Mac OS X Server

Monitoring/Restarting Retrospect

As of version 8, Retrospect uses port 22024 when the Retrospect Console needs to communicate with the engine. It just so happens that this can become unresponsive when the engine itself decides to stop working. Therefore, if you’re using Retrospect 8, you can run a port scan against port 22024 ( i.e. stroke <IP_ADDRESS> 22024 22024 ) and then restart the engine if it goes unresponsive. To restart the engine, simply unload and then load com.retrospect.launchd.retroengine. For example:

/bin/launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.retrospect.launchd.retroengine.plist; /bin/launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.retrospect.launchd.retroengine.plist

I have found that if you alter the nice value that the engine crashes less (not that I’m saying that it crashes a lot or is buggy btw, just seen it in a few cases now).  To do so, change the nice value in /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.retrospect.launchd.retroengine.plist from the default (0) to -10 (or -20 even).

Historically, there have been intermittent issues with the client software running. To determine if it’s running or stopped from within the host that the client is running on you can use the following (for versions 6 and below):

ps -cx | grep retroclient

Or you can use the following for version 8:

ps -cx | grep pitond

Or you can port scan port 497 for the client:

stroke <IP_ADDRESS> 497 497