XADM: How to Stop a Server Monitor from Restarting a Server (245838)

SUMMARY

When a server monitor detects that a monitored service is not running, and the action specified on the Actions tab of the monitor is "Restart the computer," the monitored server restarts after the amount of time specified in the Restart delay space. During this time, a System Shutdown window opens on the monitored server and counts down the time until the server restarts.

While there appears to be no way to stop the server from restarting, you can stop the server from restarting by doing one of the methods described in the "More Information" section.

NOTE: With these methods, the System Shutdown window continues to count down to zero, but after it reaches zero, it disappears and the computer will not restart.

MORE INFORMATION

OPTION 1: Stop the Server Monitor

If you stop the server monitor on the server that initiated the shutdown, the monitored server will not be restarted when the countdown reaches zero.

You can tell which server initiated the shutdown by looking in the System Shutdown window on the monitored server. The window contains the following text:

This shutdown was initiated by Domain\ServerName

OPTION 2: Restart the Monitored Services

If all of the monitored services are restarted before the countdown reaches zero, the server will not be restarted. If you can't start one of the monitored services, this method obviously won't work.

By default, the monitored services are the Exchange Server directory, information store, and message transfer agent. If any other services were added to the server monitor, you must restart them as well.

OPTION 3: Disable and Stop the System Attendant

If you disable the system attendant on the monitored server and stop it, the computer is not restarted when the countdown reaches zero. Be sure to set the system attendant to disabled before stopping it. If you stop the system attendant on the monitored server without disabling it, the server that initiated the shutdown will try to restart the system attendant.

During a planned outage, you can suspend server monitors by running the following command:

\exchsrvr\bin\admin.exe /t nr

More information about server monitors can be found in Chapter 3, "Monitoring Your Organization," of the Microsoft Exchange Server 5.5 Maintenance and Troubleshooting manual or in the Books Online for Exchange Server 5.5.