Re: How to set BDB "read-only" before slapcat command ?

[William Jojo <w.jojo@hvcc.edu>]

---- Original message ----
>Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 08:08:32 -0800
>From: Quanah Gibson-Mount <quanah@zimbra.com>  
>Subject: Re: How to set BDB "read-only" before slapcat command ?  
>To: Andrew Hall <whippyhubbles@googlemail.com>,Michael StrÃder <michael@stroeder.com>
>Cc: openldap-technical@openldap.org
>
>--On Monday, February 09, 2009 3:44 PM +0000 Andrew Hall 
><whippyhubbles@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> The possible problem I see with that setup is what happens if the
>> slapcat occurs during an update from the provider to the consumer ?
>
>
>I'm not sure why you feel it is necessary to set the server read-only 
>before you run slapcat anyway.  Do you actually have a process that knows 
>exactly what changes occurred in any given second, so that, if say, your 
>backup starts at 1:00:00, you can then replay all the changes from that 
>point in time?
>
>If you do, then it doesn't matter whether or not it was in read-only. 
>Simply replay the changes.  If you don't, then it doesn't matter whether or 
>not it was in read-only, because you don't know what changes happened after 
>that point.
>
>I honestly am not aware of anyone who bothers to put their DB into 
>read-only before slapcatting, although they may be out there.
>

Admittedly we stop one slapd in our group of servers (usually a master) to take a point in time snapshot with slapcat, then simply restart it. It is used solely as part of our disaster recovery. In the event of BDB corruption that is unrecoverable, we can build a new server from the full-text export.

Just basic DBA paranoia policy. :-) :-)

Cheers,
Bill