Red Hat NETWORK SATELLITE SERVER 3.7, Installation Manual

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Chapter 8. Maintenance 51
8.4.1. DB Control Options
RHN DB Control
offers many command line options. To use them, as oracle insert the option and
the appropriate value, if needed, after the
db-control
command.
Option Description
help
Lists these
db-control
options with additional
details.
backup
DIRNAME
Backs up the database to the directory specified.
examine
DIRNAME Examines the contents of a backup directory. Returns
the timestamp of backup creation and reports on its
contents.
report
Reports on current usage of database space.
restore
DIRNAME
Restores the database from backup kept in
DIRNAME. Database must be stopped for this
command to run successfully.
start
Starts the database instance. This can also be
accomplished by issuing the
service
rhn-database start
command as root.
status
Shows the current status of the database, either
"running" or "offline".
stop
Stops the database instance. This can also be
accomplished by issuing the
service
rhn-database stop
command as root.
verify
DIRNAME
Verifies the contents of the backup kept in
DIRNAME. This command checks the md5sums of
each of the files kept in the backup.
Table 8-1. RHN DB Control Options
8.4.2. Backing up the Database
Red Hat recommends performing nightly backups of the Embedded Database and moving the re-
sulting directory to another system either NFS, SCP, FTP, etc. Preferably, this backup system resides
off-site. To conduct a backup, shut down the database and related services first by issuing the following
commands in this order as root:
service httpd stop
service taskomatic stop
service rhn-database stop
Then switch to the oracle user and issue this command to initiate the backup:
db-control
backup
DIRNAME
Backup files will be stored in the directory specified. Note that this is a cold backup; The database
must be stopped before running this command. This process takes several minutes. The first backup
will be a good indicator of how long subsequent backups will take.