Manually start BES services from a batch file
 

Good afternoon,

1st post at this site... please be gentle ;-)

I'm trying to locate a resource that describes how I can use NET START {service} / NET STOP {service} to start and stop the BES Servcies manually.

Some of my 5 BES servers don't like to start cleanly when the BES services are started automatically.

We are using BES 4.1.0.38

thanks in advance,

Rudy Benischke

I think the better solution would be to find out why the services aren't starting properly. I've never had that problem over 3 servers and 2 years. If the services are configured to start automatically, then they should. Everytime.

Take small failures as precursors to possible greater failures.

Use quotes around the service name to get the NET START and NET STOP to work. Ladydi is right, need to find out why they don't start cleanly.

I use the batch files to restart services periodically, especially after I move mailboxes.

Alan

From an intellectual standpoint, I totally agree with you both that the services should start automatically... every time...

Unfortunately, I've just inherited this "mess" and the 4 of the 5 servers are in either Europe or Asia... It's the one in Sydney and another in Norway that have been creating the grief. I'd love to have the luxury to rebuild the servers to my specs but I don't... Maybe some company trips are in the horizon for me... ;-) ;-)

I'll the enclosing the services in "quotes"

Cheers,

Rudy

You could try using "sc" instead of "net start"; it also allows you to set services temporarily to manual with e.g.:

sc config "Blackberry Server Alert" start= demand

and likewise "auto" and "disabled". You'll still need to quote the service name of course.

One thing to watch out for - if you have different mail servers (e.g. Exchange and Lotus) or different BES versions (e.g. 4.0 and 4.1) you might get slightly different service names. You won't get an "MdsTomcat" unless you've installed MDS Services, for example.

What do the logs say about the services not starting at boot though?

So... I created the CMD files with the Net Start commands... works like a dream

I'll look at SC...

No real errors logged in the Event log... just some warnings about "error calling host 127.0.0.1" Too damn busy to troubleshoot further at this point, unfortunately.. :oops:


thanks for all the advice folks.

You may also want to investigate the "recovery" options in the service's properties.

First Failure...
Second Failure...
Subsequent failures...

Options are:
Take No action
Restart the service
Run a file
Reboot the computer


Poor man's monitoring of services

First fail =
"run a file" ->
good old blat... :-) and a bit more of a batch file...
restart service

Second after 3 minutes:
"run a file" ->
good old blat... :-) and a bit more of a batch file...
restart service


Subsequent:
depends on how critical - but rebooting the server is an option there...

Another great idea... 8-)