ISA Server fails when SQL server is unavailable.

From: "Jens Madsen" <jmadsen@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: isalist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 5 Nov 2001 14:09:16 -0700

Over the weekend I had an ISA server failure due to the SQL server that is
used for my logs was unavailable. This gave me some problems since I
couldn?t get in remotely to change the ISA logging configuration and
restart the services, because the ISA services ware stalled.

I found a way to set up events under one of the alerts to automatically
switch to text logging and then restart the services. Here is how it is
done.

First I configured to logging to do text logs only. Then I exported the
branch from the registry that contains the logging configuration to my c:
drive.
I named the reg file; txt-log.reg

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Fpc\Arrays\{8112BF22-7BC0-4814-AB05-63E1C9722B3C}\Logs

After that I configured the logging back to log to an ODBC data source.

I then went in to my alerts and configured actions for the following
alert;

Invalid ODBC log credentials

I configure the alert to run the regedit with the /s switch for silent and
the registry branch I exported for text logging:

Run Program

regedit /s c:\txt-logs.reg

Then I configure the alert to Stop and then Start all three services.

I tested this and it works beautiful. In the event that my database server
becomes unavailable, ISA will automatically configure itself to do text
logging and restart the services. There will only be a short (seconds)
interruption of the services.

Once the database server is again available I can reconfigure the ISA back
to ODBC logging and restart the services manually. Also the text logs can
be imported back into your database server using any database language
tools ie. Access, or Foxpro.

It might be a good idea to also send and e-mail alert in case this
happens, since the re-configuration and starting/stopping of the services
is pretty transparent.

Hope this is a helpful little trick.

Your truly,

Jens Madsen

_____________________
IS Manager
Xantech Corp.

ISA Server fails when SQL server is unavailable.

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