informix IDS 9.3 refusing to start

[Umapathy S]

hi
I have hpux 11.0 on HP9000-A class servers. I installed Informix 9.3 IDS on that box. I configured the Demo server and it went fine.

when I wanted to start my own server of NETTYPE onsoctcp, listener thread refuses to start saying the following error.

listener-thread: err = -931: oserr = 0: errstr = infsql: Cannot locate infsql service/tcp service in /etc/services

but
$ cat /etc/services |grep infsql
infsql 1526/tcp # listener for informix db

I have attached online.log for reference.

Please help me in solving this. I dont know whether I am wrong somewhere or it is a bug.

Any pointers info are greatly appreciated

warm regards
Umapathy

This is to Dna, Jef, ...
I am not able to attach more than one file. Can you look into this

[Animesh Chakraborty]

Make sure that the port 1526 is free
#netstat -a|grep 1526
then check sqlhost file and onconfig file that the servies assign to correct server name

Change the port number(sud be more than 1500 and unique) and try to restart that.

[Umapathy S]

No service is listening at 1526.

I wrote a sample program using getservbyname() to check for /etc/services. It works for other well known services like echo, time etc.
But it fails miserably for "infsql" which is my servername in /etc/services.

I suspected a corrupt /etc/services and moved "infsql" entry to the top of the file but in vain.

regards
Umapathy

[Rainer von Bongartz]

could you post your $INFORMIXDIR/etc/sqlhosts please


Regards
Rainer

[Umapathy S]

here comes the sqlhosts file

[Umapathy S]

here comes the onconfig file

[Rainer von Bongartz]

Everything looks quite ok, so no direct explanation for the behaviour.

Try defining another service with a different port number

Regards
Rainer

[Umapathy S]

I tried that out also. I wrote one small program using getservbyname() which works just fine for other standard services and not for all of the entries I added.

Now I suspect it is a problem with the machine and not with Informix.

Any ideas pointers on this. Is there any patch for this.

regards
Umapathy

[Tim D Fulford]

You MUST have a shm poll thread, even if it is on NET-vp

$ONCONFIG
DBSERVERNAME thbs
DBSERVERALIASES thbshm
NETTYPE soctcp,1,100,CPU
NETTYPE ipcshm,1,100,NET
NUMCPUVPS 1

sqlhosts...
thbs onsoctcp dolphin infsql
thbshm onipcshm dolphin infshm

*If* you are running on an 8 CPU machine *&* you are PREDOMENANTLY doing network stuff...you could split the poll threads over 7 cpu-vps

NETTYPE soctcp,6,100,CPU
NETTYPE ipcshm,1,100,CPU
NUMCPUVPS 7

Regards

Tim

It all depends on what ratio you are c

[Rainer von Bongartz]

Tim,


I can't confirm that you MUST have a shm poll thread.

I have configured INFORMIX servers running with ONLY socket connections

So from my point the configured server with a soc poll thread should work.


Regards
Rainer

[Tim D Fulford]

I think we have a misunderstanding...

If you do not have a shm poll thread the instance will *not* start. INFORMIX requires it for internal communication (How does the socket speak to the internals?)

The rest was advice about how to get the most out of the socket poll thread(s) configured.
(In your case put the shm on a network vp as per first example)

I hope this is clearer now

Regards

Tim

[Umapathy S]

Solved the problem
The system was using NIS and it is not configured properly. I threw NIS out and it worked fine.

Listener thread was able to get entry from /etc/services directly.

[Umapathy S]

Coming to your suggestions Tim. I am using Informix 7.3 on hpux10.2. I have an IDS with NETTYPE onsoctcp. That is running fine and supports quite a number of people doing development and testing.

Now I am moving to Informix 9.3 on hpux11.0. I am yet to see the new features of 9.3. Could you please explain more on that NETTYPE. Because the onconfig with Informix 7.3 didnt contain a parameter NETTYPE.

warm regards
Umapathy

[Tim D Fulford]

Yep you are right, I'm wrong! You can just have one socket poll thread & no shm poll thread!!! (Live & learn)

I tried to use your ONCONFIG etc but the cut & paste failed, so I typed in the relavent info. I've got 9.21 (close enough). It worked fine.

So in the /etc/services there could be either a duplicate "thbs" entries or duplicate port numbers 1526/tcp.

Sorry I cannot help further

Tim

[Rainer von Bongartz]

Tim,

IDS will use a shared memory segment for internal communication even when you don't define a shm poll thread.

onstat -g ath will show.


Umapathy,

NETTYPE is not new in 9.x it was available in 7.x as well. Look at the description for this parameter in your Informix dynamic Server Administrator Guide.

Regards
Rainer

[Tim D Fulford]

Glad to see you got the problem fixed.

NETTYPE has been in Informix for some time, It is just that Informix is "cleaver" & fills in the relavent info if missing

NETTYPE ,,,
protocol - soctcp or ipcshm (there are others tli???>
N-vps - Number of vp's the poll thread will run on
Max-conn - use 100, maximum number of connections it can support/vp
vp-type - CPU or NET. CPU is more efficient as it will reduce the ammount of CPU context switches, which are wasted "ticks" if you can avoid it. If you are predominantly using soctcp connection put the socket on CPU, if shared memory, then ipcshm. Put others on NET

You can have more than one protocol on the cpu-vp, but you must have the appropriate nymber of NUMCPUVPS as this is the hard limit. so this will work for a "mixed" environment.
NETTYPE soctcp,6,100,CPU
NETTYPE ipcshm,10,100,CPU
NUMCPUVPS 16

The rule for setting NUMCPUVPS is
NUMCPUVPS < Total available CPU's on the machine (or partition).
I generally try to balance out the CPU% between application & database. so for an 8-CPU machine you might set NUMCPUVP 6 if App is using about 25% CPU%

If you want to check where the poll threads are actually running on an instance
onstat -g ath | grep pol
if it says Xcpu it is on a cpu-vp, Xsoc or Xshm it is a network vp.

To check the efficiency of a multi cpu-vp system
onstat -g glo
Then look for
o distribution of work between the cpu-vps
o Are the peaks on a poll thread
o Are the Network vps (Xsoc or Xshm) doing alot of work?

Regards

Tim