Creating and configuring a remote stand-alone secondary server for UNIX

Follow these steps to create and configure a remote stand-alone secondary (RSS) server that synchronizes with a primary server.

Before you begin

Ensure that these prerequisites are in place:
  1. The RSS server must be created on a separate machine that has the same operating system (OS) platform with the primary server accessible over the local area network (LAN).
  2. On the RSS server, make sure that all chunk paths are created and have the correct permissions, and ensure that there is enough space on the disks to hold all the data. The RSS server must have the same partition path as on the primary server to hold the Informix chunkfiles.
  3. If you are not using NIS, set up ccm_root and Informix users and group on the RSS server. Use the same numeric user and group IDs as on the primary server.

Procedure

  1. Ensure that the primary server and the RSS server can connect to each other.

    These two servers must be configured to use a DNS server.

  2. Determine the name of the primary server.

    For example, hawk1.

    The RSS server name is derived from the primary server name by prefixing rss_ to it.

    For example, rss_hawk1.

    Update the /etc/services file (or its NIS equivalent) on the host for the primary server to include an entry for RSS. The host for the RSS server must have two entries. One for the primary and the other of the RSS server. Doing so contains the entries of both the primary and RSS servers and would look like:

    The services entry for the database server has the following syntax:
    PrimaryServerName_PrimaryServerHostName		unique_informix_port/tcp
    rss_PrimarySeverName_SecondaryServerHostName	unique_informix_port/tcp
    For example:
    hawk1_sol1		8100/tcp
    rss_hawk1_sol2		8101/tcp
  3. Set up the trusted environment by creating the /etc/hosts.equiv file. That is, you can use the rcp and rsh commands without entering a password for both ccm_root and Informix users between the primary and RSS server.

    For detailed steps, see Setting Up the Trusted Environment and The hosts.equiv file in the help for IBM® Informix®.

  4. If the primary server and the RSS server do not share $CCM_HOME, do the following steps:
    1. Add the RSS server entry to the file $CCM_HOME/informix/etc/sqlhosts, which is on the primary server.
      The server entry for the database server has the following syntax:
      servername       	onipcshm    	serverhostname       	servername
      servername_net   	onsoctcp  	serverhostname       	servername_serverhostname
      For example, if the RSS server host name is sol2 and the RSS server name is rss_hawk1, then the server entry would be:
      rss_hawk1		onipcshm		sol2		rss_hawk1
      rss_hawk1_net		onsoctcp	sol2		rss_hawk1_sol2
    2. Add the primary server entry to the file $CCM_HOME/informix/etc/sqlhosts, which is on the RSS server.

      This file is only present if you have configured IBM Rational® Synergy using the ccm_install command.

      Initially, this file on the RSS server host is empty. Update this file to contain the primary server entry.

      For example, if the primary server name is hawk1 and the primary server host name is sol1, then the server entry must be:
      hawk1		onipcshm	sol1	hawk1
      hawk1_net	onsoctcp 	sol1	hawk1_sol1
  5. Create a directory on the file system.

    For example, /vol/shared/export_dir.

    This directory must be accessible by both the primary and RSS servers, which is usually on the NFS mounted file system.

    This directory must be owned by user informix and must belong to the group informix.

    Create the directory as follows:
    # cd /vol/shared
    # mkdir export_dir
    # chown informix:informix export_dir
  6. Shutdown all Synergy databases on the primary server and verify that all users have exited by using the ccm monitor command.
    # su - ccm_root
    $ CCM_HOME=/usr/local/ccm721  # Adjust as appropriate
    $ PATH=$CCM_HOME/bin:$PATH
    $ export CCM_HOME PATH
    $ ccmdb shutdown <dbpath>    # Repeat per database
    $ ccm monitor 
  7. Use the ccmsrv rss_export command to export the data on the primary server for creating the RSS server.
    For example:
    # su informix
    $ ccmsrv rss_export -t /vol/shared/export_dir -s hawk1
  8. Use the ccmsrv rss_create command to create an RSS server on the RSS server host.
    For example:
    # su informix
    $ ccmsrv rss_create -f /vol/shared/export_dir -p hawk1
  9. After the installation, add the ccmsrv online command to the startup scripts of the RSS server. On server reboot, the Informix server on the RSS host needs to be online.
  10. Do a backup using the RSS server.
    You must have an NFS mount to the database path from the RSS server with rw options. There is no command line option for using the RSS server. The ccmdb backup command automatically chooses to use the secondary server to do a backup when the command is running on the RSS server machine.
  11. Drop the RSS server:
    1. Use the ccmsrv rss_drop command on the primary server to remove the identity of the RSS server. For example:
      # su informix
      $ ccmsrv rss_drop -s hawk1
    2. Bring both the primary and secondary database servers offline.
    3. In the onconfig file on the primary server, make the following changes:
      • Replace LOG_INDEX_BUILDS 1 with LOG_INDEX_BUILDS
      • Replace ARCHIVEDEV <old archive path> with ARCHIVEDEV /dev/null
    4. Clean up the export directory that was created in step 5.
    5. On the secondary server, clean up the Informix chunk files, and clean up the $CCM_HOME runarea if the primary server and the RSS server do not share $CCM_HOME.
    6. Bring the database server online in the primary server.

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