How to Use the VIA Compact Utility in Microsoft Metadirectory Services (250484)

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Microsoft Metadirectory Services (MMS) contains a metadirectory database called x500.db, and this is an ASN.1 database. When the VIA Compact utility is run against the database, the VIA service must be stopped. When the VIA Compact utility is started, it will make three passes through the directory data. The first pass ensures the integrity of your ASN.1 database, the second pass rebuilds the indices and hash database, and the third pass checks the referential integrity between connector space and metaverse entries. When this process is finished, the utility will have reclaimed space in the directory, rebuilt all of the hashed databases, and rebuilt the links between Connector Namespace and Metaverse objects.

There are four actions available on the VIA Advanced Options tab. These options dictate the action that will be performed by the VIA Compact utility:

• Verify ASN Database: This action verifies the ASN store (x500.db) and attempts to find any invalid records.
• Compact ASN Database: This action compacts the database by renaming the ASN store database file x.500.db to x.500.sav, rebuilds the database, and corrects any errors.
• Verify Metadirectory Links: This action examines all alias-type links in the directory and ensures that all links are valid.
• Restart VIA Server when done: This action restarts the VIA Server when done. This permits you to choose to either start VIA as a service, or as a program. Select the former when you normally run the server as a Windows NT service, or select the latter if you normally run VIA by clicking the server icon on your desktop.

The VIA service must be stopped before you run the VIA Compact utility. Also, prior to running the Compact utility, it may be beneficial to clear the genlog to accommodate space in a log file. This becomes more important as you increase the logging level or as the log file size approaches the specified limit.

To Verify Directory Integrity with VIA Compact

1. At a command prompt, type net stop zoomit server, and then press ENTER.
   
   NOTE: Wait at least 1 minute while MMS shuts down and releases all is resources before you proceed to the next step.
2. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Zoomit Directory Services V2, and then click Zoomit VIA Compact Utility.
3. In the VIA Compact window, click Advanced.
4. Click to select the Restart VIA Server when done check box.
5. The other three actions described above are checked by default; leave them checked.
   
   NOTE: If you are looking for a specific problem, you can enable logging and increase the log file size by clicking the Logging tab. You can select a log level from 0 to 9. The log file size is set for 1 megabyte (MB) or 1000000 bytes by default. The only time you may need to be increase the size of the log file is when you are increasing the logging level.
6. Click OK, and then click Start.
   
   NOTE: Various progress messages will be displayed in the Status Messages box while the utility is running. You can view the log file at any time during or at the completion of the compact process by clicking View Log. If you view the log during the compact process you will see only the log entries generated up to that point in the process.