onsmsync
Hi all, I am interested in anyone's experiences with onsmsync as I am having fairly fundamental troubles with this utility. As I understand it two things onsmsync can do are: 1. Synchronise the sysutils database and emergency boot file (ixbar) with the storage manager. This is what it does if no arguments are passed. 2. Synchronise the sysutils database and emergency boot file (ixbar) with the -b option. I have a test server connected to a storage manager with numerous backups (both L0 and logical logs) and it is possible to do a complete (redirected) database recovery including log recovery to this server using the storage manager catalogue. Our catalogue is quite large. I presume that if the server environment is correct for a recovery it is correct for onsmsync too. I have been looking at recovery scenarios where the ixbar file is lost or is incomplete and whether onsmsync could help. I find that onsmsync doesn't appear to do anything, even when left running for several days (obviously completely untenable in a real recovery scenario). I have resorted to using strace. In scenario 1 I can see onsmsync connects to the storage manager and checks with it every entry in the catalogue one by one. This is very slow. I never see a modification to the ixbar file. I calculated that at the rate it was talking to the storage manager and with the number of logical log backups in the catalogue, it would take months for this to finish. In scenario 2, which ought to be a lot simpler, it just appears to go around in circles accessing shared memory and the onconfig file. Surely it should be straightforward to access the local sysutils database and sync with the file? Am I doing it wrong? I have so far avoided opening a PMR about this because I am not sure I fully understand this area or have the right expectations. Just to be clear we do already back up the ixbar file independently. I just want to concentrate on onsmsync. Thanks, Ben.
Ben - If BAR_PROGRESS_FREQ was set to > 0, do you see any progress? Otherwise no progress messages are written to the bar_act.log and it's hard to see what progress is being made. I assume this config param would post progress of onsmsync. Anyone know for certain? Thanks - Mark
Hi Mark, Thanks for replying. Setting BAR_PROGRESS_FREQ to 5 (the minimum value) doesn't seem to have any effect on onsmsync. With more patience "onsmsync -b" eventually rebuilt the ixbar file from the sysutils database. It took several hours though. I've left "onsmsync" running for several days now; in addition this has to communicate with the storage manager rather than operate entirely within the database server. I still think it needs "months" based on the strace data I saw. I think it is working, just VERY slow, too slow to be of any use. I think I will need to raise a PMR. I am still interested to hear if anyone else uses it. Is there really no-one? Ben.
I use the onsmsync utility all the time .. however we are only keeping 2 weeks worth of stuff in the storage manager .. so it takes just a couple of minutes to rebuild things ... I generally use the utility every couple of weeks to purge things ... We are using TSM .... Peter Logan Database Administrator SpartanNash INC. Office: 616/878-8309 Mobile: 616/304-9672 E-Mail: peter.logan@spartannash.com From: "BENJAMIN THOMPSON" <benjamin.thompson@bskyb.com> To: ids@iiug.org Date: 07/16/2015 09:42 AM Subject: Re: onsmsync [35471] Sent by: ids-bounces@iiug.org Hi Mark, Thanks for replying. Setting BAR_PROGRESS_FREQ to 5 (the minimum value) doesn't seem to have any effect on onsmsync. With more patience "onsmsync -b" eventually rebuilt the ixbar file from the sysutils database. It took several hours though. I've left "onsmsync" running for several days now; in addition this has to communicate with the storage manager rather than operate entirely within the database server. I still think it needs "months" based on the strace data I saw. I think it is working, just VERY slow, too slow to be of any use. I think I will need to raise a PMR. I am still interested to hear if anyone else uses it. Is there really no-one? Ben. ******************************************************************************* Forum Note: Use "Reply" to post a response in the discussion forum.
Thanks Peter, useful feedback.