Posted by arlene

Using the Action Menu to Manage Individual WINS Servers

You can perform most of the basic management tasks associated with WINS servers by selecting the WINS server from those you’ve added to the tree structure in the left pane and then using options from the Action menu. Alternatively, you can right-click on a server and select the same options from the menu that pops up. The things you can manage from the Action menu for any server are

• Display Server Statistics—This option enables you to see when the server was started, statistics about replication, name registrations, releases, and so on.

• Scavenge Database—This starts the scavenging process. You can determine when this process has finished by looking in the event log.

• Verify Database Consistency—This function pulls records from other WINS servers by examining records in the local database to determine the owner of each record. If the record still exists on the owner-WINS server and is identical to the local record, the timestamp for the record is updated. Otherwise, if the record pulled from the owner-server has a higher version ID than that of the local record, the local record is marked for deletion and the new record is added to the local database.

• Verify Version ID Consistency—This is similar to the previous function, but the server checks to see that, for the records it owns, the local record has the highest version ID among other WINS servers on the network. This operation can take some time to complete.

• Start Push Replication—Use this to start an immediate replication, pushing records to a replication partner. This can be useful if you’ve made changes to the database (such as adding static records) and you don’t want to wait for the next scheduled replication interval. A dialog box prompts you for the server to which you want to push records.

• Start Pull Replication—Similar to the previous menu item, but you use this to force another server to immediately begin the replication process by sending records to your server.

• Back Up Database—Use this to back up the database. A dialog box prompts you to enter the location that you want to use to store the database file backup. When the process is finished, another dialog box pops up to inform you.

• Restore Database—Use this to restore a WINS database that you have previously backed up. Again, you’ll be prompted to enter the location of the backup files and will be informed when the process has finished.

• All Tasks—Start, stop, pause, resume, or restart the WINS server.

• Delete—Use this to delete a WINS server from the MMC console list. Note that this does not delete any data on that WINS server, but merely removes it from the list of servers you manage using MMC on the local computer.

• Refresh—Use this to refresh data displayed on the MMC console.

• Export List—This menu item enables you to export a list of records stored in the WINS database. You’re prompted for the location in which the file will be created. You can create ASCII text files or Unicode files, and can select that the file be either tab or comma delimited. This function is useful for exporting the WINS database records for use in another application, such as a spreadsheet.

• Properties—This displays the properties sheet for the selected server.

• Help—Use this when all else fails!

The properties page for a server (which can be displayed using the Action menu as just described) can be used to further configure the server. The properties page has four tabs:

• General—Here you can select the time interval used to automatically refresh the statistics shown on the MMC Console for the WINS server. You can also specify a location to store the database during a backup, and use a check box to enable backing up the database automatically when the server is shut down.

• Intervals—This tab allows you to set the time intervals used for record renewals, deletions, and verification.

• Database Verification—Use this tab to set a time for scheduling database verification. You can specify that it be done every so many hours or you can set a specific time for verification to begin. This function performs the database consistency check described earlier. If you have a large database, a field on this tab enables you to enter the maximum number of records to be verified during each interval.

• Advanced—This tab enables you to perform many functions.

The Advanced tab is singled out here for special mention because it contains some important configuration items. For example, you can specify the path to use for the database files. You can decide to enable logging detailed events to the event log for troubleshooting purposes. This is not a feature you should leave enabled unless you’re having problems with WINS.

The Enable Burst Handling check box enables you to customize (low, medium, high, or specify a number) the number of client registrations and renewals that the server can handle at a single time. This can be useful if you have a server that you want to use mainly as a backup for your primary WINS server. You can set its burst mode to low and then change this property to high on the server you want to handle the most requests.

You can enter a starting version ID in a field at the bottom of this dialog box. Finally, you can use a check box to enable the use of computer names that are compatible with LAN Manager if you have older Microsoft clients on your network.

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