================================= MACHINE SPECIFIC NOTES FOR Informix Dynamic Server 7.31.UD3 PRODUCT RELEASE DATE: 27 Oct 2001 ================================= Informix Dynamic Server Shared Memory and Kernel Parameters: =================================================================== LOCATION OF SHARED MEMORY: ========================= The ONCONFIG variable SHMBASE should be set to the following: 0x10000000L Shared Memory Parameters and Kernel Parameters: =============================================== The following kernel parameters were modified to the values shown here for building and testing this product. The values might need to be changed depending on your configuration. STREAMS Parameters: STRTHRESH 0 Semaphore Parameters: SEMMAP 522 SEMMNI 2048 SEMMNS 2048 SEMMNU 2048 SEMMSL 250 SEMUME 64 Shared Memory Parameters: SHMMAX 209715200 SHMSEG 64 Resource Limit Parameters: SDATLIM 0x7fffffff HDATLIM 0x7fffffff SVMMLIM 0x7fffffff HVMMLIM 0x7fffffff The following parameters may be tuned depending on your configuraton: Recommended values for SVMMLIM and HVMMLIM: ------------------------------------------ While running opticallink to create oninit for the Online-Optical product the following error may be encountered: ld: /usr/lib/libnsl.a: libelf error: Memory error: vm stats elf_begin This is due to failed calls of mmap() when the system limit on mapped virtual memory is reached. The amount of mapped virtual memory is controlled by the kernel parameters SVMMLIM and HVMMLIM. Informix recommends setting the values of these kernel parameters to at least 0x7000000 when this problem is encountered with the ATT-GIS linker. SFNOLIM and HFNOLIM: -------------------- The parameters SFNOLIM and HFNOLIM are used to limit the number of open files for a single process. The upper limit for these parameters in the mtune file is 0x400 (1024 decimal). Since these values cover network connections as well as files, on systems where there are many network clients, OnLine may return the following error codes: -25572 Network driver cannot bind a name to the port. or -27001 Read error occurred during connection attempt. when the limit is reached. The limit may be increased by executing ulimit -n before bringing up OnLine. 'ulimit' is available in 'sh' and 'ksh'. The limit will then be increased for the current shell and all its children. Alternatively, SFNOLIM and HFNOLIM may be increased with appropriate changes in mtune/stune and relinking the kernel. This will increase the limit for all Unix processes on the system. NCR has observed a performance down side to making these kernel parameters high. STRTHRESH: --------- The STRTHRESH parameter may be reconfigured to allow a large number of connections to the server. A value of 0 can be used to have no limit on this threshold parameter. SEMMSL, SEMMNI, SEMMNS: ---------------------- Informix recommends setting the value of the kernel parameter SEMMSL to at least 100. See the section on "Configuring Semaphore Parameters" in the INFORMIX-Online Dynamic Server Migration Guide for details on setting SEMMSL, SEMMNI, and SEMMNS. SEMMNU: ------ Set the value of kernel parameter SEMMNU to at least the maximum number of open ipcshm connections, plus the number of semaphore undo structures required by other processes in the system. SHMTOTAL: -------- NCR has observed instability of OnLine when the ONCONFIG variable SHMTOTAL is set to 0 (for unlimited use of available memory), and the virtual shared memory used by OnLine grows near the physical memory size. If this is encountered, SHMTOTAL may be reconfigured to limit the amount of memory that OnLine can use. Machine Specific Notes: ======================= 1. The following protocol(s)/interface(s) are supported for this platform: TLI using TCP/IP IPC using stream pipe and shared memory To use TLI with TCP/IP, NETTYPE in the ONCONFIG file and the netttype field in the sqlhosts must be set to "ontlitcp" and to use IPC with stream pipe the entries must contain "onipcstr". 2. The new protocol used for supporting MaxConnect is onsocimc. For more information on how to configure your server to use with MaxConnect, please refer to the following documents: Guide to Informix MaxConnect Ver 1.0. 7.31 Server Release Notes. 3. OS patches: The following OS patches are needed a. on MP-RAS 3.02.XX PBASEA302 Patches to the 3.02 BASE utilities PINET620 Patches for STREAMware TCP for MP-RAS PKERN302 Patches to the Release 3.02 Kernel PMAN302 Patch for Manual Pages PODM302 Patches to the 3.02 odm package POSA302 Patches to the 3.02 OSA package PPKGPL302 Patches to the 3.02 pkgplus utilities PRPC302 Patches to the 3.02 rpc package PSMBAS302 Patches to the 3.02 smbase package PSMBCI102 Patches to the 1.02 smbci package PXFMLI302 Patches to the 3.02 xfmli package PXWIN504 X Window System Release 5 - Patch Patches Installed for the C compiler package a. on MP-RAS 3.02.XX PSCDEA Patches to files unique to scde package (3.02 and later) PSCDEB Patches to files unique to scde package (3.02 and later) PSCDEC Patches to files common to scde and base packages (3.02 and later) PSCDED Patches to files unique to scde package (3.02 and later) Patches Installed for CDR a. on MP-RAS 3.02.XX PINET620 4. Memory residency is supported on this platform. Memory residency, also called "nailing of memory", is supported in this release. The RESIDENT parameter in the ONCONFIG file needs to be turned on to use this feature. Dynamic turning on or turning off memory residency through onmode options -r, -n is NOT supported. To get improved performance, in addition to the resident segment the first virtual segment created by the server is also made resident in operating-system physical memory. Depending on the size of the resident segment and the first virtual segment (ONCONFIG parameter SHMVIRTSIZE), there can be a delay in bringing up the server. It is required to have the latest version of MP-RAS 3.02.00 or higher software with Compatibility Updates installed. 5. Kernel AIO is supported on this platform. An improved Kernel asynchronous I/O (called DBio) is used in this release. To make use of this interface: a) It is necessary to have DBT package installed on the system. It is required to have the latest version of MP-RAS 3.02.00 or higher operating system software with Compatibility Updates installed. b) The ONCONFIG variable RESIDENT needs to be turned on. The new interface works in conjunction with memory residency. 6. The Processor Affinity feature (ONCONFIG variables AFF_SPROC, AFF_NPROCS) that allows the pinning of a CPU VP processor to a physical processor in a multi-cpu configuration is supported on this platform. 7. Some operating systems lower the priority of processes as the processes age. NOAGE (ONCONFIG variable) which controls priority aging is supported on this platform. In other words, processes running on a machine may acquire CPU usage and get reduced priority on the system. To avoid lowering of priority value of OnLine processes, the NoAge feature has been implemented. Processes run with real time priority when the value of NOAGE is set to 1 in the ONCONFIG file. The priority value of real time processes ranges between 100 and 159 on the NCR platform. A user may use the Environment variable IFMX_CPUVP_PRIORITY to assign a value in the range. If the environment variable IFMX_CPUVP_PRIORITY is not used and the NOAGE value in ONCONFIG file is set, then a default priority value of 100 is assigned to the online processes. NoAge feature should be used only on a multiprocessor machine. The requirements of other time sharing processes running on the system need to be taken into consideration when using the NoAge feature. When NoAge and Processor Affinity features are used together, not all the CPUs should be used as it may starve the other processes. In other words, when NOAGE is set, the number of CPUVPs should be one less than the number of physical processors. 8. Onarchive tape drives/tape drivers: Onarchive has been tested and is supported on this platform with QIC Tape, 4mm DAT and 8mm tapes. 9. The UNIX graphical tools provided with this release require X Window system X11R5 and Motif 1.2.4 or higher. 10. The OnPerf performance monitoring capability is supported on this platform. OnPerf has been successfully tested under NCR 3.02 with X11R5 and Motif 1.2.4. 11. The DB/Cockpit DBA monitoring tool is not available on this platform. 12. The High Performance Loader is available with this release. The onpload and ipload tools are supported. They require a minimum of 35M of memory and 70M of swap space in order to run. User-defined conversion routines must be provided in a dynamic, shared library called ipldd07a.so. This library must be located in /usr/lib (or must have a link provided in /usr/lib). Onpload will use shared memory during its execution. It will allocate memory beyond the address for the server, leaving room for server shared memory expansion. If ipload can't find the location of the X and Motif shared libraries installed, the environment variable LD_LIBRARY_PATH may need to be set to include these locations. 13. The Online Backup and Restore Utility (ONBAR) is available with this release. ON-Bar uses the XBSA interface. Some of the functions called by ON-Bar are in a shared library supplied by third party storage management vendors or ISM. For ON-Bar to access the functions, the library has to be installed in one of the three ways noted below: 1. Rename the library to /usr/lib/ibsad001.so. 2. Create /usr/lib/ibsad001.so as a symbolic link to the library. 3. Set the BAR_BSALIB_PATH parameter in $INFORMIXDIR/etc/$ONCONFIG to the full pathname of the library. 14. The OnLine SNMP subagent(OnSNMP) is supported with this release. On NCR, OnSNMP is based on PEER Network's subagent Development Kit release 2.3. The distribution includes the following files installed under $INFORMIXDIR: bin/onsnmp the OnSNMP subagent itself, packaged as a separeate process. bin/onsrvapd the daemon which spawns a subagent for each server it discovers. bin/snmpdp PEER Network's master agent. snmp/peer/CONFIG PEER Network's configuration file. snmp/*V1.mib snmp/*V2.mib MIB files defining the instrumentation provided with OnSNMP. Files with 'V1' conform to SNMP version 1 and share the widest acceptance; files with 'V2' conform to SNMP version 2; Refer to the installation notes that accompany the master agent for more details. Note: OnSNMP is supported on a host that is running one and only one server. If multiple servers are running on the same host, then the values returned by the subagent are for the first server. All subagents for subsequent servers may fail to start. Follow these steps to configure the Master Agent (/usr/sbin/in.snmpd) that comes bundled with MP-RAS 1) Modify the file /etc/inet/snmpd.peers to allow the OnSNMP subagent executable 'onsnmp' to register as a peer: "onsnmp" 0.0 "" 2) Make sure that 'in.snmpd' is running. Then bring up OnLine and execute 'onsrvapd'. This will bring up onsnmp. Check the following log files for errors: a) /tmp/onsrvapd.log b) /tmp/onsnmp..log c) If all is configured properly the following command will run successfully: /usr/sbin/getmany localhost public 1.3.6.1.4.1.893.1.1.1.1.1.1 will return: Name: enterprises.893.1.1.1.1.1.1.8930021 Value: 6 where, '6' indicates that the 7.3x server is in On-Line mode. The NCR mib compiler mosy 8.0 is V1 standard based. Compile the *V1.mib from $INFORMIXDIR/etc to generate the ASCII definition file containing the names and the numeric object identifiers. This file will be used by the network management utilities like getmany and getnext to translate the numeric object identifiers to names. The following script will compile the onsnmp mib files and generate the definition file: --> FILES="applV1.mib onmibV1.mib rdbmsV1.mib" OFILES= OUTPUT=onsnmp.def BIN=/usr/bin for i in $FILES; do curfile=`basename $i \.my`.defs OFILES=${OFILES}" "$curfile ${BIN}/mosy -o $curfile $i done cat << 'EOF' > /tmp/mc$$ internet iso.3.6.1 directory internet.1 mgmt internet.2 experimental internet.3 private internet.4 enterprises private.1 mib-2 mgmt.1 EOF cat $OFILES >> /tmp/mc$$ ${BIN}/post_mosy -i /tmp/mc$$ -o $OUTPUT rm -f /tmp/mc$$ --> Now this file can be used by getmany. To see the status of onServerMode, run getmany as below: /usr/sbin/getmany -f onsnmp.def localhost public onServerMode The output will be: Name: onServerMode.8930021 Value: 6 15. Enterprise Replication (ER - referred to as CDR earlier) is supported in this release. 16. Operating System Audit is supported on this platform and the related information is given below. Configuring the operating system audit subsystem: To receive INFORMIX-OnLine audit data, the operating system audit subsystem must be configured to accept these records. On this operating system, auditable events are associated with "channels". There are 32 different channels, and thus the ability to selectively audit events in 32 different categories. INFORMIX-OnLine needs channels 1, 2, 14 and 15 enabled. Channels 1 (fork) and 2 (exec) are needed in order to receive any events from INFORMIX-OnLine. Channel 14 and 15, which are dedicated to user level interface records, must also be enabled to receive OnLine audit records. Enabling channels 1, 2, 14 and 15 corresponds to a mask of 0xc006. This mask value can be set in /etc/default/satsave so that the channels are enabled at boot time. For more information refer to 'Trusted Facilities Manual' on this platform and also man pages for sat, satfmt and related commands. The following line is extracted from /etc/default/satsave: CHANNEL_MASK=0xc006 To select which INFORMIX-OnLine events are to be audited, specify audit masks using the "onaudit" utility. Refer to the INFORMIX-OnLine Trusted Facility Manual (TFM) for further details. To extract audit records from operating system audit trail files, satfmt utility can be used. To extract INFORMIX-OnLine records use "onshowaudit -O" which is configured to use /var/sat as AUDIT_DIR and NUMFILES as 10 with PREFIX sat (sat.1, sat.2.. sat.10). If the system is configured to use different AUDIT_DIR, NUMFILES, PREFIX user can use onshowaudit utility with -f option to specify the required files. For e.g., if AUDIT_DIR is /secure, NUMFILES is 3, and PREFIX is audit, use: onshowaudit -O -f "/secure/audit.1 /secure/audit.2 /secure/audit.3" Refer to the INFORMIX-OnLine TFM for further details. 17. Maximum size of a shared memory segment allocated by Online Dynamic Server is 2 GB . This may be limited by actual memory available and/or kernel configuration. 18. TERMINFO is supported on this port. 19. Informix has observed that when an OnLine server using the TLI protocol is shut down and restarted immediately, the following error may appear in the OnLine log file: listener-thread: err = -25572: Network driver cannot bind a name to the port. System error = 8. To bring up OnLine immediately, use another TCP port. Alternatively, use netstat(1) to ensure the TCP port is released before bringing up the server again. 20. This release of 7.31 will be supported only on MP-RAS 3.02 or higher operating system releases. 21. Informix Storage Manager (ISM) is supported in this release. The devices that are currently supported are WANGTEK 5525ES SCSI (525 cartridge) WANGTEK DAT 6130-HS (4mm tape) 22. Informix Enterprise Command Center (IECC) support IECC ServerAgent is NOT supported for this release on this platform. Because of this, only the following Tools within IECC Win NT/95 Client can be used against the 7.31 server. ISM Administrator Enterprise Replication SQL Editor For more information on how to configure and use these Tools please refer to IECC Tools section within IECC Users Guide. Be sure to also refer to IECC Client Release Notes. 23. Communications Support Service using Communications Support Module (CSM) with - Simple-Password is supported in this release. There is a known issue(107801) with CSM, when ClientSDK 2.20.x is installed on top of 7.31.x IDS server release. A PTS entry is logged for it. As a consequence of this bug, the IDS server, when initialized with CSM option, fails to build sysmaster. Please note the following workaround to avoid this problem. In your concsm.cfg file, please specify the library path as shown below - (Refer to Section 4-14 of Administrator's Guide for Informix Dynamic Server Version 7.3, for details on how to configure and use CSM) For Simple-Password CSM: SPWDCSM ("/usr/informix/lib/csm/ispws07a.so", "", "") Please note that this problem is specific to ClientSDK 2.20.x and IDS 7.31.x combination and ONLY occurs when used with CSM option. This will be fixed in future releases. 24. There is a known issue (99870) with migrating backwards from 7.31 to 7.24.UCX. Short description : [MIGRATE BACKWARDS FROM 7.30.UC2 TO 7.24.UCX; THEN RUN UPDATE STATISTICS LOW [DROP DISTRIBUTIONS] ; RESULT: 665 INTERNAL ERROR SEMANTICS -3 ] After reverting to 7.24.UCX using ONMODE -b 7.2, when you run update statistic LOW; the error " 665 internal error semantics -3" is seen. A work around is to drop and recreate the database. Another simpler work around is to recreate the procedure systdist in sysprocedures - a system procedure.