Why does it still think the LTAPEDEV is nul?

[Impy]

I shutdown transaction logging for a software firm who wanted to dial
in and make some upgrade changes. To do this, I changed the onconfig
file to reflect my tape backup devices for level 0 and logical logs to
nul (that's null to you unix guys). No problem, transaction logging
turned off.
After the programmer was done, I changed the onconfig file back to
reflect my tape backup devices are now \\.\tape0 and \\.\tape2 and
turned on transaction logging.
Level 0 started, no problem, level 0 completed and I see in the
online.log that I have transaction logging turned back on. When I run
the ontape -c command, I get an error:
Performing continuous backup of logical logs.
Logbackup failed - Log backup to device 'nul' not allowed
Program over.

Why? I went back and doublechecked the onconfig file. Yep, I rem'd the
nul line and un-rem'd:
LTAPEDEV \\.\TAPE2 # Log tape device path

I realize (now) I should have turned on logical logging first before I
changed the backup paths back to their respective tape devices. I had
to wait until the level 0 was complete before the transaction logging
was turned back on. No harm done though because I didn't have any
user's logged in (and still don't, it's 02:09 hours for me right now!)

Um, any answers before 07:00 Central Standard Time would be greatly
appreciated!!!

Wynne
Informix 7.31 on NT

Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.

[Erik Stahlhut]

Please check the entries in the reserved pages with oncheck -cr. If there愀
a difference between the onconfig-file and the r.-pages you must reboot the
server.

Regards
Erik Stahlhut

"Impy" <wyn...@my-deja.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:8tjarf$90$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...

[Impy]

In article <8tjdbc$9cm$07$1...@news.t-online.com>,

"Erik Stahlhut" <isr...@t-online.de> wrote:
> Please check the entries in the reserved pages with oncheck -cr. If
there愀
> a difference between the onconfig-file and the r.-pages you must
reboot the
> server.
>
> Regards
> Erik Stahlhut

Thanks, that helped me figure out what to do (but I had to dig deep to
remember how to stop/start services from a prompt since I am doing this
remotely.) But it still didn't answer my question.
oncheck -pr showed:
ONCONFIG config file error on element TAPEDEV.
Value in reserved page: nul
Value in config file: \\.\TAPE0
ONCONFIG config file error on element LTAPEDEV.
Value in reserved page: nul
Value in config file: \\.\TAPE2
Why did this become a problem?
Thanks for any light you can shed on this.
Wynne

[Eric Chen]

Hi Wynne

If you change LTAPEDEV from null to any exist device then you have to
restart your instance for your log archive task. Otherwise the parameter
"LTAPEDEV=/dev/null" will keep in your instance even though you have
redirect the tape device path.

regards,

Eric Chen
Trainer
Education Service Dept.
Informix Software Taiwan Inc.
12F., 170, Tun-Hua N. Rd., Taipei, Taiwan

"Impy" <wyn...@my-deja.com> źśźgŠóślĽó news:8tjarf$90$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...

[Impy]

In article <8tm0o1$mv...@www.informix.com>,

"Eric Chen" <ec...@informix.com> wrote:
> Hi Wynne
>
> If you change LTAPEDEV from null to any exist device then you have to
> restart your instance for your log archive task. Otherwise the
parameter
> "LTAPEDEV=/dev/null" will keep in your instance even though you have
> redirect the tape device path.
>
> regards,
>
> Eric Chen
> Trainer
> Education Service Dept.
> Informix Software Taiwan Inc.
> 12F., 170, Tun-Hua N. Rd., Taipei, Taiwan

Eric,
If I read your answer correctly you are saying that an instance restart
(bounce) is required when changing the path of the tape device?
This is not normally the case. I believe the ontape command checks the
onconfig command for tape locations.
In fact, I do the level 0 on tape0 and the logical logs on tape2. When
I changed them to nul I did not restart the instance and the operation
(turn off transactional logging) worked fine. Then when I turned the
logging back on, I changed both devices back from nul to their
respective devices again. The level 0 worked fine and did a backup to
the tape0 device without the aid of a bounce. After the level 0 was
completed I started ontape -c and this is when it failed. In other
words, part of my change work without a bounce and the other part did
not. Why?
Thanks for your help!
Wynne

[William Rice]

You should be able to change LTAPEDEV in onmonitor and not have to
bounce the engine.

Will

P.S. where is the onmonitor documentation in 9.2, I couldnt find it in
the admin guide.

In article <8tm0o1$mv...@www.informix.com>,
"Eric Chen" <ec...@informix.com> wrote:

[Impy]

7.30.TC7 NT Server 4 SP 3

Ok, one more time. I'm not asking how to set devices, etc...I believe I do
not need to bounce the instance since I'm using the ontape command. (Carlton
Doe, I read this in your book, so if you are out there reading this, help me
out!)
First, I changed the onconfig file tape devices to point to nul
Second, I typed:
ontape -s -N my_db
Next a level 0 was done to nul and transaction logging was stopped.
Great, fine, this is what I wanted.

Ok, when I was ready to go back to logging...
First, I changed the onconfig file back to \\.\tape0 (physical logs) and
\\.\tape2 (logical logs).
Then I typed:
ontape -s -B son_db.
I was prompted to insert a tape into \\.\tape0 and I did so. A level 0 was
performed.

All this without ever having bounced the instance.

Next I tried to turn on continous backup of logical logs by typing:
ontape -c.
This is where I got the error message. Using the oncheck -cr command, per
Erik Stahlhut, I could see that the reserved pages disagreed with the
onconfig file, like he said and I did wind up bouncing the instance. Now I
can perform the ontape -c command and start backing up the logicals. Alls
well that ends well.

So my question, Why did changing the tape devices work for the phyiscal logs
(level 0) but not the logical logs until I bounced the instance?

By the way, I did a "find / -name onmonitor* -print" and did not find
onmonitor command you mention. Is this a ver 9 product?

"William Rice" <ri...@operamail.com> wrote in message
news:8tmouq$ra5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...

[Joachim Verhagen]

On Tue, 31 Oct 2000 13:29:38 -0600, "Impy" <wli...@stritch.edu> wrote:

>7.30.TC7 NT Server 4 SP 3

>By the way, I did a "find / -name onmonitor* -print" and did not find

>onmonitor command you mention. Is this a ver 9 product?
>
>

It only exists for informix on unix.
Informix 7.2x had some windows tools to replace it, but I gather it gave so
many problems, that 7.30 did not have it, but why couldn't Informix replace
them with onmonitor.

Do you have the find command on NT?

Joachim verhagen.
--
Joachim Verhagen (jcdv...@xs4all.nl)
WWW http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/ (Science Jokes)

[Impy]

I used the find command in a unix shell on NT. Yes, NT has a find command. I
didn't use it. Should I have?
Wynne
"Joachim Verhagen" <joachim....@xs4all.nl> wrote in message
news:3a007554...@news.xs4all.nl...

[William Rice]

My apologies, having never used NT, I did not realize that onmonitor
does not come with NT. So it looks like bouncing the server is
required. For some reason I want to say that LTAPEDEV can be changed on
the fly as long as it is not going to/from nul. Unfortunately for me I
haven't had a test box for over 3 months, so my ability to test wierd
stuff is nil.

Will

In article <8tn6hv$nam9m$1...@ID-51564.news.dfncis.de>,

> > > "Impy" <wyn...@my-deja.com> 撰寫於郵件

[Impy]

That's ok, most of my replies were based on UNIX, I guess next time I'll
post my configuration at the beginning of the message instead of the end
(hey, it was 2:00 am and I was tired!).

I scoured Carlton Doe's book and found, over and over again, references to
not needing to bounce when running ontape because it checks the onconfig
file dynamically. I found at least three places where he very specifically
says don't bother bouncing.

But I'm starting to believe that LTAPEDEV can go from tape to nul without a
bounce but a bounce is required when going from nul to tape. I can't test
this out yet, but the boss finally gave me a test server to play with and as
soon as I get it set up (get ready for a lot of installation problem
questions...) this will be the first thing I look at because it is making me
(more) crazy.

Thanks for your response!
Wynne

"William Rice" <ri...@operamail.com> wrote in message

news:8trvlt$570$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...

[Art S. Kagel]

OK, definitive answer. Since the engine has to check the value of LTAPEDEV
every time a logical log fills it ONLY looks at the copy in shared memory
that is created at engine startup. This is different from the TAPEDEV
parameter which is ONLY read from the ONCONFIG file. If you only changed
the value in the ONCONFIG file the engine AND ontape will not know about
the change until you shutdown and restart the engine. On UNIX you can
use the ONMONITOR utility to change the value of LTAPEDEV on disk and
onmonitor will ALSO change the in-memory version of that parameter so that
the change takes effect immediately. On NT there IS not onmonitor utility
so you are out-of-luck and have to shutdown and restart the engine.

Art S. Kagel

[Jason...@pg.slr.com]

I did used ONMONITOR to change the LTAPEDEV parameter. However, it's only
work for changing the parameter from /dev/null to device BUT NOT from device
back to /dev/null. WHY?