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Aleph Best Practices forSystem Maintenance

Jerry Specht April 2014 Senior Support Analystjerry.specht@exlibrisgroup.com

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© Ex Libris Ltd., 2014

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Agenda**Oracle Tables**1. Ensure sufficient database space2. Make sure Archiving is turned on3. From Preventive Maintenance doc: …4. Check the Oracle alert log weekly.**NON-Oracle Files** 1a. How to locate excessively large files1b. How to locate largest directories2. Deletion with util x & aleph_startup3. Do “df –h” weekly**Backups** (from Preventive Maintenance doc.) ----- Documents on Technical Seminar CD----- Recap

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**Oracle Space**• **Oracle Space**

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1. Ensure sufficient database space

• Tablespace Free Space (util o/14/1, 10%?: tables which grow rapidly, more; others, less)

• vir01 tables which grow large rapidly: z05 and z110 (but they're deleted by clear_vir01);

• -- CHECK #1: clear_vir01 failure is cause of surprising # of serious problems; “Resource busy and acquire with NOWAIT specified” message

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Articles on z05/z110 problems

Articles:

000012940( KB 5297 ,)000007337( KB 5711 ,)and000015729( KB 8192-9608 ;)

Solution: Article 000001845 (KB 5737) (Stop www_server and pc_server before running clear_vir01).

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Other large tables which grow rapidly: • z69 {OPAC Events (for OPAC Statistics)}; • z71 (Order and Subscription Log);• z309 (Circ log) (cir-78 cleans; Art. 000021510)• z980 (z98 supplement table, can grow to 50% of

z98; reinitialized by p_manage_01; see Article 000004719 (KB 8192-2168)

• z00t (Document tracking -- new with version 20, *optional*, see Article 000019856 (KB 16384-42497)

• z307 (Patron logger -- new with version 21, p_cir_27 produces report of log; see Article 000004999 (KB 16384-45633)

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Util x/13

• Util x/13 v22 rep_change 2020 in Minor release 22.1 (Feb. 2015?)• Following tables can be cleaned up: Z35,

Z69, Z30H, Z36H, Z37H, Z38H.• z35 {Circ Events (for Circ Statistics)};• z30h (Item history table) (see Article 000007431

(KB 5845): "Unnecessary z30h history records");• z36h (Loan history table)

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util a/12-16; util o/14/1• Util a/12: drop z50 (see Article 000020602)• Util a/13: drop z34 (see Article 000004879)• Util a/14: drop z07 (Don’t use this!) • Util a/16: drop z35 (only in xxx01!)

• CHECK #2: Check the tablespaces weekly (with util o/14/1) to make sure that they have sufficient space. Monitor with Nagios?

• -- New in 22: (rep_ver 19043) “Util O Utilities Enhanced to Take into Account Auto Extensible Data Files When Calculating Free Table Space “

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2. Turn on Archiving

• All Aleph systems should have Archiving turned on (with the exception of when large indexing jobs are being run).

• CHECK #3: do util o/7/3 to make sure that Archiving is turned on. [Where you see the archive logs …]

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3. From Preventive Maintenance doc:

• "For Aleph 20, Ex Libris offers a backup package. Oracle – backups are now done with RMAN, an Oracle utility. The new Ex Libris Backup Package is intended for installations that do not have other backup methods in place for Aleph."

• Sections 5 and 6 of the doc have details on backup types and procedures.

• The Preventive Maintenance doc is included on the Tech Seminar CD.

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4. Check the Oracle alert log weekly.

• Article 000010582 describes the location of the log and permission issues.

• Section 8 of the Preventive Maintenance doc describes "Review Oracle Alert Log" in detail.

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**NON-Oracle Space**1. Commands to locate large files

1a. How to locate excessively large files1b. How to locate largest directories

2. Routine deletion of files with util x and aleph_startup

Article 000011002 (KB 16384-27361) has commands to locate (1a) excessively large files and/or (1b) directories with an excessive number of smaller files.

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1a. How to locate excessively large files

• Use of du -sh (or “du –sm” or “du –sk”)• The following command can be used to locate

files over 1,000,000 blocks (400 meg) in a particular filesystem. For instance, if the filesystem which has filled up is /exlibris, then you would do this:

• > cd /exlibris• > find . -size +1000000 -print

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1b. How to locate largest directories

Command to locate the largest directories in a filesystem, in ascending order (the largest last):

> cd /exlibris > du -hs ./* | sort -n

When you find excessively large directories/files, you should consider what process created these files and what can be done to prevent it. Note: ./oradata/alephx/arch/ files should be handled only by your Oracle DBA.

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2. Deletion with util x & aleph_startup

• [From Article 000018663 (KB 16384-25697):] Do util x 1, 2, 9, 12, and 13 only. Save the most recent month of $data_print. The most recent week of others. Do not do util x/3, 6, 7, 8, or 10 on a regular basis. Not necessary. [Compare 20, 21, 22.] See the util x section of the "ALEPH UTIL Menus" doc in the /22 folder on the Doc Portal.

• As noted in section 1, above, util x/13 updates Oracle tables z30h, z35, z36h, z37h, and z69.

• Your $alephe_root/aleph_startup script already does cleanup of $TMPDIR and $LOGDIR:

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(Continued)#*******************************************# Cleanup TMPDIR/LOGDIR #*******************************************if (! $?KEEP_LOGDIR) then setenv KEEP_LOGDIR 7 # default for keeping logs is 7 daysendifif (! $?KEEP_TMPDIR) then setenv KEEP_TMPDIR 2 # default for keeping tmp is 2 days endifecho "Cleaning temporary files more that $KEEP_TMPDIR days old..."echo " “

So doing util x/4 and /5 manually is unnecessary.The Doc Portal (How_to_from_Support directory) document "How to add UTIL X to the job list" describes how to add the util x functions to the job_list.

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CHECK #4• CHECK #4: Do command “df –h” weekly to

monitor the space in each filesystem -- especially /exlibris.

• If you are using Nagios or a similar monitor, this should not be necessary.

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CHECK #5• CHECK #5: clear_vir01• Check the $alephe_scratch/ clear_vir01 logs!• Though failure of clear_vir01 is the most

common cause of serious problems in searching, it should be run nightly or, at a minimum, weekly. But check the logs to make sure that it is running correctly.

• Is the log a different size than usual? Does it contain Oracle errors (do “grep ERROR *vir01*”)

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Backup• Backup section of Preventive Maintenance doc• Testing Restore from backup on Test server

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Documents on Technical Seminar CD

I have included the following on the Technical Seminar CD:• this PowerPoint;• the Preventive Maintenance and Recovery Policy

document (from the: > Ex Libris Documentation Center > Aleph > Technical Documentation > Version 20.x > System Administration folder); not included in v21 or v22 folders.

• Aleph 22 System Administration Guide

Article 000018663 (KB 16384-25697 )("Preventive maintenance questions") is relevant.

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RecapRecap …

and

Thank you!

Jerry.specht@exlibrisgroup.com