The ON-Bar Activity Log

ON–Bar writes informational, progress, warning, error, and debugging messages to the ON–Bar activity log. The activity log also records which storage spaces and logical logs were backed up or restored, the progress of the operation, and approximately how long it took. Use the information in the activity log to determine whether a backup or restore operation succeeded. The ondblog utility reports its errors in the activity log.

For a list of ON–Bar informational, warning, and error messages, use the finderr or Find Error utility or view IBM Informix: Error Messages at http://www.ibm.com/software/data/informix/pubs/library/.

Specifying the Location of the Activity Log

For information on how to change the location of the ON–Bar activity log, see BAR_ACT_LOG.

Specifying the Level of ON-Bar Debugging (IDS)

You can set the level of debugging messages the ON-Bar utility prints in the ON-Bar debug log with the BAR_DEBUG configuration parameter. The ON-Bar debug log is specified by the BAR_DEBUG_LOG configuration parameter. By default, no debugging messages are printed.

You can update the value of BAR_DEBUG by editing the ONCONFIG file. When the updated value of BAR_DEBUG takes affect depends on your database server:

• For Dynamic Server, the new value of BAR_DEBUG takes affect immediately for any currently executing ON-Bar command and any subsequent commands. Any ON-Bar command that is currently executing when you update BAR_DEBUG reads the new value of BAR_DEBUG and prints debug messages at the new level.
• For Extended Parallel Server, the new value of BAR_DEBUG takes affect for ON-Bar commands executed after you update the value of BAR_DEBUG.

Specifying the Location of the Debug Log

For information on how to change the location of the ON-Bar debug log, see BAR_DEBUG_LOG.

Monitoring the Progress of a Backup or Restore

If your backup or restore operations take a long time to complete, knowing the progress is especially useful. Use the BAR_PROGRESS_FREQ configuration parameter to specify, in minutes, the frequency of the progress messages written to the ON–Bar activity log. For information on how to change the frequency of the progress messages, see BAR_PROGRESS_FREQ.