Can we track instance ontape (or for that matter onbar too) restores?

Greetings and salutations... I got these instances that need to be restored every night for regression testing, which got me thinking... Is there a way to check if the instance has been restored from backup? and if it did, when? I can't remember ever seen that info or if it is even possible. Looking around Google I've found that MS SQLServer does track restores. Thanks in advance! Cheers! Ramon #Informix

Ramon, after an ontape restore is complete a "Physical Restore of rootdbs ..... Completed" msg is posted in the MSG log. So you can grep the file for that msg. also, if you are restoring an ontape image time oncheck -pr | grep "Real Time Archive Began" will reveal the date that particular archive was taken that was used to restore the instance (providing you do not take another level 0 archive after the restore.). For onbar the $INFORMIXDIR/tmp/bar_act.log should have messages indicating the time and date each dbspace was restored along with other pertinent information. Mark

Hi Ramon, You can use the oncheck command or query the sysmaster: sysdbstab table to view the most recent restore of the current instance. As Mark mentioned, it may be helpful to refer to the log files specified in onconfig's MSGPATH and BAR_ACT_LOG. Below is the result of running it on my test server. /work2/INFORMIX/1210FC13/skjeong]more /work2/INFORMIX/1210FC13/ol_informix1210_3.log ... Tue Dec 24 01:01:20 2019 ... 17:05:41 Level 0 Archive started on rootdbs, plog, llog, datadbs1, datadbs2, datadbs3, data8dbs1, data8dbs2, data8dbs3, dbs1, sbspace1 17:05:54 Archive on rootdbs, plog, llog, datadbs1, datadbs2, datadbs3, data8dbs1, data8dbs2, data8dbs3, dbs1, sbspace1 Completed. 17:06:24 Checkpoint Completed: duration was 0 seconds. 17:06:24 Tue Dec 24 - loguniq 900, logpos 0x183018, timestamp: 0x18066cc Interval: 250 ...Sat Feb 29 13:11:29 2020 ... 13:11:38 Physical Restore of rootdbs, plog, llog, datadbs1, datadbs2, datadbs3, data8dbs1, data8dbs2, data8dbs3, dbs1, sbspace1 started. ... 13:12:17 Physical Restore of rootdbs, plog, llog, datadbs1, datadbs2, datadbs3, data8dbs1, data8dbs2, data8dbs3, dbs1, sbspace1 Completed. /work2/INFORMIX/1210FC13/skjeong]oncheck -pr | egrep 'name|restore'DBspace name rootdbs Time of last physical restore 12/24/2019 17:05:40 DBspace name plog Time of last physical restore 12/24/2019 17:05:40 DBspace name llog Time of last physical restore 12/24/2019 17:05:40 DBspace name datadbs1 Time of last physical restore 12/24/2019 17:05:40 DBspace name datadbs2 Time of last physical restore 12/24/2019 17:05:40 DBspace name datadbs3 Time of last physical restore 12/24/2019 17:05:40 DBspace name data8dbs1 Time of last physical restore 12/24/2019 17:05:40 DBspace name data8dbs2 Time of last physical restore 12/24/2019 17:05:40 DBspace name data8dbs3 Time of last physical restore 12/24/2019 17:05:40 DBspace name tmpdbspace DBspace name sbspace1 Time of last physical restore 12/24/2019 17:05:40 DBspace name tmpsbspace DBspace name dbs1 Time of last physical restore 12/24/2019 17:05:40 DBspace name blobdbs1 /work2/INFORMIX/1210FC13/skjeong]echo "select name[1,12], dbinfo('utc_to_datetime',rest_time) last_rest_time,logid from sysdbstab where rest_time <> 0" | dbaccess sysmaster Database selected. name last_rest_time logid rootdbs 2019-12-24 17:05:40 900 plog 2019-12-24 17:05:40 900 llog 2019-12-24 17:05:40 900 datadbs1 2019-12-24 17:05:40 900 datadbs2 2019-12-24 17:05:40 900 datadbs3 2019-12-24 17:05:40 900 data8dbs1 2019-12-24 17:05:40 900 data8dbs2 2019-12-24 17:05:40 900 data8dbs3 2019-12-24 17:05:40 900 sbspace1 2019-12-24 17:05:40 900 dbs1 2019-12-24 17:05:40 900 11 row(s) retrieved. Database closed. ------------------------------ SangGyu Jeong Software Engineer Infrasoft Seoul Korea, Republic of ------------------------------

What you cannot know from all of that though is the point to which the logs were rolled forward. For an onbar restore the onbar log should have that info, For ontape however I am not sure that the message log records that. Haven't done a restore in a while ------------------------------ Art Kagel ------------------------------

Here's a simple test I did. As a result of progressing to roll forward with ontape, the following message is displayed in the online message log. In the rollforward recovery phase, the keyword 'Rollforward' is not displayed in the message log, but a message of the form 'Logical Log xxx Complete, timestamp ...' appears. --- ontape restore output /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups]ontape -r Restore will use level 0 archive file /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_L0. Press Return to continue ... Archive Tape Information Tape type: Archive Backup Tape Online version: IBM Informix Dynamic Server Version 11.70.FC8W1 Archive date: Mon Mar 2 09:13:39 2020 User id: informix Terminal id: /dev/pts/2 Archive level: 0 Tape device: /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/ Tape blocksize (in k): 32 Tape size (in k): system defined for directory Tape number in series: 1 ... Continue restore? (y/n)y Do you want to back up the logs? (y/n)y File created: /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_Log0000000250 File created: /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_Log0000000251 File created: /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_Log0000000252 File created: /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_Log0000000253 File created: /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_Log0000000254 File created: /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_Log0000000255 Log salvage is complete, continuing restore of archive. Restore a level 1 archive (y/n) n Do you want to restore log tapes? (y/n)y Roll forward should start with log number 252 Restore will use log backup file /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_Log0000000252. Press Return to continue ... Rollforward log file /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_Log0000000252 ... Rollforward log file /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_Log0000000253 ... Rollforward log file /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_Log0000000254 ... Rollforward log file /work2/INFORMIX/1170FC8W1/backups/host01_4_Log0000000255 ... Program over. --- online log messages 09:15:28 Physical Restore of rootdbs, physdbs, logdbs, datadbs, sbspace started. ... 09:15:33 Physical Restore of rootdbs, physdbs, logdbs, datadbs, sbspace Completed. 09:15:33 Checkpoint Completed: duration was 0 seconds. 09:15:33 Mon Mar 2 - loguniq 252, logpos 0x7c54, timestamp: 0x172e764 Interval: 20242 09:15:33 Maximum server connections 0 09:15:50 Logical Recovery Started. 09:15:50 10 recovery worker threads will be started. 09:15:50 Checkpoint Completed: duration was 0 seconds. 09:15:50 Mon Mar 2 - loguniq 252, logpos 0x7c54, timestamp: 0x172e76b Interval: 20242 09:15:50 Maximum server connections 0 09:15:50 Start Logical Recovery - Start Log 252, End Log ? 09:15:50 Starting Log Position - 252 0x7c54 09:15:50 Clearing the physical and logical logs has started 09:15:52 Cleared 107 MB of the physical and logical logs in 2 seconds 09:16:51 Logical Log 252 Complete, timestamp: 0x1734bbe. 09:16:52 Logical Log 253 Complete, timestamp: 0x1734bbe. 09:16:53 Logical Log 254 Complete, timestamp: 0x1734cf0. ... 09:16:55 Logical Recovery Complete.1347 Committed, 0 Rolled Back, 0 Open, 0 Bad Locks 09:16:55 Logical Recovery Complete. 09:16:55 Quiescent Mode ------------------------------SangGyu Jeong Software Engineer Infrasoft Seoul Korea, Republic of ------------------------------

I think the question is more is this information in sysmaster anywhere. Cheers Paul