location section and type the new location in the field.

  4. Click OK.

  5. Restart your server.

The Reset button resets any changes to the form that you have not yet submitted.

You can move the location of the spool directory without affecting the history file. (The history file contains a mapping of the article message identifications to the file names in the spool directory.)

Note: Be sure the new spool directory has the correct ownership and permissions (read, write, and execute) set. Otherwise you will have problems with your server.

Note: You will need to rebuild any full-text indexes.

Specifying a message of the day

To specify a message of the day:

  1. Choose Server Preferences|Message of the day.

  2. Type the message in the field.

  3. Click OK.

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