Testing Cell Operation
When client-server communication problems occur, it's easy to suspect that one or more DCE services is not operating in the cell. You can easily test whether a cell's DCE services are running by invoking a cell ping operation.
If called with no option, the cell ping operation performs a server ping operation on the master security server, on the CDS server that has a master clearinghouse, and all the DTS servers in the cell. Use the -replicas option to test CDS and Security Service replicas as well as the masters. The -clients option tests every DCE host in the cell by looping though the /.:/hosts directory in CDS and performing a host ping, with each host name as an argument.
In case of failure, the operation generates an error and returns a list of servers or hosts that could not be contacted. For any successes, the operation returns the message DCE Services Available. For successes with the -clients option, the message is DCE Clients Available.
The following example pings the names of all the configured master DCE servers in the local cell:
dcecp> cell ping
DCE services available
dcecp>
The following example pings the names of all the configured DCE hosts in the local cell. Depending on the size of a cell and timeout values set, this command can take a long time (from several to many minutes) to complete.
dcecp> cell ping -clients
DCE clients available
dcecp>
If you have the necessary permission, you can ping the configured DCE servers and hosts in another cell by including that cell's name as an argument as shown in the following example:
dcecp> cell ping /.../their_cell.goodco.com
DCE services available
dcecp>