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31          <div>
32            <h2 class="title"><a id="filemanagement"></a>Chapter��5.��Managing DB Files</h2>
33          </div>
34        </div>
35      </div>
36      <div class="toc">
37        <p>
38          <b>Table of Contents</b>
39        </p>
40        <dl>
41          <dt>
42            <span class="sect1">
43              <a href="filemanagement.html#checkpoints">Checkpoints</a>
44            </span>
45          </dt>
46          <dt>
47            <span class="sect1">
48              <a href="backuprestore.html">Backup Procedures</a>
49            </span>
50          </dt>
51          <dd>
52            <dl>
53              <dt>
54                <span class="sect2">
55                  <a href="backuprestore.html#copyutilities">About Unix Copy Utilities</a>
56                </span>
57              </dt>
58              <dt>
59                <span class="sect2">
60                  <a href="backuprestore.html#standardbackup">Offline Backups</a>
61                </span>
62              </dt>
63              <dt>
64                <span class="sect2">
65                  <a href="backuprestore.html#hotbackup">Hot Backup</a>
66                </span>
67              </dt>
68              <dt>
69                <span class="sect2">
70                  <a href="backuprestore.html#incrementalbackups">Incremental Backups</a>
71                </span>
72              </dt>
73            </dl>
74          </dd>
75          <dt>
76            <span class="sect1">
77              <a href="recovery.html">Recovery Procedures</a>
78            </span>
79          </dt>
80          <dd>
81            <dl>
82              <dt>
83                <span class="sect2">
84                  <a href="recovery.html#normalrecovery">Normal Recovery</a>
85                </span>
86              </dt>
87              <dt>
88                <span class="sect2">
89                  <a href="recovery.html#catastrophicrecovery">Catastrophic Recovery</a>
90                </span>
91              </dt>
92            </dl>
93          </dd>
94          <dt>
95            <span class="sect1">
96              <a href="architectrecovery.html">Designing Your Application for Recovery</a>
97            </span>
98          </dt>
99          <dd>
100            <dl>
101              <dt>
102                <span class="sect2">
103                  <a href="architectrecovery.html#multithreadrecovery">Recovery for Multi-Threaded Applications</a>
104                </span>
105              </dt>
106              <dt>
107                <span class="sect2">
108                  <a href="architectrecovery.html#multiprocessrecovery">Recovery in Multi-Process Applications</a>
109                </span>
110              </dt>
111            </dl>
112          </dd>
113          <dt>
114            <span class="sect1">
115              <a href="hotfailover.html">Using Hot Failovers</a>
116            </span>
117          </dt>
118          <dt>
119            <span class="sect1">
120              <a href="logfileremoval.html">Removing Log Files</a>
121            </span>
122          </dt>
123          <dt>
124            <span class="sect1">
125              <a href="logconfig.html">Configuring the Logging Subsystem</a>
126            </span>
127          </dt>
128          <dd>
129            <dl>
130              <dt>
131                <span class="sect2">
132                  <a href="logconfig.html#logfilesize">Setting the Log File Size</a>
133                </span>
134              </dt>
135              <dt>
136                <span class="sect2">
137                  <a href="logconfig.html#logregionsize">Configuring the Logging Region Size</a>
138                </span>
139              </dt>
140              <dt>
141                <span class="sect2">
142                  <a href="logconfig.html#inmemorylogging">Configuring In-Memory Logging</a>
143                </span>
144              </dt>
145              <dt>
146                <span class="sect2">
147                  <a href="logconfig.html#logbuffer">Setting the In-Memory Log Buffer Size</a>
148                </span>
149              </dt>
150            </dl>
151          </dd>
152        </dl>
153      </div>
154      <p>
155        DB is capable of storing several types of files on disk:
156    </p>
157      <div class="itemizedlist">
158        <ul type="disc">
159          <li>
160            <p>
161                Data files, which contain the actual data in your database.
162            </p>
163          </li>
164          <li>
165            <p>
166                Log files, which contain information required to recover your
167                database in the event of a system or application failure.
168            </p>
169          </li>
170          <li>
171            <p>
172                Region files, which contain information necessary for the
173                overall operation of your application. 
174            </p>
175          </li>
176          <li>
177            <p>
178                Temporary files, which are created only under certain special circumstances. These files never need to
179                be backed up or otherwise managed and so they are not a consideration for the topics described in this
180                chapter. See <a class="xref" href="enabletxn.html#security" title="Security Considerations">Security Considerations</a> 
181                for more information on temporary files.
182            </p>
183          </li>
184        </ul>
185      </div>
186      <p>
187        Of these, you must manage your data and log files by ensuring that they
188        are backed up. You should also pay attention to the amount of disk space
189        your log files are consuming, and periodically remove any unneeded
190        files. Finally, you can optionally tune your logging subsystem to best
191        suit your application's needs and requirements.
192        These topics are discussed in this chapter.
193    </p>
194      <div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
195        <div class="titlepage">
196          <div>
197            <div>
198              <h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="checkpoints"></a>Checkpoints</h2>
199            </div>
200          </div>
201        </div>
202        <p>
203            Before we can discuss DB file management, we need to
204            describe checkpoints. When databases are modified (that is, a
205            transaction is committed), the modifications are recorded in
206            DB's logs, but they are <span class="emphasis"><em>not</em></span>
207            necessarily reflected in the actual database files on disk.
208        </p>
209        <p>
210            This means that as time goes on, increasingly
211            more data is contained in your log files that is not
212            contained in your data files. As a result, you must keep more
213            log files around than you might actually need. Also, any
214            recovery run from your log files will take increasingly longer
215            amounts of time, because there is more data in the log files
216            that must be reflected back into the data files during the
217            recovery process.
218        </p>
219        <p>
220            You can reduce these problems by periodically
221            running a checkpoint against your environment. The checkpoint:
222        </p>
223        <div class="itemizedlist">
224          <ul type="disc">
225            <li>
226              <p>
227                    Flushes dirty pages from the in-memory cache. This means that data modifications found in your
228                    in-memory cache are written to the database files on disk. Note that a checkpoint also causes data
229                    dirtied by an uncommitted transaction to also be written to your database files on disk. In this latter
230                    case, DB's normal recovery is used to remove any such modifications that were subsequently
231                    abandoned by your application using a transaction abort.
232                </p>
233              <p>
234                    Normal recovery is describe in <a class="xref" href="recovery.html" title="Recovery Procedures">Recovery Procedures</a>.
235                </p>
236            </li>
237            <li>
238              <p>
239                    Writes a checkpoint record.
240                </p>
241            </li>
242            <li>
243              <p>
244                    Flushes the log. This causes all log data that has not yet been written to disk to be written.
245                </p>
246            </li>
247            <li>
248              <p>
249                    Writes a list of open databases.
250                </p>
251            </li>
252          </ul>
253        </div>
254        <p>
255            There are several ways to run a checkpoint. One way is to use
256            the <span class="command"><strong>db_checkpoint</strong></span> command line utility. (Note, however, that this command line utility
257            cannot be used if your environment was opened using
258                <span>
259                    <code class="literal">DB_PRIVATE</code>.)
260                </span>
261                
262         </p>
263        <p>
264            You can also run a thread that periodically checkpoints your
265            environment for you by calling the
266                <code class="methodname">DB_ENV-&gt;txn_checkpoint()</code>
267                
268                
269            method.
270        </p>
271        <p>
272            Note that you can prevent a checkpoint from occurring unless more
273            than a specified amount of log data has been written since the
274            last checkpoint. You can also prevent the checkpoint from
275            running unless more than a specified amount of time has
276            occurred since the last checkpoint. These conditions are
277            particularly interesting if you have multiple threads 
278                <span>or processes</span>
279            running checkpoints.
280        </p>
281        <p>
282            For configuration information, see the 
283            <a class="ulink" href="http://www.oracle.com/technology/documentation/berkeley-db/db/api_c/txn_checkpoint.html" target="_top">
284                    DB_ENV-&gt;txn_checkpoint() API reference page.
285                </a>
286                
287                
288        </p>
289        <p>
290        Note that running checkpoints can be quite expensive. DB must
291        flush every dirty page to the backing database files. On the
292        other hand, if you do not run checkpoints often enough, your
293        recovery time can be unnecessarily long and you may be using more
294        disk space than you really need. Also, you cannot remove log files
295        until a checkpoint is run. Therefore, deciding how frequently
296        to run a checkpoint is one of the most
297        common tuning activity for DB applications.
298    </p>
299        <p>
300            For example, to run a checkpoint from a separate thread of control:
301        </p>
302        <pre class="programlisting">#include &lt;stdio.h&gt;
303#include &lt;pthread.h&gt;
304#include &lt;stdlib.h&gt;
305#include "db.h"     
306
307void *checkpoint_thread(void *);
308
309int
310main(void)
311{
312    int ret;
313    u_int32_t env_flags;
314    DB_ENV *envp;
315    const char *db_home_dir = "/tmp/myEnvironment";
316    pthread_t ptid;
317
318    envp = NULL;
319
320    /* Open the environment */
321    ret = db_env_create(&amp;envp, 0);
322    if (ret != 0) {
323        fprintf(stderr, "Error creating environment handle: %s\n",
324            db_strerror(ret));
325        return (EXIT_FAILURE);
326    }
327                                                                                                                                  
328    env_flags = DB_CREATE     |  /* If the environment does not
329                                  * exist, create it. */
330                DB_INIT_LOCK  |  /* Initialize locking */
331                DB_INIT_LOG   |  /* Initialize logging */
332                DB_INIT_MPOOL |  /* Initialize the cache */
333                DB_THREAD     |  /* Free-thread the env handle. */
334                DB_INIT_TXN;     /* Initialize transactions */
335
336    /* Open the environment. */
337    ret = envp-&gt;open(envp, db_home_dir, env_flags, 0);
338    if (ret != 0) {
339        fprintf(stderr, "Error opening environment: %s\n",
340            db_strerror(ret));
341        goto err;
342    }
343
344
345    /* Start a checkpoint thread. */ 
346    if ((ret = pthread_create( 
347        &amp;ptid, NULL, checkpoint_thread, (void *)envp)) != 0) { 
348            fprintf(stderr, 
349                "txnapp: failed spawning checkpoint thread: %s\n", 
350                strerror(ret)); 
351            goto err;
352    }
353
354    /* 
355     * All other threads and application shutdown code 
356     * omitted for brevity. 
357     */
358
359    ...
360}
361
362
363void * 
364checkpoint_thread(void *arg) { 
365    DB_ENV *dbenv; 
366    int ret;
367
368    dbenv = arg;
369
370    /* Checkpoint once a minute. */ 
371    for (;; sleep(60)) 
372        if ((ret = dbenv-&gt;txn_checkpoint(dbenv, 0, 0, 0)) != 0) { 
373            dbenv-&gt;err(dbenv, ret, "checkpoint thread"); 
374            exit (1); 
375        }
376
377    /* NOTREACHED */ 
378} </pre>
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