SNA Server Connection Stays Inactive

ID: Q125882

The information in this article applies to:

SUMMARY

An SNA Server connection may remain inactive. You cannot reactivate the connection using SNA Administrator. Here are some possible causes and resolutions:

The SNA Server Service Owning the Connection Is Inactive

Start the SNA Server service using SNA Server Admin (SNA Server 2.x) or SNA Server Manager (SNA Server 3.0). In order for the SNA Server service to start, all SNA Server link services installed by SNA Setup must also start successfully.

SNA Server Shows [Out of Date]

If a new connection is defined in SNA Server Admin or SNA Server Manager when SNA Server is running, the server status appears as "Active [Out of Date]." This indicates that the SNA Server service must be restarted to enable the configuration changes. When a new connection is created, the SNA Server service must be stopped and restarted to enable the change.

The SNA Server Backup Server Had an Old Configuration File

The SNABase service running on the SNA Server primary and backup configuration servers automatically handles the replication of the SNA Server configuration file. However, if security is enabled on the COMCFG share point, or NTFS file permissions restrict access to the configuration file, <SNAROOT>\SYSTEM\CONFIG\COM.CFG, the configuration file on the backup configuration server may be out of date. To test this, copy the configuration file from the primary to the backup server: 

   copy \\<primary>\comcfg\com.cfg \\<backup>\comcfg\com.cfg
where <primary> is the SNA Server primary configuration server and <backup> is the SNA Server backup server. After you copy the configuration file, you'll need to restart the SNA Server service on any backup servers.

By default, the SNABase service runs under the Windows NT Local System context in SNA Server versions prior to 3.0. SNA Server services including SNABase normally run under a user account specified during SNA Server Setup for SNA Server versions 3.0 and later. If the Everyone group does not have Read access to the COMCFG share point on the primary server, or Full Control access on the backup server, the replication to the backup server will fail.

See Chapter 12, "Setting Up Security with SNA Server," in the SNA Server Administrator's Guide for a full discussion on limiting user access to the SNA Server configuration file. In addition, Article Q140556 (Securing SNA Server to Not Require Everyone: Read Access) explains how to tighten the secuity on the SNA Server configuration file.

Additional query words: prodsna inactive connection 

Keywords          : kbnetwork snaadmin snamanager sna211 sna211sp1 sna211sp2 sna3 sna3sp1 sna3sp2 sna3sp3 sna4 sna4sp1 sna2 sna21 
Version           : WINDOWS:2.0,2.1,2.11,2.11SP1,2.11SP2,3.0,3.0SP1,3.0SP2,3.0SP3,4.0,4.0SP1
Platform          : WINDOWS

Last Reviewed: May 25, 1999