ABS_CATLG_00001 process

[Trace Trembath]

Good afternoon,

Could someone please tell me where the above ABS process comes from? It's a detached process running on my system occasionally (usually Sundays) and I'm not sure what is starting it and if it can be turned off. It causes quite a lot of direct I/O usage on my system. I thought it might be the abs_clean_catlg batch job, but that batch job doesn't seem to take very long to complete.

I do all of my restores without using the ABS catalog and so I don't think I really need this process.

Any help with this is greatly appreciated.

Our ABS version is: 4.2 (617)

Thank you.

Regards,
Trace

[EdgarZamora_1]

It's been a while since I used ABS and I can't remember what that process is. I thought maybe it's the cleanup process, but you already mentioned it's not the cleanup job. Have you tried doing an MDMS SHOW SCHEDULE to try and find what is running at that time?

[Guenther Froehlin]

This is a process which loads the catalog entries from a staging catalog file into the ABS catalog.

Search your ABS save logs for that process name and you'll see where/when it was created.

You can setup a catalog so that it uses "staging". This supposedly speeds up the save operation in that the ABS coordinator writes catalog entries to a sequential staging file instead of the index-sequential ABS catalog files.

Once a save has completed a detached process is created to add the records from the staging file to the catalog. Depending on how many files have been saved this could take anywhere from a few minutes to an hour or so.

/Guenther

[Trace Trembath]

Thank you for your replies. However,

MDMS show/schedule just seems to show that last scheduled time of all of the backup streams. I don't see anything about an abs_catlg_0000n process. But thanks anyway.

I did a search in abs$log:*.log for abs_catlg, but it did not find anything.

As mentioned, I'm sure this has to do with ABS's staging processing. My catalog is set up to use staging as shown.

$ mdms show catalog/full sray_catalog

Catalog Name: SRAY_CATALOG
Catalog Node: SRAY7
Access Control: NONE
Directory: ABS$ROOT:[CATALOG]
Last Cleaned: 01-OCT-2007 12:30:02
Owner: ABS
Staging : YES
Type: DISKS

It would be good to know exactly what kicks off the abs_catlg_0000n process and why. I am thinking that I don't need it at all since I never do any restores using the abs catalog anyway.

Thanks for your help.

Regards,
Trace

[EdgarZamora_1]

>It would be good to know exactly what kicks
>off the abs_catlg_0000n process and why. I
>am thinking that I don't need it at all
>since I never do any restores using the abs
>catalog anyway.

When you have staging turned on a sequential file is created containing all the filenames backed up. This speeds up the backup job since while your backup job is running it doesn't update the catalog (indexed file). When your backup job ends the detached process is kicked off to read that sequential file and insert the entries into the catalog.

You can turn off the staging which will cause your backup jobs to run longer (because they will be updating the catalog directly) but you won't have the detached process afterwards. Either way, the catalog WILL get updated. Staging IS recommended by HP.

I think I got that right, Guenther can correct me if I'm wrong.

[Trace Trembath]

Is there no way to turn off this cataloging process, even if I never use it? This cataloging process spends hours at a time as the top direct I/O process and my Oracle DBA is insisting that it is slowing down some of his processing.

Is there even a way to change the scheduling of this process and/or lower its priority?

Thanks.

Regards,
Trace

[Robert_Boyd]

Trace,

You can modify the priority of these processes by at least a couple of mechanisms.

The easiest of these is to add something to the LOGIN.COM for the ABS user account to detect that the process is a catalog process. Then drop the priority of the process to 0 or 1.

Here's a line that I have in our local SYS$SYLOGIN on all of the ABS master/client nodes:

$! Define Symbols for ABS
$ if username.eqs."ABS" .and. F$TRNLNM("ABS_LOCAL").nes."" then $ @ABS_LOCAL:ABS_SYLOGIN

ABS_LOCAL gets defined at system startup in the ABS$SYSTARTUP.COM procedure. Here's an extract of the part of the procedure that does this:

$ DEFSYS ABS_LOCAL ABS$ROOT:[LOCAL]
$ call CREATE_DIR ABS_LOCAL
$!
$ IF VERIFY .EQ. 1 THEN SET VERIFY
$ EXIT !
$CREATE_DIR: subroutine
$ dir_name = p1
$ if f$parse(dir_name).eqs."" then -
$ create/directory 'dir_name'/owner=ABS
$ endsubroutine

Here's the contents of my ABS_SYLOGIN:

$!
$! TARGET_INCLUDE = BACKUP_CONTROL_TARGETS.COM
$!
$ set noon
$
$ if f$trnlnm("ABS_LOCAL").nes.""
$ then
$ @abs_local:daily_parameters
$ endif
$
$ if f$search("TOOLS$DIR:BATCH_LOG_FILE_CLEANUP.COM;").nes."" then -
$ @TOOLS$DIR:BATCH_LOG_FILE_CLEANUP 7 14 Today-32-0:
$!
$ SET RMS/BUFFER_COUNT=124/MAGTAPE
$


You can easily add some code to detect the process name and see if it starts with ABS_CATLG_ ... if so drop the priority.

Best wishes,

Robert

[EdgarZamora_1]

> Is there no way to turn off this cataloging process, even if I never use it?

I no longer have ABS so I can't test it. I'm not sure there's a way to turn off cataloging but if there were it would probably be in the ARCHIVE. Try something like MDMS SET ARCHIVE archive_name /CATALOG=NAME=""

You could even create a test archive and test catalog to try these out. I'm thinking that might work because DISASTER_RECOVERY has no catalog, but I've never tried running ABS without a catalog. Good luck.

[Trace Trembath]

Thank you for your replies.

Robert, I'm wondering what version of ABS you're running. It might be newer than mine because I can't find an ABS "LOCAL" directory and the procedure daily_parameters doesn't seem to exist.

Also, ABS doesn't allow me to blank out the catalog name; (Maybe I have the syntax wrong.)

$ mdms set archive arch_backups_sray5/catalog=name=""
%CLI-W-VALREQ, missing qualifier or keyword value - supply all required values
$mdms set archive arch_backups_sray5/catalog=(name="")
%CLI-W-VALREQ, missing qualifier or keyword value - supply all required values
$

I'm also not sure what the consequences would be of runnng with a blank catalog name.

Regards,
Trace

[EdgarZamora_1]

I don't have the ability to try out the commands so I apologize. Try

mdms set archive archive_name /catalog=(name="",nonodes)