dbed_mon

NAME

dbed_mon - daemon to monitor and log storage usage

SYNOPSIS

AVAILABILITY

VERITAS Storage Foundation for Oracle. To determine whether this product is installed on a HP-UX system, enter:

swlist VRTSdbed

DESCRIPTION

The dbed_mon daemon is not normally started by database users. The VxDBA utility interfaces with this command, allowing the daemon to start and stop.

The dbed_mon daemon monitors storage used on a per-database basis and issues warning messages when storage becomes close to fully utilized. The dbed_mon daemon can also be used to automatically grow storage, ensuring enough space for the Storage Checkpoint facility to function correctly.

OPTIONS

The following options are supported:

-s ORACLE_SID

Specifies the name of the Oracle database being monitored. This setting affects where configuration and state information is read from and saved to.

-o ORACLE_OWNER

Specifies the login name of the user that owns the Oracle database. This setting affects the environment for queries to the database and, if incorrect, can cause access to the database to fail.

-h ORACLE_HOME

Specifies the directory where Oracle is installed for the instance being monitored.

-e executable_grow_script

Specifies the grow script to run when a volume and file system have to be grown.

-c file_system_config_list

Specifies the "prep" file for the agent. This file is normally generated by a running agent and used to restart from a known state if the system or agent is restarted.

-z

Sets debug mode. Does not disconnect from the controlling terminal and become a daemon.

-v

Sets verbose mode.

-i interval

Specifies the interval between checks for space conditions.

-r refresh_interval

Specifies the interval between refreshing configuration information. This option is not currently supported.

-C

Checks the monitoring agent.

-R

Re-reads the configuration file.

-S

Stops the monitoring agent.

-B

Restarts the monitoring agent.

-D

Dumps the configuration.

-T

Terminates the monitoring agent.

CONFIGURATION

The dbed_mon agent reads the config file located at /etc/vx/vxdba/$ORACLE_SID/dbed_mon_config.$ORACLE_SID at start time. This configuration file is initially a copy of the file /opt/VRTSdbed/etc/dbed_mon_config.base. The file contains inline information about the configuration variables and usage.

The keywords currently supported by the dbed_mon agent are:

REFRESH

Determines how often to check for differences between database datafiles and file systems being monitored. The default is 3600 seconds (1 hour).

CHECK

Determines how often the file systems are sampled for their usage information. The default is 300 seconds (5 minutes).

STATS

Determines how often file system space usage is sampled and statistics are recorded. The default is 0 seconds (disabled). A suggested setting is once every 5 minutes (300 seconds), which results in a small number of samplings daily.

FSSTATSPATH

Specifies a path to a file where statistics on file system usage for the monitored database will be recorded. The default location for saving statistics is under the /var/log/dbed_mon directory in a file named dbed_mon.fs_stats.$ORACLE_SID, where $ORACLE_SID is the name of the database being monitored. The path supplied via the FSSTATSPATH directive is limited to 1,020 characters. Ensure that this path does not overwrite other files on the system.

ORA_STATS

Determines how often Oracle tablespace space usage is sampled and statistics are recorded. The default is 0 seconds (disabled). A suggested setting is once every 5 minutes (300 seconds), which results in a small number of Storage Checkpoints daily.

ORASTATSPATH

Specifies a path to a file where statistics on Oracle tablespace usage for the monitored database will be recorded. The default location for saving statistics is under the /var/log/dbed_mon directory in a file named dbed_mon.ora_stats.$ORACLE_SID, where $ORACLE_SID is the name of the database being monitored. The path supplied via the ORASTATSPATH directive is limited to 1,020 characters. Ensure that this path does not overwrite other files on the system.

LOGFREQ

Determines how often informational messages (such as warnings about space usage exceeding the warning threshold and other non-essential notices that may be repeated continually in the log file) are logged. The default is 0 seconds (no set interval).

LOGTO

Specifies where output from the agent will be sent. The valid settings for directing log messages are:

PATH

Logs to the path specified by the LOGPATH keyword.

The path supplied via the LOGPATH directive is limited to 1,020 characters. Ensure that the path supplied does not overwrite other files on the system.

SYSLOG

Sends output to the syslog facility defined by the SYSLOG_FACILITY and SYSLOG_PRI settings.

EMAIL

Sends output to the address specified by the LOG_EMAIL setting.

NONE

Sends no log output.

You may also specify a combination of the above, such as SYSLOG,PATH.

LOGPATH

Sends log output to the specified file. Only one LOGPATH setting may be defined. The default setting for LOGPATH is to log to the file /var/log/dbed_mon/dbed_mon.logfile.$ORACLE_SID.

LOG_EMAIL

Sends log output to the specified email address. Note that only program, file system, or Oracle errors are sent to the email address. Reaching the warning threshold for space usage on a file system or Oracle tablespace is considered an error.

DEF_WARN

Specifies the default threshold for file system space-usage and warning messages. When the VxFS file system reaches the specified space-usage threshold, a warning message is generated.

DEF_GROW

Specifies the default threshold for file systems space usage and automatic growth. When the VxFS file system reaches the specified space-usage threshold, a warning message is generated and a script is run that attempts to grow the volume and file system by the specified DEF_GROWBY amount.

See the NOTES section for information on specifying volume growth options in the grow script.

DEF_GROWBY

Specifies the amount of storage to extend VxVM volumes and VxFS file systems by when the DEF_GROW threshold is reached. The amount may be specified as an integer followed by an M, K or % character.

By default, file system growth is disabled and must be enabled from the VxDBA utility.

See the NOTES section for information on specifying volume growth options in the grow script.

The default warning settings for the space-usage threshold, file system-growth threshold, and the amount to grow by can also be set from the VxDBA utility.

When the dbed_mon agent starts, two state files are created that list the file systems and the Oracle tablespaces being monitored. These files are located at /etc/vx/vxdba/$ORACLE_SID/dbed_mon_fslist.$ORACLE_SID and /etc/vx/vxdba/$ORACLE_SID/dbed_mon_oralist.$ORACLE_SID respectively, and are re-read if the agent has to restart for any reason.

DEF_ORA_WARN

Specifies the default threshold for Oracle tablespace space usage and warning messages. When the Oracle tablespace reaches the specified space-usage threshold, a warning message is generated.

MAX_CHECKPOINTS

Specifies the maximum number of Storage Checkpoints to maintain for this Oracle instance. If more than this number are found, then the monitoring agent begins removing them, starting with the earliest. The default value for MAX_CHECKPOINTS is 0, which disables Storage Checkpoint removal. The MAX_CHECKPOINTS setting is applied to an individual Oracle instance.

FORCE_CKPT_RM

When a Storage Checkpoint is created, a decision is made to either allow or not allow the Storage Checkpoint to be removed when the file system runs out of space. This removable? flag is observed by the monitoring agent by default. If a Storage Checkpoint is flagged as not removable, the monitoring agent will exclude it from consideration for removal if the file system runs out of space.

By default, the MAX_CHECKPOINTS setting is 0, which disables Storage Checkpoint removal. By setting FORCE_CKPT_RM to 1, all Storage Checkpoints will be candidates for removal by the monitoring agent, regardless of any flags.

NOTES

The error checking that the monitoring agent performs after querying the database can be customized to check for particular errors or other conditions. To customize error checking, edit the script /opt/VRTSdbed/lib/get_ora_stats_001.ksh as required.

The space-usage statistics that dbed_mon calculates may be different than the output from the df command. This is because df makes certain assumptions that are valid for the UFS file system, but do not apply to VxFS. For correct space usage on VxFS file systems, use the /usr/VRTS/bin/df command.

When the monitoring agent first starts, it assigns configured default values for warning thresholds, growth thresholds, and growth amounts to each file system and Oracle tablespace. This information is then written to a separate configuration file with one entry per file system or tablespace object. Changing these defaults using VxDBA or by manually editing the dbed_mon config file does not affect the file system or tablespace objects already configured. Changes will only be applied to new objects brought into the configuration. In order to modify existing file system or tablespace settings, you must use VxDBA to reconfigure each entry, since the new defaults will not be used by these existing entries.

The script used to grow volumes and file systems when the growth threshold is reached does a simple grow by default. A simple grow may not meet the requirements of customers who have volumes with non-default storage attributes. See the vxgrowfs(1M) man page for more information on changing the default allocation policies when growing file systems.

The MAX_CHECKPOINTS directive is only applied to Storage Checkpoints that are owned by the current Oracle database instance. Other Storage Checkpoints will not be used to calculate thresholds and potential removal candidates. Storage Checkpoints that are not considered part of the current Oracle database instance's data set are logged in the file /var/log/dbed_mon/dbed_mon.prune_ckpt_log.$ORACLE_SID when potential removal candidates are being determined. A Storage Checkpoint must have an entry under the /etc/vx/vxdba/$ORACLE_SID/checkpoint_dir directory before it is considered to be owned by the database. This entry is made automatically by the VxDBA utility and dbed_ckptcreate and ensures that the policy for one database does not affect another, in the case where multiple databases share the same file system(s).

FILES

/opt/VRTS/bin/dbed_mon

dbed_mon daemon executable file

/opt/VRTSdbed/dbed_mon.config.base

dbed_mon skeleton config file for per-instance inclusion

/etc/vx/vxdba

VxDBA database containing Oracle instance information

/etc/vx/vxdba/$ORACLE_SID/dbed_mon_config.$ORACLE_SID

dbed_mon config file (initial) for database $ORACLE_SID

/etc/vx/vxdba/$ORACLE_SID/dbed_mon_fslist.$ORACLE_SID

dbed_mon state file of file systems for database $ORACLE_SID. Used for restarting the agent.

/etc/vx/vxdba/$ORACLE_SID/dbed_mon_oralist.$ORACLE_SID

dbed_mon state file of Oracle tablespaces for database $ORACLE_SID. Used for restarting the agent.

/var/log/dbed_mon/dbed_mon.*.$ORACLE_SID

dbed_mon log files for all operations

SEE ALSO

dbed_ckptcreate (1M), dbed_vxdba (1M), df(1M), vxgrowfs(1M), oracle_edition (7)

VERITAS Storage Foundation for Oracle Administrator's Guide