RE: Some vital information on ISM

Hi, as this is being discussed in more detail than I first thought (first only seeing David's e-mail as I read them "backwards"), here's more information on this bootstrap topic: ------------------------------------------------------------- PTS-B 133990 describes the following problem with the Informix Storage Manager (ISM) Version 2.20.UC1x : The command "ism_catalog -create_bootstrap ..." utilizes the "savegrp" command with the default backup/archive level. This level automatically evaluates to "full" upon first command execution, but thereafter evaluates to an incremental level upon all successive command executions. Therefore the media/volume containing the first bootstrap creation is always necessary in order to restore the bootstrap successfully. Workaround : To avoid the need for the first media/volume during bootstrap restore, a bootstrap backup/archive of level "full" needs to be done every time. To accomplish this, the level must be specified explicitely. This is not possible with the "ism_catalog -create_bootstrap ..." command. Instead, the underlying command "savegrp" must be executed directly. Replace the command "ism_catalog -create_bootstrap ..." with the following : $INFORMIXDIR/bin/savegrp -O -l full ISMData where "-O" is a capital-o (not a zero), "ISMData" is the pool name where the bootstrap data should go, the command must be executed as user "root". E.g. in $INFORMIXDIR/bin/onbar (shell script), this replacement should be done by the Informix Server System Administrator. Also the output (both stdout and stderr) of the "savegrp" command should be redirected to the ON-Bar activity log file (BAR_ACT_LOG parameter from onconfig file). ------------------------------------------------------------- Note, that this is largely independent of the IDS version. Actually, this information was intended for the release notes (back in October 2002), but apparently it didn't make it, or it has disappeared again in recent versions. As I've discussed some of this matter (directly) with Malcolm before, at this time I only can add, that I didn't know about the apparent specialty of Sunday in this context. So far I did not get to investigate this Sunday thing any further. Regards, Martin -- Martin Fuerderer IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany Information Management informix-list-bounces@iiug.org wrote on 30.12.2005 11:31:15: > I had thought that the bootstrap save was automatic until I looked at the > emails generated when the savegroup is completed. That shows the level that > was performed. If it shows level 9 then it is incremental and a level of > Full means what it says. > > I find this whole area very frustrating. I don't think we know enough about > it, and for such a vital area I think we should know a lot more. I didn't > find out about this until I tried to do an imported restore - which > fortunately wasn't when the system had crashed - but it might have been. > > Regards > > Malcolm > > -----Original Message----- > From: informix-list-bounces@iiug.org [mailto:informix-list-bounces@iiug.org] > On Behalf Of Milton J. Vidrine, Jr. > Sent: 30 December 2005 01:42 > To: informix-list@iiug.org > Subject: Re: Some vital information on ISM > > > mweallans@panacea.co.uk wrote: > > One of the problems that has been reported on ISM is that it doesn't > > do a FULL backup of the bootstrap. There is even a bug report > > cncerning this. But I couldn't understand why one of my sites was > > doing a full backup and others were not. After much research I > > disocvered that the ISM system does a FULL backup of the bootstrap > > information if the backup is run on a Sunday, but it only does > > incremental backups on the other days. Now that is all very well if > > you do daily backups but many of the sites that I manage didn't want > > backups on Saturday or Sunday when there is nobody at work. > > So now I'm modifying all sites to do backups on Sunday thru Thursday > > rather than Monday thru Friday. > > > > Malcolm > > > We're running XPS 8.50.fc2 on Solaris 8, and I have found that the > bootstrap gets backed up only if onbar is run by "root", in which case > the bootstrap backup is automatic. It doesn't seem to matter what day it > is, but I will be watching it. > > mjv > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list > > _______________________________________________ > Informix-list mailing list > Informix-list@iiug.org > http://www.iiug.org/mailman/listinfo/informix-list