Research Guides: Sirsi Admin: RATS for Unix/Linux

Routine Administrative Tasks

Backup. Use your own carefully tested and monitored backup solution or current SirsiDynix backup scripts. All historic software based backups are still usable but are obsoleted by the current SirsiDynix backup scripts. These scripts support a full data backup on a daily basis with minimal downtime. They also provide an OS backup to be completed on a quarterly or monthly basis. Each daily backup is a complete archival of all non-OS data. Daily backups can be run anytime the customer has a five minute window of downtime.
Halt, initialize and run all servers using the Unicornadmin utility or automatically overnight.
Check the status of the workstation server. Use the "auto_haltrun status" command.
Run the daily maintenance reports. Consider sending these reports in email to several people to make sure the reports are reviewed during staff absences. These reports can be run in any order except where noted.
1. Update User Delinquency Status (recommended to run immediately after midnight).
2. Consolidate Daily Logs
3. Statistics Log (run Consolidate Daily Logs or Backup Daily Files first)
4. Add, Delete, Update Databases.
5. Add, Delete, Update Item (SirsiDynix Symphony 3.4.1 and later with item indexing enabled for the Item Group Editor).
6. Add, Delete, Update User (Unicorn 2003.1 and later, plus all versions of SD Symphony).
7. Synchronize Policies (required on Oracle systems only).
8. Correct Authority Thesauri (if authority module is enabled, Unicorn 2003.1 and earlier systems only.)
9. Note: sites with stringent privacy policies may want to run Remove Patron Favorites on a daily or weekly basis. Favorites are the authors and subject headings of materials checked out by patrons for whom checkout tracking is enabled.
10. Note: sites with stringent privacy policies may want to run Reset Checkout Tracking, selecting all users that have been created that day to disable creation of favorites for those users.
Read the finished daily reports. Consider sending these reports in email to several people to make sure the reports are read during staff absences.
1. Check the status of each of the finished maintenance reports listed above. If status is ERROR, do not remove the finished report.
2. Read all of the finished reports. In the "Add, Delete, Update [...]" reports look especially (but not solely) for the word ABNORMALLY.
3. Please keep each finished daily maintenance report for at least one week; remove them only if they have an OK status and contain no errors or anomolies.
4. Contact SirsiDynix Customer Support regarding errors or problems with reports. Include a copy of the finished report when opening via email or the SirsiDynix Support Center.

Full system backup: At least once per week perform a full system backup while all Unicorn/Symphony servers are HALTED. Then INITIALIZE and RUN all servers. Verify the backup.
Run the weekly maintenance reports and verify that they produced expected results. Consider sending these reports in email to several people to make sure the reports are reviewed during staff absences. These reports can be run in any order.
1. Reorganize Text Dictionary with "Index" option selected.
2. Reorganize User Text Dictionary (Unicorn/Symphony 2003.1 and later versions).
3. Reorganize Thesauri Dictionary (Unicorn/Symphony 2003.1 and earlier versions).
4. Prepare GUI Offline Data.
5. Analyze Oracle Tables (for Oracle Unicorn/Symphony systems only).
Read the finished weekly reports. Consider sending these reports in email to several people to make sure the reports are read during staff absences.
1. Check the status of each of the finished maintenance reports listed above. If status is ERROR, do not remove the finished report.
2. Read all of the finished reports. In the "Reorganize [...]" reports look especially (but not solely) for the word ABNORMALLY.
3. Please keep each finished weekly maintenance report for at least one month; remove them only if they have an OK status and contain no errors or anomolies.
4. Contact SirsiDynix Customer Support regarding errors or problems with reports. Include a copy of the finished report when opening via email or the SirsiDynix Support Center.
Check the Oracle alert log if you are running an oracle version of Unicorn/Symphony. Inspect it for codes that start with "ORA-" followed by several numbers. If you are unsure of where your alert log resides, use the following sqlplus command: show parameters background_d. The "VALUE" column is where the alert log will reside. If you have questions or find errors for which you want assistance, please refer to your Oracle documentation, Oracle support staff, or contact SirsiDynix Customer Support.
Check available disk space:
1. Make a telnet or ssh connection to your Unicorn/Symphony server logging in as sirsi.
2. For all platforms but HP-UNIX, type the command df -k. (Many platforms support df -h which most people find more readable.) For HP-UNIX type bdf -k. Pay attention to both the percent available for each file system and the total space available. Contact SirsiDynix Customer Support if you need help recovering space.
Check size of BRS files:
1. Make a telnet or ssh connection to your Unicorn/Symphony server logging in as sirsi.
2. Start the Unicorn/Symphony utilities by typing in the command gosirsi followed by the ENTER key. Enter the SIRSI user's PIN when prompted. If you get an error when you enter the gosirsi command, please try to create the gosirsi command by following How to create the gosirsi command.
3. Select Computeradmin utility.
4. Select disk space when asked what you want to work with.
5. Select BRS indexes.
6. Take note of the INV lines. Depending upon configuration you may have three INV files named INV0, INV1, and INV2, or you may have just two INV files named INV0 and INV1. Contact SirsiDynix Customer Support if the value in the Size column for the last numbered INV file exceeds 1.6 billion (1600000000).
7. Take note of the TXT lines. Depending upon configuration you may have two TXT files named TXT0 and TXT1, or you may have only a TXT0 file. Contact SirsiDynix Customer Support if the value in the Size column for the last numbered TXT file exceeds 1.6 billion (1600000000).

Set aside the daily backup tape created on the first day of the month. Keep a separate rotation of four to six tapes solely for use on the first day of each month.
Halt all Unicorn servers, reboot the UNIX host, then initialize and run all Unicorn severs. For explanation of why SirsiDynix recommends a monthly reboot of a UNIX host, see FAQ: How often should we reboot our Unicorn server (UNIX)? It is not necessary or even recommended to power off the server as a maintenance activity.
Remove old MARC backup and error files: Remove old copies of loaded and error bibliographic and authority records. Use the WorkFlows Marc Import wizard on the "utility" toolbar and go to the "Loaded Bib Files," "Bib Error Files" and "Authority Files" tabs, removing files that are more than one month old. If at least one full system backup has been done since the last run of the Load Authority Records report remove the "newauthority" file that appears under the "Authority File" tab.
As needed to preserve disk space, backup older Unicorn/Symphony logs to tape. Do not overwrite daily or full system Unicorn/Symphony backup tapes with backups of Unicorn/Symphony logs! Use a set of tapes specifically designated for log backups. Remove old logs after they are backed up and confirmed. For details, refer to documentation on the Backup and Logs utility in the Utilities Reference Guide.
Run monthly maintenance reports Consider sending these reports in email to several people to make sure the reports are reviewed during staff absences.
1. Reorganize Text Dictionary - with "Text" option selected.
2. Purge Inactive Holds - select a Date Inactive of 90 days before the report run date.
3. Remove Paid Bills - remove bills with a "Payment Date" that is more than one or two years ago. The objective is to keep the total number of bills (both paid and unpaid) to under 1.5 million. Run the Count Bills report with no selections to determine if the bills database is approaching this limit.
4. Remove Patron Favorites - to prevent large database files, prolonged backups, long upgrade times, and slowness in WorkFlows circulation wizards. Most sites choose to remove favorites that are more than 90 or 180 days old.
5. Reset Checkout Tracking - Allows the system administrator to clear the ”I want all authors and subjects of items I check out be counted automatically as My Favorites” value in the MyProfile profile record for some or all users.
6. Purge Charge History - to prevent large database files, prolonged backups, long upgrade times, and slowness in WorkFlows circulation wizards.
7. Purge Finished Reports - SirsiDynix recommends keeping no more than 2,000 reports on the finished reports list. An excessive number of finished reports will result in slowness when viewing the finished reports list.
Read the finished monthly reports. Consider sending these reports in email to several people to make sure the reports are read during staff absences.
1. Check the status of each of the finished maintenance reports listed above. If status is ERROR, do not remove the finished report.
2. Read all of the finished reports. In the "Reorganize Text Dictionary" report look especially (but not solely) for the word ABNORMALLY.
3. Please keep each finished weekly maintenance report for at least one month; remove them only if they have an OK status and contain no errors or anomolies.
4. Contact SirsiDynix Customer Support regarding errors or problems with reports. Include a copy of the finished report when opening via email or the SirsiDynix Support Center.

Quarterly Administrative Tasks

Make a bootable backup of your operating system. UNIX users should consult their server / OS documentation. AIX systems in particular can use 'makesysb' to create a bootable backup.

Yearly Administrative Tasks

Update Library "closed dates" annually. Closed dates are used in the calculation of due dates and overdue fines. The update of the Closed Dates can be performed whenever it is the most logical and convenient time for your library. The important thing is to be consistent, and perform this task the same time each year.

Procedure:

From the Config toolbar, select the General Configuration wizards.
Click on an individual Library name then click "Modify."
Remove old closed dates by selecting them (clicking on them) and clicking the "Remove" button.
Using the provided gadgets, enter the upcoming Closed Dates, clicking "Add" for each date or date range.
Click "OK" when finished adding Closed Dates for that library.
Repeat steps 2-5 for each Library.

NOTE: If you wish to preserve some of the past closed dates, bear in mind that a maximum of 64 closed dates may be stored in each Library policy. Ranges of dates, such as December 24 through 26, are counted as one closed date.

Freeing up Space

Please use extreme caution and check with SirsiDynix Customer Support if you are not sure whether files are safe to remove.

There are several types of files that can be removed or trimmed when trying to free disk space on a UNIX machine. The following list is a suggestion of some areas to check.

Use a find command to locate large files on the server.
find /s -xdev -size +2048 -ls |sort -r +6 > bigfiles
Alternately, this file can be created in a different directory (for example, if /s is 100% full).
find /s -xdev -size +2048 -ls |sort -r +6 > /tmp/bigfiles

Look through the resulting file for anything that looks like it can be removed. Many of the big files are needed, but you may find backups or large logs that can be trimmed or removed. Also, look for files and directories that are not related to SirsiDynix Symphony / Unicorn.

Upgrade files
Look for Upgrade directories in the /s/sirsi directory. Upgrade files older than 3 months can be removed.
Dataload files
Look for a Dataload directory in the /s/sirsi directory. Dataload files older than 3 months can be removed.
Migration files
Look for a Migration directory in the /s/sirsi directory. Migration files older than 3 months can be removed.
Webserver logs
Check to see if there is a WWW directory in /s or /s/sirsi. If there is, the webserver logs are probably being written there.
You can also type:
ps -ef | grep httpd
to see where the webserver files are located. Cd to this directory, and type ls -l.

Example:
/s/sirsi/WWW/httpd/logs> ls -l
total 32
-rw------- 1 sirsi staff 5346149 Jan 28 15:24 access_log
-rw------- 1 sirsi staff 3413290 Jan 29 14:17 error_log
-rw------- 1 sirsi staff 6 Jan 28 15:23 httpd.pid
-rw------- 1 sirsi staff 0 Jan 28 14:05 httpd.stderr
-rw------- 1 sirsi staff 0 Jan 28 14:05 httpd.stdout

If the logs are large, they should be trimmed with the following commands.
tail -10000 access_log > acc2
cat acc2 > access_log
tail -10000 error_log > err2
cat err2 > error_log
Symphony / Unicorn error log
The error log is continuously appended and needs to be trimmed periodically.
Use the following command to find the location of the error log.
getpathname errorlog

If the error log is large, it should be trimmed with the following commands.
tail -10000 error > err2
cat err2 > error
Backup log
The backup log was used by the now obsolete Unicorn backup utility. The file could be large if you used the Unicorn backup utility in previous versions of Unicorn.
Use the following command to find the directory where the backup log is located.
getpathname backupdir

You can zero out the file with the following command.
cat /dev/null > backuplog
System logs
System logs are used by SirsiDynix Customer Support for troubleshooting current issues, so old logs are typically not needed. System logs older than 3 months can be removed.
Use the following command to find the directory where the system logs are located.
getpathname sys 6/12/2019
Serveradmin log
The serveradmin log records halts and runs on the server and also needs to be trimmed periodically.
Use the following command to find the directory where the serveradmin log is located.
getpathname sys
Zserver logs
The zserver logs are used to troubleshoot issues with incoming Z39.50 connections to your Symphony / Unicorn server. Zserver logs older than 3 months can be removed.
Use the following command to find the directory where the zserver logs are located.
getpathname zserverdir

The following file extensions are zserver logs. Depending on the level of logging configured in the Catzserver policy, some of these log files may not exist on your server.
*.zatr
*.zbin
*.zcnt
*.zhis
*.ztxt
6/12/2019
Userload files
Sites that run regular userloads may have old files. Userload files older than 3 months can be removed.
Use the following command to find the directory where the userload files are located.
getpathname xferdir
Bibload files
Check the Bibbackup and Biberror directories for old files. Files older than 3 months can be removed.
Use the following command to find the directory where the Bibbackup and Biberror directories are located.
getpathname marcimportdir 6/12/2019
Service Pack and Patch files
The files in Patch_delivery/Patches and the files in Patch_delivery/Backups can take up a significant amount of space. You should keep these files for at least 3 months after installing the Service Pack, but these files can be removed if you need space.
Use the following command to find the directory where the Patch_delivery directory is located.
getpathname sirsiserv

In the Patch_delivery/Patches directory, remove any Patch directories and *.tgz files older than the current Symphony version and Service Pack on your system. In the Patch_delivery/Backups directory, remove any backup directories older than the current Symphony version and Service Pack on your system. You should keep the most recent backup directory.

SirsiDynix recommends keeping /s below 90% capacity. If space in /s is still high after following these steps, please contact SirsiDynix Customer Support for further assistance and reference this solution.

Unicorn/Rpttemp - deleting files

If the report Unicorn ReportCron service is halted/stopped, you can remove everything in that directory except for the following files.

indexdynam
headdynam
userindexdynam

If you leave the report service running, you'd need to save any files that were created today, just in case they are part of a running report.