topic Re: "sys$incarnation" ? in Operating System - OpenVMS

"sys$incarnation" ?

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 08:49:19 GMT

What is this file used for / containing ?

Google lets me down this time.

Wim

Re: "sys$incarnation" ?

Robert Gezelter — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:05:50 GMT

Wim,

Full file name, path?

Version? Configuration?

- Bob Gezelter, http://www.rlgsc.com

Re: "sys$incarnation" ?

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 09:09:11 GMT

sys$specific:[sysexe]sys$incarnation.dat
on VMS 7.3 not fully patched. An alphastation 500/400 with as extra FDDI and in a GS160 cluster as quorum station.

Wim

Re: "sys$incarnation" ?

Hein van den Heuvel — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:12:47 GMT

It is a simple fixed-length record 512-byte sequential file opened exclusively by the cluster_server.

You should see it in startup as...

:
%SYSINIT-I-CLUSTER, cluster/lock manager initialization
%SYSINIT-I-OPEN, opening incarnation file
%SYSINIT-I-CREPRC, creating the STACONFIG
:

I think it just has the 64 bit incarnation number, which in turn is a binary date&time.
Monitor cluster can show that.

The file is marked NOMOVE, so it could be used with non-filesystem Logical block IO.

fwiw,
Hein.

Re: "sys$incarnation" ?

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:14:23 GMT

So, I can deleted it and it will be recreated ?

Wim

Re: "sys$incarnation" ?

Jur van der Burg — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:16:33 GMT

That file is used to maintain a description of the local node's most recent incarnation across boot instances.

Why would you want to mess with it?

Jur.

Re: "sys$incarnation" ?

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:18:59 GMT

Just curious of how it works.

Wim

Re: "sys$incarnation" ?

Hoff — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 14:36:08 GMT

I suspect it was not your search skills, nor was it Google here, that was central in your not being able to find details. (There is a far more likely trigger here, but one best left unstated here within ITRC; this for reasons of decorum.)

The SYS$INCARNATION.DAT file is the storage for the cluster incarnation number and some related baggage. It's also a /NOMOVE file, which usually means there's a kernel-level access made or some other similar core access is made to the file.

I'd suggest you not mess with it.

Here are some details:

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/support/asktima/operating_systems/0095BFFD-100853A0-1C0097.html

The file is not found at boot-time, it will be recreated.

Stephen Hoffman
HoffmanLabs LLC