Chapter 4. Monitoring and Controlling Server Processes

Table of Contents

Summary of Instructions
Brief Descriptions of the AFS Server Processes
The bosserver Process: the Basic OverSeer Server
The buserver Process: the Backup Server
The fs Collection of Processes: the File Server, Volume Server and Salvager
The kaserver Process: the Authentication Server
The ptserver Process: the Protection Server
The upserver and upclient Processes: the Update Server
The vlserver Process: the Volume Location Server
Controlling and Checking Process Status
The Information in the BosConfig File
How the BOS Server Uses the Information in the BosConfig File
About Starting and Stopping the Database Server Processes
About Starting and Stopping the Update Server
Displaying Process Status and Information from the BosConfig File
To display the status of server processes and their BosConfig entries
Creating and Removing Processes
To create and start a new process
To stop a process and remove it from the BosConfig file
Stopping and Starting Processes Permanently
To stop a process by changing its status to NotRun
To start processes by changing their status flags to Run
Stopping and Starting Processes Temporarily
To stop processes temporarily
To start all stopped processes that have status flag Run in the BosConfig file
To start specific processes
Stopping and Immediately Restarting Processes
To stop and restart all processes including the BOS Server
To stop and immediately restart all processes except the BOS Server
To stop and immediately restart specific processes
Setting the BOS Server's Restart Times
To display the BOS Server restart times
To set the general or binary restart time
Displaying Server Process Log Files
To examine a server process log file

One of your most important responsibilities as a system administrator is ensuring that the processes on file server machines are running correctly. The BOS Server, which runs on every file server machine, relieves you of much of the responsibility by constantly monitoring the other AFS server processes on its machine. It can automatically restart processes that have failed, ordering the restarts to take interdependencies into account.

Because different file server machines run different combinations of processes, you must define which processes the BOS Server on each file server machine is to monitor (to learn how, see Controlling and Checking Process Status).

It is sometimes necessary to take direct control of server process status before performing routine maintenance or correcting problems that the BOS Server cannot correct (such as problems with database replication or mutual authentication). At those times, you control process status through the BOS Server by issuing bos commands.

Summary of Instructions

This chapter explains how to perform the following tasks by using the indicated commands:

Examine process statusbos status
Examine information from the BosConfig file filebos status with -long flag
Create a process instancebos create
Stop a processbos stop
Start a stopped processbos start
Stop a process temporarilybos shutdown
Start a temporarily stopped processbos startup
Stop and immediately restart a processbos restart
Stop and immediately restart all processesbos restart with -bosserver flag
Examine BOS Server's restart timesbos getrestart
Set BOS Server's restart timesbos setrestart
Examine a log filebos getlog
Execute a command remotelybos exec