semget failed for the semaphore

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1

Hi Everyone

I am having trouble using fbackup under SAM in HP-UX 10.20. I'm trying to perform a full backup of the entire system and keep bombing out and I am not sure why. Below is the result from the SAM window showing that fbackup has failed

Starting interactive backup...
br_backup: Invoking fbackup. See /var/sam/log/br_log for details.
fbackup(1421): no history is available for graph file /etc/sam/br/graphKEAa24348 (below level 0)
fbackup(1004): session begins on Mon Nov 26 11:18:39 2001
fbackup(1010): semget failed for the semaphore

Press <return> to continue sam...

Here is the output of the /var/sam/log/br_log
Full backup started on preapp01 : Mon Nov 26 11:18:38 GMT 2001 (Scheduled Backup)
{ fbackup -0 -u -v -g /etc/sam/br/graphKEAa24348 -I /var/sam/log/br_index.full -c /etc/sam/br/fbackup_config -d /var/adm/fbackupfiles/dates -f /dev/rmt/0m } 2>&1
Full backup failed on preapp01 : Mon Nov 26 11:18:39 GMT 2001 .
Exit code = 2

And finally here is a breakdown of the drives
Filesystem kbytes used avail %used Mounted on
/dev/vg00/lvol3 524288 17664 475032 4% /
/dev/vg00/lvol1 95701 20417 65713 24% /stand
/dev/vg00/lvol8 638976 305630 312539 49% /var
/dev/vg00/lvol7 1507328 484927 958555 34% /usr
/dev/vg00/lvol6 917504 137931 730898 16% /tmp
/dev/vg00/lvol5 3670016 2882554 738258 80% /opt
/dev/vg00/lvol4 81920 26241 52250 33% /home

I hope that the above is of some use. I do not understand why fbackup crashes out and so any help would be most welcome.

Thankyou
Zippy

2

The most probable cause is that someone did a "kill -9" to fbackup.

Another possibility is that your system is out of semaphores.

Type "ipcs -sp" and see how many semaphores you have. If this number is equal to the value semmns you are out of semaphores. You should increase the value of semmns and rebuild the kernel.

If the number of semaphores is less tham semmns then someone must have did the "kill -9" to a running fbackup process. It is possible to use ipcrm to remove the semaphore, but it's tough to know which one. A reboot will may be the safest bet. And remind people to lay off the "kill -9" command.

3

Perderabo, thanks for that. I had a look at the number of semms via the ipcs -sp command and it was maxed at 64, I then looked at SAM and noticed that it had reached the limit. I've decided that I will bring the system down and reboot it in the next window of opportunity. Thanks for your help !!