Starting and Stopping the Content Server Correctly

Use

Microsoft Windows

If you want or have to stop the content server, you should do this in the correct way, to ensure that all content server transactions are terminated correctly. You can reboot the operating system.

You can also use the following commands to stop and re-start the content server (all commands are entered in a DOS window):

  • net stop w3svc: Ends the Web service. This command stops all websites that are set up on your server.

  • net start w3svc: Reactivates all websites on your system.

Note that the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) is a multi-function server. This means that it provides multiple Internet services in one process (http, mail, ftp, telnet). Stopping the w3svc service does not stop the other services.

The Microsoft IIS appears as the process inetinfo in the task manager process list. This process cannot be terminated using the task manager.

UNIX

The Apache Web server is started and stopped using shell script apachectl. The respective calls are apachectl stop and apachectl start.

If the content server cannot be stopped with this call, you have to terminate all httpd processes manually using the operating system command kill. First try using kill without any further signals, so that the content server can send logged- on shared memory segments and semaphores back to the operating system. Only if this does not work, should you use kill -9 to terminate the processes. Afterwards you have to release the shared memory segments and semaphores using the commands ipcs and ipcrm.

Points to Note when Manually Upgrading Content Server

The content server is an ISAPI extension and is implemented as a dynamic link library (DLL). When the content server is accessed for the first time, the Microsoft IIS loads the content server DLL into main memory and locks write access to the DLL on the hard disk.

This lock is removed only once the DLL is removed from main memory. The net stop w3svc command does not terminate the inetinfo process. Therefore, this command alone does not update the content server programs.

You can use the command kill.exe to terminate process inetinfo.

Upgrade Procedure:

  1. Stop the content server using the command net stop w3svc.

  2. Enter the command kill inetinfo.

  3. Complete the upgrade.

  4. To restart the content server, enter net start w3svc.

The Database Manager can start and stop the Database Instance.