Firewall cache error logs

[jcrowley@xxxxxxxxxx]

Any AS/400 Firewall experts out there?

We have had a problem with firewall cache error logs filling up our firewall K:
drive -- this causes firewall logging to end, which shuts down the firewall and
thus all our incoming/outgoing email (the lack of external email is usually our
first indication of the problem).

We found these error logs by using SBMNWSCMD to search through all the
subdirectories on the firewall k: drive after a "Firewall logging has ended"
message to the Sysop hinted that the k: drive might be full. You apparently
can't get to these logs any other way, nor are they documented ANYWHERE that
I've found.

If you want to see if you've got any of these error logs, use SBMNWSCMD and
enter the command
   'dir k:\firewall\cache\proxy'
-- look for files named htterr.xxxxxxxxx where the xx's represent the date the
file was generated.

After extensive study, we think that the contents of the firewall cache are
being dumped to these error logs each night as our scheduled backups begin. We
don't shut down subsystems at this time because occasionally we have people
online from home at night. So, we're not sure what is causing this to happen.
There is no message in the history log to indicate a problem. Curiously, we just
installed a PTF to correct a problem with the performance monitor being shut
down when backups begin, but at least we've had error messages that pointed to
the PM problem.

We installed V4R4 in December and installed all V4R4 firewall-related PTFs soon
after. When we discovered these logs for the first time in January, there were
daily versions existing back to mid-October. We have never changed the firewall
cache settings from the defaults, so we don't know what happened in October. A
search of current PTFs hasn't turned up anything so far.

Our temporary solution is to delete these logs and turn off the firewall cache
(which apparently means setting the cache size to 0 -- although the firewall
documentation says that caching is available "if you want it", the default is
that caching is turned on, and there's no documentation on how to turn it off).

Has anyone else encountered this situation?

Janet Elam Crowley
IFA Systems






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