Uploading a SysOrb database to Evalesco

In some cases Evalesco support may ask you to, please upload your SysOrb database, in order to be able to help with certain support requests.
This article describes how to do that.

All systems

The SysOrb database is spread over 3 files. By default these files are named "main.odb", "main.odbj" & "main.tsdb".

You should add these 3 files to a ZIP file (or other archive format) for two reasons; 1) They can be rather large but compress quite well, so compressing them before upload will save you significant time and bandwith. 2) Some FTP clients will upload files as 7bit data by default and this breaks the files in ways that can be hard to distinguish from other kinds of database corruption, but by having the files in a ZIP file it is easy to detect if this has happened since then the ZIP file will be corrupt.

For instructions on how to locate, compress and upload the files on different platforms, see below.

It is important that you stop the SysOrb server before you create the archive with the database files.

UNIX/Linux

The easiest way to locate the database files on UNIX is to simply look up their location in the servers configuration file like so:

 # grep "dbms_.*db" /etc/sysorb/server.conf
dbms_tsdb = "/var/sysorb/main.tsdb"
dbms_odb = "/var/sysorb/main.odb"
dbms_odbj = "/var/sysorb/main.odbj"

In this example we can see that the database files are placed in /var/sysorb/.

To add these files to a gzip compressed tar archive we can then use this command:

 # tar cf - /var/sysorb/main.{odb,odbj,tsdb} | gzip - > MyCompany-db.tar.gz

It's important that you use your company name as part of the filename to avoid name clashes with files uploaded by other customers.

Evalesco maintains an FTP server where anyone can upload files to the /upload/ directory. However, it is not possible to list the contents of the directory, nor is it possible to download any files from that directory. It is also not possibly to overwrite any files that already exist in the directory, that is the reason why the archive file above is named so that your company name and the current date and time becomes part of the filename - this prevents filename clashes with other files uploaded by other customers.

You can use your systems commandline FTP client to upload the file, but make sure that it is using 8bit transfers as in the following example. The only possible username to use is 'anonymous' and there is no password.

 # ftp ftp.evalesco.com
Connected to ftp.evalesco.com.
220 Evalesco Systems FTP
Name (ftp.evalesco.com:jj): anonymous
331 Please specify the password.
Password:
230-**************************************************************
230-*    FTP Archive at Evalesco Systems, Copenhagen, Denmark    *
230-**************************************************************
230-* Dear user,                                                 *
230-*  In this archive you will find various versions of the     *
230-*  SysOrb Network Monitoring System.                         *
230-*  Most packages in this archive are UNOFFICIAL versions,    *
230-*  and you should not download or use files from here unless *
230-*  you have been advised to do so.                           *
230-*                                                            *
230-* Evalesco Systems takes no responsibility what so ever, for *
230-* the quality or usability of said unofficial releases.      *
230-*                                                            *
230-* Contact:  e-mail support@evalesco.com                      *
230-**************************************************************
230-
230 Login successful.
Remote system type is UNIX.
Using binary mode to transfer files.
ftp> bin
200 Switching to Binary mode.
ftp> cd upload
250 Directory successfully changed.
ftp> put MyCompany-db-20100416110441.tar.gz
200 PORT command successful. Consider using PASV.
150 Ok to send data.
226 File receive OK.
local: MyCompany-db-20100416110441.tar.gz remote: MyCompany-db-20100416110441.tar.gz
1638400 bytes sent in 0.18 seconds (9056.21 Kbytes/s)
ftp> bye
221 Goodbye.

Windows

To locate the SysOrb database files you can use the SysOrb Configuration tool. This tool is available from the Windows 'Start menu' --> 'Programs' --> 'SysOrb' --> 'SysOrb Configuration'.
In the SysOrb Configuration tool unfold 'SysOrb Server' then 'Database' and read the location of the 'Meta database file', 'Journal file' and 'Statistics database file'. In most cases they will all be located in the same directory (for example 'C:\Program Files\SysOrb Server\Config\').

The easiest way to create a ZIP archive of the files is to use Explorer to navigate to the containing directory, hold down the CTRL key while clicking on each of the 3 files - thus marking them all. Then right-click the mouse and select 'Send To' --> 'Compressed (zipped) Folder'.
Now right-click the new (compressed) file that is created, select 'Rename' and give the file a name like 'MyCompanyName-db.zip'.

Now you just need to upload the file to the Evalesco FTP server. You can use Internet Explorer for this or a stand alone FTP client. Here's how to do it using Internet Explorer 8 :

Type in ftp://ftp.evalesco.com/upload/ in the address bar and hit the 'Enter' key. Youll now see a banner from our FTP server:

**************************************************************
*    FTP Archive at Evalesco Systems, Copenhagen, Denmark    *
**************************************************************
* Dear user,                                                 *
*  In this archive you will find various versions of the     *
*  SysOrb Network Monitoring System.                         *
*  Most packages in this archive are UNOFFICIAL versions,    *
*  and you should not download or use files from here unless *
*  you have been advised to do so.                           *
*                                                            *
* Evalesco Systems takes no responsibility what so ever, for *
* the quality or usability of said unofficial releases.      *
*                                                            *
* Contact:  e-mail support@evalesco.com                      *
**************************************************************

Now You need to click the 'View' menu or the 'Page' menu and select the menu entry named 'Open FTP Site in Windows Explorer.'. A new window will open.
Drag the compressed file you created earlier into the newly opened window and it will be uploaded to our server.