NAME

       db5.3_archive - Find unused log files for archiving purposes

SYNOPSIS

       db5.3_archive [-adlsVv] [-h home] [-P password]

DESCRIPTION

       The  db5.3_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.

OPTIONS

       -a     Write all pathnames as absolute pathnames, instead of relative to the database home directories.

       -d     Remove  log files that are no longer needed; no filenames are written.  Automatic log file removal
              is likely to make catastrophic recovery impossible.

       -h     Specify a home directory for the database environment; by default, the current  working  directory
              is used.

       -l     Write  out the pathnames of all the database log files, whether or not they are involved in active
              transactions.

       -P     Specify an environment password.  Although Berkeley DB utilities  overwrite  password  strings  as
              soon  as  possible,  be aware there may be a window of vulnerability on systems where unprivileged
              users can see command-line arguments or where utilities are  not  able  to  overwrite  the  memory
              containing the command-line arguments.

       -s     Write  the  pathnames  of  all the database files that need to be archived in order to recover the
              database from catastrophic failure.  If any of the database files have not  been  accessed  during
              the lifetime of the current log files, db5.3_archive will not include them in this output.

              It  is  possible  that  some of the files to which the log refers have since been deleted from the
              system.  In this case, db5.3_archive will ignore them.  When db5.3_recover is run,  any  files  to
              which  the  log  refers  that are not present during recovery are assumed to have been deleted and
              will not be recovered.

       -V     Write the library version number to the standard output, and exit.

       -v     Run in verbose mode, listing the checkpoints in the log files as they are reviewed.

       Log cursor handles (returned by the DB_ENV->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, DB_ENV->log_put and DB_TXN->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 db5.3_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 db5.3_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,  db5.3_archive  should
       always be given the chance to detach from the environment and exit gracefully.  To cause db5.3_archive to
       release all environment resources and exit cleanly, send it an interrupt signal (SIGINT).

       The DB_ENV->log_archive method is the underlying method used  by  the  db5.3_archive  utility.   See  the
       db5.3_archive  utility  source code for an example of using DB_ENV->log_archive in a IEEE/ANSI Std 1003.1
       (POSIX) environment.

       The db5.3_archive utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

ENVIRONMENT

       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 DB_ENV->open.

AUTHORS

       Sleepycat Software, Inc. This manual page was created based on the HTML documentation for db_archive from
       Sleepycat, by Thijs Kinkhorst <thijs@kinkhorst.com>, for the Debian system (but may be used by others).

                                                 28 January 2005                                DB5.3_ARCHIVE(1)