Logging and Locking Systems

The logging and locking systems coordinate the locking, recovery, and journaling of the Ingres catalogs and table components of Vector databases. The system is composed of the following components:

Vector maintains several log files to which it writes information about the installation activities. The various log files are:

Updates, inserts, and deletes to the data and the layout of the data in the data files are stored as log information in the main.wal file. The WAL also contains persistent catalog information. The data files and the WAL file must be considered together as files that represent the database. A WAL file exists for each database and is located in the wal subdirectory of the default data location.

For more information, see X100 Write-Ahead Log.

Errors and other messages for the X100 Engine are logged in the vectorwise.log file. The file is located in: II_SYSTEM/ingres/files/vectorwise.log. For Vector for Windows installations: %ALLUSERSPROFILE%\Actian\VectorXX\files\vectorwise.log. You can configure error logging to change the level of information logged, the name and location of the log file, and the record format.

For more information, see Error Reporting--vectorwise.log.

Each installation has an Ingres transaction log file, and an optional dual log file. The transaction log file is a write-ahead log file that holds information about all open transactions and is used to recover active databases after a system failure. You have the option to change its size and number of partitions at startup.

The Error Log (errlog.log) file is the main log file for the DBMS Server. It is a readable text file that you can use for troubleshooting. Messages about the installation are appended to this log with the date and time at which the error occurred. This is generally the first place to look when troubleshooting a problem. The error log contains the following information:

The system administrator maintains the error log file. This file continues to grow until manually truncated. The installation must be shut down before truncating or removing the errlog.log file.

The error log file is located in the $II_SYSTEM/ingres/files/ directory.

The archiver log (iiacp.log) contains information about the current archiver process. The archiver log file is appended to when the archiver process starts. The log contains the following information:

The archiver log is located in the $II_SYSTEM/ingres/files/ directory.

The recovery log (iircp.log) contains information about the current recovery process. This file is appended to when the recovery process starts. The log contains the following information:

Note: The recovery log must be monitored if you are unable to connect to Vector and suspect that the DBMS Server is in recovery mode.

The recovery log is located in the $II_SYSTEM/ingres/files/ directory.

Vector maintains transcripts of various configuration operations. The primary configuration log files that Vector uses are as follows:

The config.log file contains a log of the changes made with the Configuration Manager or Configuration-By-Forms (cbf) utility.

The rcpconfig.log file contains log and error information of the last time rcpconfig was run. For details of the rcpconfig command, see the Command Reference.

The primary configuration log files are located in the $II_SYSTEM/ingres/files/ directory.

Vector provides the following optional configuration log files. These files, if present, are in the directory indicated by II_CONFIG.

Contains a log of the last time the iilink command was run. This log is used only in conjunction with the Object Management Extension.

Contains a transcript of the last time verifydb was used to diagnose or attempt recovery of a damaged or inconsistent database. This file is created the first time verifydb is run.

Contains a transcript, with any errors, of the last time lartool was used to manually abort or commit a running transaction. This file is created the first time lartool is run.

Vector provides various optional log files that can be used for troubleshooting purposes. Optional log files are provided for:

Process logs can be set up for the following processes to isolate the error messages relating to that process:

Logging can be specified for a specific Vector facility. The following optional log and trace log files can be established by setting the associated Vector variables.

The DBMS Server error log is optionally defined as a separate file. This log file is established by setting the Vector variable II_DBMS_LOG to a user-defined file name.

Note: By default, all logged messages are sent to the errlog.log file. If you define separate error logs, all messages are sent to both that error log file and errlog.log.

The GCC trace log is set up for specific troubleshooting efforts. You set II_GCA_LOG to a user file name. The associated Vector environment variable II_GCC_TRACE defines the level of tracing.

For more information about these log files, see the chapter "Setting Environment Variables" and the appendix "Environment Variables."