'Tuner Blog

The first Tuesday of the month is here for February and brings us two new rules - straight from customer engagements and supported by developers' knowledge.  The first of these is the notes.ini setting NLCACHE_SIZE, described in the Name Lookup Cache Testing section of the developerWorks article Domino 6 directory performance improvements.  We are suggesting this be set to 64MB (NLCACHE_SIZE=67108864) as a starting point to make best use of the cache.  The NameLookupCache is not greedy and will use only what is needed.  For example, if the NLCACHE_SIZE is specified as 67108864 (64MB), but only 32MB are needed, the cache will grow to 32MB, leaving the remaining 32MB for other Domino processes.  The second rule is for GROUP_CACHE_SIZE.  While similar to NLCACHE_SIZE, GROUP_CACHE_SIZE must be specified in KBytes and has a hard maximum of 15MB (15360.)  The Support document High CPU usage with large number of groups with large number of users suggests raising this limit to 12MB.  After consulting with core developers, we are suggesting it be taken right to the max of 15MB.  Check for Updates now and let us know your experiences!

A slow start to 2010, but we're just getting started!  We begin by picking up with another Agent Manager rule, following the December set which was all about the Agent Manager.  I am trying to get back on track with the FTOTM postings...  In addition to the Agent Manager rule, we have added rules which deal with Port Compression and Port Encryption.  The new rule set is available for download now!  Your feedback is always appreciated - either in comments or direct email.

The 'Tuner Blog will expanding this year, both in posting frequency and topics.  Extra topics will focus on things I stumble across in the Notes client, Designer or Admin client.  The first extra comes from the Notes client.  Did you know that you can set SameTime 'Auto Status Changes' for numerous events in addition to the familiar "Keyboard and mouse inactivity" event?  You can also change your status when either your computer or Notes itself is locked.  I personally am terrible at changing my status when in meetings.  Or, if I remember to set my status to 'Meeting', I forget to become available when the meeting is finished.  Rescue comes in the form of settings that allow me to automatically change status for both physical and online meetings - sweet!

Greetings fellow 'Tuners!

Thanks to Bob Dylan and the Grateful Dead for providing the words for this mid-month title...  If you click "Check for Updates" and get new rules and a new template, don't get too excited.  This mid-month release is a fix release.  I received feedback via the forums, email and SameTime regarding folks having an issue with DCT.  The symptom is the repeated presence of the "Before you can use the Domino Configuration Tuner you need to restart your Notes Client" upon opening the application. The DCT applet resource had a jar with a time stamp that was exactly an hour off from what exists on disk.  While these files are the same, the time stamp difference causes the application to attempt to deploy a new jar.  The currently deployed jar is 'in use' at this point, causing a race condition which presents itself as the symptom described above.  

If you encounter this issue, please download a fresh copy of DCT.NTF and *replace* the design of your existing DCT.  After replacing the design, DCT should operated normally.  Thanks to all who reported this - all feedback is appreciated!

Peace out.

Greetings on the second Tuesday of the month - new updates are available, go get 'em!  This months updates (originally posted FTOTM, updated today) contains two new rules and an update to the engine.  The engine will now handle an ampersand in the Domino domain name.  The two new rules are HTTP_MaxActiveThreads which will work to optimize CPU utilization for the HTTP task and LOG_DIRCAT which specifies how much, if any, Directory Catalog task information is logged.  Thanks to Ulrich Krause who was quick to catch the exception occurring in the HTTP_MaxActiveThreads rule (fixed in today's posting) - much appreciated!

In other news, DCT is now part of the IBM Support Assistant (ISA)!  ISA is available for download here.  I believe that it is free, though it does require and IBM ID and password.  Also, in case you haven't seen it on the Notes/Domino wiki, please be sure to visit the Collections of NOTES.INI settings page for all things notes.ini.

As always, your feedback is requested and appreciated.  Enjoy!

Greetings fellow 'Tuners!  Returning yesterday afternoon from a college visit to Penn State, I missed FTOTM.  I did post updated files this morning, so have at it!  The rule set this month is focusing on transaction logging settings in the server document as well as a batch of DAOS/notes.ini rules to prevent premature attachment pruning.

I hooked up with some of our transacation logging folks to get some recommended values.  Consequently, the TRANSLOG_AutoFixup rule will detect whether or not you have auto fixup set in your server document (we recommend that you do.)  The TRANSLOG_Performance rule will determine what kind of performance is preferred for transaction logging.  The default is 'Standard'.  However, I/O performance improvements have been seen when 'Favor runtime' is set, so we now suggest this. 

In addition to the transaction logging rules, I was pointed to a set of notes.ini settings that can cause premature DAOS attachment pruning when enabled.  The following rules exist to let you know if you have these settings active when DAOS is enabled:

• DEBUG_DISABLE_CACHE_DB_UPDATES
  
• DEBUG_DISABLE_DIRECTORY_CACHE
• DEBUG_DISABLE_DIRMAN_REFRESH
• DEBUG_DISABLE_REFRESH_CACHE_FROM_DISK
• DEBUG_DISABLE_UPDATE_CACHE_DB

These rules were implemented in direct response to (and link back to) the technote Diagnostic (debug) NOTES.INI settings for dbdirman can cause DAOS to delete attachments prematurely.  Thanks to folks who sent these to me, internally and externally.  So, another month, another set of rules - are there spots that we are missing?  Things we could improve?  I'd really like to hear from you either via response or by email at sokeefe@us.ibm.com.  Enjoy!

Hi all!  I skipped an entry last month, but did actually post a new template & rule set.  This month we're adding 9 new rules bringing our two month total to 14.  Here's what we put up last month:

• HTTPEnableThreadDebug allows admins to indicate various levels of logging for HTTP threads.

• Debug_Logger_Buf_Full_No_Wait, Debug_Logger_Buf_Full_Min_Wait, Debug_Logger_Buf_Full_Max_Wait can all improve performance when transactional logging is enabled.
  

• Log_DisableTXNLogging prevents transaction logging from logging entries in log.nsf.

Here's what we're adding this month:

• a new DEBUG_PD_NAGLE_OFF rule, specific to iSeries running Domino version 8.0 and 8.0.1

• another iSeries specific rule JavaUseClassicJVM which applies to Domino versions 8.5 and later (this should not be set)

• the final iSeries specific  rule, NSF_BUFFER_POOL_SIZE_MB which will check for the pre-set value of 300MB and alert if a conflicting value is set.
  

• two settings which should only be used when instructed by IBM Support: DEBUG_DIRECTORY_CACHE (used for debugging DbDirMan issues) and DEBUG_GROUP_CACHE (used for debugging authentication issues)

• finally, four flavors of 'Server_Max_Noteopen" all designed to allow for administrative control over howmuch Domino memory is used for open notes for a given server process.  There are two versions of Server_Max_Noteopen_Memory_MB, one for Domino versions 7.0.2 and earlier, one for Domino 7.0.3 and later.  Likewise, there are two versions of Server_Max_Noteopen_Memory_KB, one for Domino versions 7.0.2 and earlier, one for Domino 7.0.3 and later.  Of course, the big differentiator is whether the value is specified as Megabytes or Kilobytes; it should be noted that if Server_Max_Noteopen_Memory_MB and Server_Max_Noteopen_Memory_KB are used,
  Server_Max_Noteopen_Memory_MB will win.

Finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't acknowledge the much appreciated feedback that has started to come in.  A special shout out to Bruce Currier and Ulrich Krause who provided feedback and testing to help me fix a version awareness issue we had with the DEBUG_PD_NAGLE_OFF rules (included in this rule set.)  Also a huge "Thanks!" to all who have been contacting me with rule ideas, providing feedback via email and in the forums.  Keep it coming!

Hi all, it's (the day after) the first Tuesday of the month!  New rules have been posted - actually on FTOTM - and are ready for download.  This month's rule set starts with a check for FT_Index_Ignore_Attachment_Types which allows you to specify file extensions to be ignored when full text indexing.  Also included are  SERVER_MAX_CONCURRENT_TRANS and SERVER_POOL_TASKS which must be used together, and when they are, allow you to control the number of threads that are used for NRPC transactions.  If you are an AIX shop, or have AIX servers, you might be interested in AIX_LIMIT_SHM_SEGMENTS, which will help you ensure that Domino is accessing whole memory segments.  Finally on the rule front, LDAPGroupMembership (for 6.0 and later) and LDAP_GroupMembership (pre 6.0) allow you to specify groups for inclusion or exclusion when peforming LDAP searches.  Last, but not least, I fixed the Log_MailRouting bug that I heard about in the forums and in comments here.  I really am listening, promise!  Please keep the feedback coming, our goal is to continue making this tool the best it can be.  Enjoy!

Greetings!  Another month, another set of rules to unleash.  I'm shooting for 'FTOTM' to be the release date for rule sets.  If you check for updates, you'll see that this month I got in just under the wire - but the new stuff is indeed there.  I've changed the template database title to include the release date in YYYY.MM.DD format, so it now reads "Domino Configuration Tuner (2009.06.02)" to help determine which template release you have on a given machine.  Before I cover the new rules we're releasing, I want to take a moment to thank some folks who have been indispensable in my getting this stuff out on a somewhat regular basis: Chad Scott, Liam Harpur and Rob Gearhart have all provided some excellent research which has enabled rule creation to pick up the pace.  Thanks for all of your help!  Here are the notes.ini settings used for the new rules this release:

• NLCACHE_VERSION - which sets the version of NameLookup cache to be used.
• INOTESDISABLEXPAGECMD - which will disable XPages on the server (we recommend it generally not be used.)
• DEBUG_DISABLE_DIRMAN_REFRESH - which disables the server side database cache (another one we recommend against.)
• DEBUG_FIXUP_RESET_ACL - which can be used to help administrators fix corrupt database ACLs.  It should only be used temporarily and as needed.
• DEBUG_ENABLE_UPDATE_FIX - which should only be present when SERVER_NAME_LOOKUP_NO_UPDATE is set to 1 in the server's notes.ini.  Both settings are required to suppress unnecessary view updating in the Domino Directory.

I've seen some feedback in the forums and in comments - I'll be working on incorporating suggestions and feedback into the upcoming rule set releases.  Please continue to provide feedback - we want to make this tool as useful (and correct) as possible.  If there are areas that you feel aren't well represented, let me know.  Especially appreciated are any success stories you can share, and - as always - why you did/didn't implement suggestions provided.  Enjoy!

      Greetings!  I put another DCT.NTF up on the web last Tuesday - just getting around to posting about it.  The new rules focus largely on DAOS and making sure that you are reaping the maximum benefit from this awesome Domino 8.5 feature.  If you're running 8.5 or later, we'll check to see if you are running DAOS.  If you are not, you'll hear about it from the DAOSEnable rule.  Additionally, the DAOSMinObjSize rule will let you know if you have specified an object size that might be better suited to direct NSF use as opposed to DAOS.  DAOSDeferredDeleteInterval will help ensure that your object stores hang around long enough to be included in backups (and not so long that they're just taking up space.)  In the security space, I offer DAOS_ENCRYPT_NLO which will warn you if you have settings which prevent the object store from being encrypted.  All of these rules point back to the DAOS Best Practices Notes/Domino wiki posting for more information.

     Also included with this update are DEBUG_SCR_DISABLE which will determine if you have problematic settings around streaming cluster replication and NSF_DbCache_Disable which will help you determine if your server performance is being negatively impacted.

     I leave you with questions...  Do you use the notes.ini section of the configuration document?  Do you manually edit server notes.ini files?  Please share!  Thanks.

You're using DCT, right?  If so, then there are likely some settings you've at least reviewed and possibly (hopefully) some that you've tweaked to improve the performance/behavior of your Domino servers.  The question that haunts me is "what recommendations aren't folks implementing and why?"  I understand that the 'what' is the easy part to answer.  However, the 'why' is the really important part.  Please share!

This is the first post for the 'Tuner Blog, in which I'll be covering changes to the tool and expansion of the rule catalog.  Catalog expansion is our primary focus at this point so that we're creating the most value from the results.  I'm particularly interested to know if you're using the tool, and if so, how?  Are you making recommended changes?  How are you quantifying the impact of these changes?  Are there changes that you are intentionally avoiding, and if so, why?  Please comment!

Also, I really do think that DCT does rule, but today I'm talking about new the latest version of DCT.NTF and the new rules that we've added to the DCT catalog.  If you click the "Check for Updates" button, you'll get a new template, complete with new rules!    This release contains new rules for Transaction Log formatting, memory management rules for Domino servers running versions prior to 8.0, server session timeout.

• If you're using transaction logging and running Domino 8.5 on your server, setting CREATE_R85_LOG=1 in the server's notes.ini can improve the formatting of the log.
• Running server versions prior to 8.0?  The new rules NSF_BUFFER_POOL_SIZE and NSF_BUFFER_POOL_SIZE_MB can help ease your Domino memory tuning pain.  PercentAvailSysResources will provide further memory tuning suggestions.
• ServerSessionTimeout implementation is now complete, as well, providing suggestions for tuning Domino session timeouts.

Enjoy!