"Can't hold it back anymore! Let the storm rage on...the cold never bothered me anyway." Absolutely, true this winter. Historic cold and snow records are falling all across the country, so I look at it as living in historic times. The same can be said for GroupWise 2014. We are experiencing a historic moment for GroupWise. I present to you the GroupWise Administration Console (GAC). This article will present the feature set of the new GroupWise Administration Console (GAC).

The GroupWise Administration Console is a 'service' running on SLES or Windows server and is the first to be installed on a new build or upgrade. The service name is: gwadminservice and can be stopped/started/restarted just like other GroupWise services. At the time of installation, the first task for GAC is to create a new GroupWise SuperUser, which is like a 'admin' account for the GroupWise system. After the installation of GAC, a couple things become available.

First on the server it was installed you will find 2 icons: GroupWise Install and GroupWise Admin Console. The GroupWise Install icon will launch a webpage that provides 4 tasks:

1. Create A New GroupWise System

• Upgrade an existing Domain or Post Office to 2014

• Add a New Domain

• Add a New Post Office

Figure 1: GroupWise 2014 Icons on SLES11 Server

The URL for GroupWise Installation is: https://SERVER:9710/gwadmin-console/install/index.jsp . Administrators can run this from any workstation and will get an authorization page that requires an administrator to authorize by running the command presented on the server named in the URL. Once you have authorized, you receive the GroupWise Installation webpage.

Figure 2: GroupWise Installation: Authorize Install screen and key

Figure 3: GroupWise Installation: Webpage

The second icon launches the GroupWise Administration Console webpage. The URL for GAC is: https://SERVER:9710/gwadmin-console/. Note that in both cases, Installation and Admin webpage, you will have to set for HTTPS and the port is 9710 by default. After authorization, a login page is presented. On the login page is a 'Settings' button. It is here the administrator can change the IP Address and port to a different domain if they wish to connect to a different domain.

Figure 4: GroupWise Administration Console: Login Page and Settings

Once logged in the Overview page is presented. This page is a mini-GWMonitor showing the GroupWise system domains, MTA, post offices and gateways. At this page, administrators can tell if the agents are up, down or in trouble. They can also go to the properties of each presented from this page as well. Moving down the left side are the listing of GroupWise Administration pages.

• Overview: Overview of entire GroupWise System and status

• System: System-wide settings similar to System Operations

• Domains: Lists domains in the GroupWise System

• Post Offices: Lists the Post Offices in the GroupWise System

• Post Office Agents: Lists the POA's in the GroupWise System

• Message Transfer Agents: Lists the MTA's in the GroupWise System

• Internet Agents: Lists the GWIA's in the GroupWise System

• Users: Lists the Mailboxes in the GroupWise System

• Groups: Lists the Groups in the GroupWise System

• Resources: Lists the Resources in the GroupWise System

• Nicknames: List the Nicknames in the GroupWise System

• Libraries: Lists the Libraries in the GroupWise System

Figure 5: GroupWise Administration Console: Overview Page

At the top of the page is found:

• Connected Domain: Domain that is currently connected

• Recent/Favorites: Last locations and Custom page set up

• Global Search: Allows searching the entire GroupWise system administration

• User Logged In: The user id currently logged in

• Logout: To Logout

• Notifications: Displays a number count of notifications.

• Settings: About and Help are located here.

Figure 6: GroupWise Administration Console: Top of Page

At this point in the article I will pick up the pace and drill down into features starting with System.

Figure 7: GroupWise Administration Console: System Features

Administrators: This feature allows administrators to manage the 3 different type of administrators: System, Domain and Post Office. Yes that is right, administrators can set up other users as administrators of part of the GroupWise system without performing some eDirectory tricks. This favored feature will be very helpful for large GroupWise Systems to assign Help Desk types or for small systems where a site administrative assistant is responsible for managing a post office.

Figure 8: GroupWise Administration Console: System -Administrators

Figure 9: GroupWise Administration Console: System -Administrators, Add

Directory Associations: This tool allows an administrator to create or change associations between the users different directories. So if you wanted to go from a stand alone GroupWise 2014 system to one that is linked to Active Directory, this is your tool. There is a drop down that shows the various directories where GroupWise can pull. LDAP settings are available as well as an LDAP filter. Finally, various search options are available.

Figure 10: GroupWise Administration Console: Directory Associations

Document Viewer Agent: The DVA is a new agent from 2012 that works with WebAccess and the POA, converting and presenting attachments to Webaccess users. This feature allows for managing DVA's in the GroupWise system. As a general rule, there will be one DVA per post office. But on the occasion one DVA is not enough, up to 3 per post office can be implemented.

Figure 11: GroupWise Administration Console: Document Viewer Agent

Email Address Lookup: This feature provides you a method to search for duplicate email addresses. Given the number of different email address formats we have now, using this truly will be a great help to administrators. As you can see below, simply typing into the search box will start the process and list out users with the string searching. Its from here an administrator can look at the properties of that user.

Figure 12: GroupWise Administration Console: Email Address Lookup

Expired Records: This feature works with the Expire function on a mailbox. It presents mailboxes that are expired or going to expire. Using this list of expired mailboxes, an administrator can delete users from the list, look at the information (database records), and look at the properties of mailboxes. Of course, an administrator can look for expired records 'as of' a specified date. Very helpful in cleaning up a GroupWise System.

Figure 13: GroupWise Administration Console: Expired Records

Information: This is the same information presented in GroupWise 2012 and older when you right clicked the GroupWise System, Domain or Post Office in ConsoleOne. As you can see its been expanded to include 'External' Users/Resources/Groups/Libraries. It also presents the new Limited License Mailbox. Note the Inactive Mailboxes is presented here as well. Remember that is a new type of Mailbox. I will cover this in the second article on the GroupWise Administration Console.

Figure 14: GroupWise Administration Console: Information

Legacy: This function allows a GroupWise 2014 system to connect to other systems using old gateways like API. This is the location where that API gateway would be presented. However, the domain owning the API in this case, cannot be a GroupWise 2014. It must be a legacy version of GroupWise. This is also where Software Distribution Directories are located. Management of SDD's from legacy GroupWise is performed here. GroupWise 2014 does not use SDD's for client updates. GroupWise 2014 uses the new client options Auto-Update feature.

Figure 15: GroupWise Administration Console: Legacy

Record Enumerations: This is a deep dive tool that allows administrators to look into the databases, at the records and other attributes set for objects. Very good for heavy troubleshooting. Simply select a database record type from the drop down and Record Enumerations will present a list of objects with that type and other information. Select an object, then select the 'Information' button to Display the Object Information.

Figure 16: GroupWise Administration Console: Record Enumerations

Figure 17: GroupWise Administration Console: Record Enumeration -Display Object Information

Recover Deleted Account: This feature allows you to recover a recently deleted account, not the mailbox just the account user information. Once this is done, then you can use the Restore Area Management to restore the mailbox. A good recent backup of the primary domain database must be restored to a location accessible by the GroupWise Administration Console.

Figure 18: GroupWise Administration Console: Recover Deleted Account

Figure 19: GroupWise Administration Console: Recover Deleted Account: Choose a restored Primary domain database file

Figure 20: GroupWise Administration Console: Recover Deleted Account: Select Mailbox to Recover

Figure 21: GroupWise Administration Console: Recover Deleted Account: Verify, then Recover Mailbox

User Import: This function allows you to import a large quantity of users from a directory using LDAP. First select the directory where accounts are such as Active Directory or eDirectory. Next, select the post office, then the contextual location. Finally, a set of search options are available.



This brings us to the end of this article. I apologize for the length but as you can see there is a lot of new fresh material to cover. In part 2, I will dig in on the rest of the GroupWise Administration Console and present new features you will love. By the time we are done, you will want to upgrade your current GroupWise system and "Let it go!" so you can be running GroupWise 2014.


Got comments or article ideas? Need help GroupWise? Drop me a line at: Gregg@HinchmanConsulting.com. “The Force is strong in this one.”