Recovering the Site Database

Recovering the SMS database itself is a fairly straightforward task—which isn’t to imply that it’s a mundane or trivial matter, but rather that it’s cut and dried. You recover the site database by restoring it from a current backup. For example, if you need to move the SMS database to another server running SQL Server for some reason, you would follow these steps:

1. Close all SMS-related tools, such as all SMS Administrator Consoles, that are accessing the current database, as well as all SMS site server services (including the SQL Monitor service on the system running SQL). You don’t want anything trying to update the database while you’re managing it.

2. Start SQL Server in single-user mode and back up the SMS database, or schedule a database backup through the SMS Administrator Console. The single-user mode option is set through the Properties dialog box for the database accessible through the SQL Server Enterprise Manager, on the Options tab.

3. Locate (or install) the other system running SQL Server, ensuring that the same database sort order has been used as on the original server running SQL, as well as the same hardware platform.

4. Create database and log devices or files (depending on the SQL Server version) that are at least as large as the backed-up database.

5. Restore the backed-up SMS database to the new system running SQL Server.

6. Use the Reset option of the SMS Setup program on the site server to point the site server to the location of the new system running SQL Server containing the database.

You would follow similar steps if the database needed to be restored for any other reason, although if you were restoring to the same system running SQL Server, you might not need to perform step 6.

Recovering the Site Server

If you encounter a situation in which the SMS site server itself needs to be recovered—perhaps it crashed or it had be moved to a different physical system—the steps for recovery are somewhat more involved. First of all, your situation would probably be hopeless if you had not already created a current backup of your SMS database, so let’s assume that you’ve been backing it up regularly.

As we’ve seen, other significant elements of the site server in addition to the SMS database need to be backed up in order to completely restore the site server to its previous state. These elements include the SMS and NAL registry keys, the site control file (\SMS\Inboxes\Sitectrl.box\Sitectrl.ct0), and the SMS directory structure and files.

The recovery process begins with the restoration of the SMS site database, of course. However, it will also involve the restoration of the backed-up elements. For example, if you need to reinstall SMS on the site server or install it on a new computer, you’ll restore the previous site by copying the backed-up SMS directory and site control file over the new installation or over the reinstallation. Similarly, you can restore the SMS-related registry keys by using the Windows Registry Editor to replace the existing SMS keys (created when you reinstalled SMS or installed it to a new server) with the backed-up versions of those keys.

In some cases, you could restore just the database itself and let the SMS site server rebuild itself—which it will do eventually. However, any changes you made that were written to the registry but not yet updated to the database will probably be lost. Restoring the SMS site server completely, as described here, will ensure that all elements of the site server are properly synchronized.

Using Preinst.exe

Included on the SMS product CD is the Site Utilities tool (Preinst.exe). This tool must be installed on a site server and is used to help diagnose problems, repair the site control file, delete incorrectly removed sites, or stop SMS site server services, among other things.

Let’s look at three of this tool’s command-line options here that can be of particular use in the SMS site server recovery and maintenance process: /DUMP, /DELSITE, and /DELJOB. You can run this tool from a command prompt by changing the path to the appropriate directory from the command prompt and executing the tool.

Figure 18.8 displays the command switches available for PREINST. Executing the PREINST /DUMP command causes a new site control image to be written to the root of the partition on which SMS was installed. An image is a binary representation of the site control file. This image is based on the current site control data stored in the SMS database and is named SMS_sitecode.scf. This file can then be copied to the Site Control Manager’s inbox (SMS\Inboxes\Sitectrl.box) and renamed Sitectrl.ct0 to rebuild the site’s properties. This function is useful if the site control file becomes corrupted or if you don’t have a current backup of it.

Figure 18.8: PREINST switches.

You can use PREINST /DELSITE to remove a “phantom” child site. When a child site is to be removed from a parent site, the correct process is to break the parent-child relationship through the child site’s properties, wait for the parent and child sites to update their respective databases, and then remove the addresses. A phantom child site occurs if the child site is removed from the parent site before the relationship has been broken or before the databases can be correctly updated, and references to the deleted child site may remain at the parent.

To delete the removed site from the parent site, execute PREINST /DELSITE: {childsitecode, parentsitecode}, where childsitecode represents the site code of the site that needs to be deleted and parentsitecode represents the parent’s site code for the site that needs to be deleted. Once executed, the change will be replicated up the SMS site hierarchy.

Last, PREINST /DELJOB is designed to remove jobs or commands targeted to a specific site. You can use this command to remove jobs that might still be in the queue for the removed site but keep trying to be sent or executed, resulting in error status messages. Executing PREINST /DELJOB:sitecode will delete all commands that are targeting the specified site code.