Administering a Calendar server

Configuring the calendar (9)

Before you can use the Calendar over a network, you must first identify which machine is to be your calendar server and which machine or machines will be your client(s). You must then run the Calendar Configuration utility on the server computer and on each of the client computers. If you are not using the Calendar over a network, it is usually not necessary to change the default settings, but you may want to alter the retries and timeout settings to improve your system performance.

Use this utility to:

Identify which logical port is used for incoming and outgoing calendar requests and data.
Specify the name of the server computer.
Specify how many times a client resends a given request, assuming that no answer is received after the initial request.
Specify the length of time, in milliseconds, that the client waits for a response before sending a retry.
Specify the total number of server processes that the Calendar application uses to satisfy client requests.

Before you use the Calendar Configuration utility, you must stop the server process on each computer. The server process must not be running while you configure the calendar. Follow these steps:

Enter 7 to stop the server process. ``Stopping and starting the server (7)'' describes this option.
Enter 9 to configure the calendar.
Choose the configuration option that you want to change as described in the following table, or enter q to quit and save changes or a to quit without saving changes.
When you are done, restart the server process on the server computer by using option 7 again. Do not restart the server process on your client computers.

The Calendar Configuration utility consists of the following options:

Port number (1)

This option indicates which logical port is used for incoming and outgoing calendar requests and data. The port number must be greater than 1024 and must not be used by other servers (such as a file server) on the local network. This can be any number as long as you use the same number on your server computer and all of its clients. In most cases, you can use the supplied default number.

Server name (2)

This option is set on client and server computers to indicate the name of the computer that serves the calendar data. If you are not connecting to a network (the client and server are located on the same machine), this option is left blank. This option is labeled ``non-networked'' by default. You must use this option on both the server and client computers to specify the machine name of your server. The name of the machine is maintained in the file /etc/systemid.

Number of retries (3)

This option determines how many times a client resends a given request, assuming that no answer was received after the initial request. For example, if you set this number to 3, the client requests the data up to a total of four times (the initial request plus three retries). If the final retry is unsuccessful, the request is considered a failure. For more information on retries, see the next option. The default retry setting is 1.

Timeout (4)

This option indicates the length of time, in milliseconds, that the client waits for a response before sending a retry. If you set this parameter too large, users wait longer if a retry fails. If you set it too small, you may notice that your error rate increases as the client does not receive a response in the allotted amount of time. You may need to experiment with this value (using the Calendar Statistics command to track server usage) before you find a value with which your system is comfortable. The default value of this option is 9000.

Number of servers (5)

This option applies to the server computer only. It specifies the total number of server processes that the Calendar application uses to satisfy client requests. The default value is 1, which yields two server processes (1 master, 1 slave). This is fine for a non-networked or single user calendar system, but for larger networked installations, 4 servers is a more optimal number. For information on adding or removing server processes, see ``Viewing calendar statistics / troubleshooting (1)''.

Maximum packet size (6)

This option is set on client and server computers to specify the size of the data packets sent by the Calendar server. Limit the size of the packets to be compatible with what your network card can accept, as indicated in your network card documentation. For example, if your network card accepts packets up to 1 KB in size, enter 1024 for the Maximum packet size.

You must reset the packet size if the Calendar server works properly for most calendar usage, but you see the error message:

   No response from server

when you try to open a Calendar with many events.

It is not necessary to change this value if you are not connecting to a network.

Sample configuration

The sample configuration shown here assumes the following hardware setup:

A client computer, acapulco, and a server computer, london.
The port number is chosen to be 3004, the number of retries is 3, and the timeout is 5 seconds (5000 milliseconds). Other options remain at their default values.

Here is the Calendar Configuration utility screen as it should appear on both machines:

   Calendar client-server configuration:
   
   	1) Server port number   = 3004
   	2) Server machine name  = 'london'
   	3) Request retries       = 3
   	4) Request timeout      = 5000 (milliseconds)
   	5) Number of servers    = 4
   	6) Maximum packet size  = 4096
   

   Select configuration to change(q=quit, a=abort):

After using the Calendar Configuration utility, you can use the other Calendar Utility tools described in ``Starting the calendar daemon (10)'' to administer the Calendar application. You may also need to use the Calendar Configuration utility at a future time to increase or decrease the number of server processes, or to alter other parameters. When you do so, be sure to stop the server first.