Novell Storage Manager 4.1 for Active Directory is an engineering maintenance release that adds new functionality while resolving several issues.
The GSR Collector has been redesigned to improve performance and reduce memory consumption. It has been extended to collect data and report on additional managed path types. Additionally, a new scoping configuration has been added to tailor the GSR Collector to the needs of your environment.
NSMAdmin now has direct access to the SQL Server database instance for improved performance with the following:
Pending Events
GSR Collector Anomaly Reports
Redistribution
Addressed issues that could cause the NSM Engine RAM usage to become excessive while the GSR Collector was running.
Redistributing storage from a share to a DFS link to the same share no longer result as a stuck event.
The password for the SQL Server login initially created during the Database Configuration wizard will now be changed to a new value if a new value is entered.
Redistribution events for user objects no longer fail if a policy doesn't specify an owner override.
Selecting Trustee Only in the Cross-Empire Data Migration subsystem now properly verifies that the Copy Options - Data Subfolder option is selected.
Set policy rollback is now processed correctly where “preflight” copying is involved.
For collaborative storage with a group assigned to the Managed By attribute, if you removed a member from that group, the rename to #removed# did not take place. This has been corrected.
Vault rules containing a single * (asterisk) no longer remove the source folder when grooming home folders.
The NSM Engine now produces log output on startup, if the license is missing, invalid, and so on.
The second page of the Database Migration wizard no longer allows you to advance without selecting a source folder.
Clear Managed Path Attribute management actions no longer fail for Remote Desktop Services Home Folder policies.
The Apply Members management action for a container no longer reports valid policies as invalid.
Attempting to open a consistency check report while the consistency check itself was still running, resulted in the report never loading. This has been fixed.
Addressed an excessive amount of open TCP connections in cases where the Event Monitor is running on the same machine as the server hosting the NSM Engine.
Addressed the cause of the Event Monitor causing high CPU usage when performing partial replica rebuilds.
Added a missing scroll bar for the Search Targets results list on the Cross-Empire Data Migration Identity Map dialog box.
After deleting a policy, the next highlighted one is the one that follows in the list.
The refresh button on the file system path browser now updates the displayed storage resource list.
XML entities in the folder name of explicit paths in Management Actions can now be found.
When you attempt to create a duplicate policy name, the resulting error message is now easier to understand.
Enabling the Users filter on the Storage Management page while a search is in progress no longer results in a server crash in large environments.
After copying policy data using the Policy Editor, then clicking Cancel, and then No, the user would previously be prompted a second time with the same dialog box. This has been corrected.
Novell Storage Manager 4.1 for Active Directory exclusively uses DNS FQDNs (Fully Qualified Domain Names) for server names in all UNC paths set in and by NSM. This is a change from NSM 3.x and earlier, where NetBIOS names were used (although a configuration option to use DNS names existed in NSM 3.1.x). This is per Microsoft’s own recommendations, as Microsoft slowly attempts to phase out NetBIOS and WINS.
This problem manifests itself when Folder Redirection has already been in effect where the UNC path value for the home folder uses one form of the host name, and then the UNC path of the home folder attribute is modified to refer to the same actual location but with the host name in the other format (e.g. switching from NetBIOS to DNS FQDN). Alternatively, switching the UNC path from server and share, (e.g. \\server\\share\\path-remainder) regardless of the host name format that was used, to using a DFS name space (e.g. \\some-domain.com\dfs-name-space\link\path-remainder) where the DFS link being used resolves to the same location as the original UNC path will also cause the problem to manifest itself.
The root-cause for the problem is that the Folder Redirection code in Windows, prior to the hotfix, was not resolving the old and new UNC path values for the home folder to determine if they refer to the same location on disk. Unlike Novell Storage Manager, which makes this determination via its “path overlap detection” functionality, the Folder Redirection code makes a bad assumption that it can unconditionally delete the files on the “old” path after it copies them to the “new” path and thus, it ends up deleting files that should not have been deleted.
These Windows bugs, which can result in loss of data in the redirected folders or the entire redirected folder, are described in the following Microsoft KB articles:
“You are unable to update the target location of offline file shares in the Offline File client side cache without administrative permission in Windows Server 2008 R2 or in Windows 7.” http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977229
“After you apply a GPO to redirect a folder to a new network share, the redirected folder is empty on client computers that are running Windows Vista or Windows Server 2008.”http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977611
These KB articles specifically apply to users logging on through Windows Vista or Windows 7 computers, as well as users logging on interactively on Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2. Users on other operating systems might be affected as well, however.
Both of the KB articles above include links to hotfixes that help resolve these issues.
While this is not a NSM issue per se, NSM’s exclusive use of DNS FQDNs in UNC paths can exacerbate this problem, or introduce it into an environment that was previously exclusively using NetBIOS naming for servers and using folder redirection. If your environment uses folder redirection, we strongly recommend reading the KB articles above and applying any relevant hotfixes before managing storage with NSM. (In fact, we strongly recommend applying these hotfixes if you use folder redirection in your AD environment with the affected operating systems, even if you are not managing user storage with NSM. Microsoft’s continuing push to move away from NetBIOS and WINS may eventually introduce this issue into your environment with or without NSM installed.)