db_archive

db_archive [-adlsVv] [-h home] [-P password]  

The db_archive utility writes the pathnames of log files that are no longer in use (for example, no longer involved in active transactions), to the standard output, one pathname per line. These log files should be written to backup media to provide for recovery in the case of catastrophic failure (which also requires a snapshot of the database files), but they may then be deleted from the system to reclaim disk space.

The options are as follows:

Log cursor handles (returned by the DbEnv::log_cursor() method) may have open file descriptors for log files in the database environment. Also, the Berkeley DB interfaces to the database environment logging subsystem (for example, DbEnv::log_put() and DbTxn::abort() may allocate log cursors and have open file descriptors for log files as well. On operating systems where filesystem related system calls (for example, rename and unlink on Windows/NT) can fail if a process has an open file descriptor for the affected file, attempting to move or remove the log files listed by db_archive may fail. All Berkeley DB internal use of log cursors operates on active log files only and furthermore, is short-lived in nature. So, an application seeing such a failure should be restructured to close any open log cursors it may have, and otherwise to retry the operation until it succeeds. (Although the latter is not likely to be necessary; it is hard to imagine a reason to move or rename a log file in which transactions are being logged or aborted.)

The db_archive utility uses a Berkeley DB environment (as described for the -h option, the environment variable DB_HOME, or because the utility was run in a directory containing a Berkeley DB environment). In order to avoid environment corruption when using a Berkeley DB environment, db_archive should always be given the chance to detach from the environment and exit gracefully. To cause db_archive to release all environment resources and exit cleanly, send it an interrupt signal (SIGINT).

The db_archive utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

Environment Variables

DB_HOME

If the -h option is not specified and the environment variable DB_HOME is set, it is used as the path of the database home, as described in the DbEnv::open() method.