Symetrik Domino Consulting

Administrators can use the Domino console command Trace when testing connectivity issues.

For our company this is a useful and frequently used tool. Not all of our sites are connected internally with fat, secure, reliable connectivity lines.

We often switch between Internet and MPLS and sometimes the lines go down.

When testing connectivity from one server to another, or to test connectivity after changing a connection document, you can use the trace command.

Example:

trace notesar1/domain
Determining path to server NOTESAR1/DOMAIN
Available Ports: TCPIP
Checking normal priority connection documents only…
Local network connection document found for NotesAR1/Domain
Verifying address ’200.21.94.137′ for NOTESAR1/DOMAIN on TCPIP
Connected to server NOTESAR1/DOMAIN

In the example above, I have a connection document from the server console I’m using to NotesAR1/DOMAIN which specifies the IP address of 200.21.94.137.

* If you don’t have a connection document, the trace command will try to perform a DNS lookup.

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Here’s what happens when you have a connection to a server via passthru
trace notesar3/domain
Determining path to server NOTESAR3/DOMAIN
Available Ports: TCPIP
Checking normal priority connection documents only…
Passthru connection document found for NOTESAR3/DOMAIN via NotesAR2/Domain
Searching for path to NotesAR2/Domain
Local network connection document found for NotesAR2/Domain
Verifying address ’200.21.24.142′ for NotesAR2/Domain on TCPIP
NotesAR2/Domain is available on TCPIP
Pass through NotesAR2/Domain to connect to NOTESAR3/DOMAIN
Connecting to NotesAR2/Noblegroup over TCPIP
Using address ’200.21.24.142′ for NotesAR2/Domain on TCPIP
Buffer size = 8000
Path length = 1, including 0 slow links
Connected to NotesAR2/Domain
Authenticating with NotesAR2/Domain
Asking server for connection to NOTESAR3/Domain
Port to be used on passthru server is TCPIP
On passthru server, connect to NOTESAR3/DOMAIN
Buffer size = 8000
Path length = 2, including 0 slow links
Connected to NotesAR3/Domain
Connected to server NOTESAR3/NOBLEGROUP

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We have found a bug in R6.5.6 where sometimes the first trace attempt is successful, but subsequent trace attempts fail.

One work around that I have come up with is not to use the trace command at all in those situations.

Use “rep NotesAR3/Domain names.nsf”

You can then watch the server console and see if the replication command is successful or not to determine if there is a path to the remote server, and it never hurts to upgrade the address book. If your NAB is huge, just choose a smaller system database or template to replicate.

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One other thing that I have found is that if you change the IP address in a connection document while performing these trace tests, the trace command and the replicator may cache the old IP address.

You can try flushing the cache with these two commands:
“drop cache”
“dbcache flush”