SYMPTOMS
After a news server hash table or Group.1st becomes corrupted, it is often
necessary to rebuild the server by running the following command:
On a very large news server which contains several gigabytes of news
articles, this process can take 24 to 48 hours. During this time the news
service must remain offline while the rebuild takes place.
RESOLUTION
Microsoft has added two switches to the nntpbld command with Service Pack 2
for Microsoft Commercial Internet System. The first switch allows the
administrator to bypass deleting the *.xix files, and use the information
that already exists to rebuild the hash tables. The second switch allows
the command to be multithreaded. These two enhancements greatly decrease
the amount of time required to rebuild a news server.
This update adds two switches to the Nntpbld.exe program. The information
about these switches is not contained in the documentation.
-w Switch
This switch allows the nntpbld command to be multithreaded. This increases
the performance of the rebuild with no negative side effects. An example of
this command would be
where n is the number of threads to use. The maximum number that can be
used is 64 and a value of O defaults to 2 * number of processors.
-x Switch
If this switch is specified, nntpbld does not rebuild the *.xix files; it
uses the existing information to rebuild the server. The downside of
running a rebuild with this switch is that if the *.xix files are already
corrupted, using this command may cause the xover data for that group to
also become corrupted, thus causing more problems. Therefore, Microsoft
recommends that you run the command and include the -x switch
rather than running it with just the -w switch
if you are sure only the hash tables are corrupted.