System hangs on data compression

Hi,

We are having an automated system installed on SCO unixware, which runs a End Of Day routine during midnight. Since few days system is hanging at data backup, I have checked the log, system hangs exactly on data compression, any idea or help that why system is hanging only on compression....

Best Regards,
Tayyab

Check disk free space would be a guess (try adding it to your script to see how much you have right before the backup).

Dear Moderator,

Thank you for your reply.
Yes, exactly its due to disk space, because last day I deleted few extra files both from source and destination directory, backup ran perfectly. I can't modify backup script because its provided by our software provider. I think if I would delete most of files from destination directory it should solve the matter, destination files would be re-created during next backup. For your ref. following is the backup script provided to us:

start End-of-day
compress $BASE TO /home/compdir
write /home/compdir to DATTAPE
end

I just want your comments if I would delete files from /home/compdir is there any problem.? or any other way to handle disk space?

Regards,
Tayyab

Seems like deleting things out of that directory means you aren't going to get good backups (it matters WHEN you are doing the delete).

Suggest you find more space (add a bigger disk, change your partitioning ) to make /home/compdir larger - the script is attempting to compress the data before sending to /home/compdir (assumption) so /home/compdir could be smaller than $BASE. If you set up /home/compdir to be the same size as $BASE, then you should not have an issue.

More importantly, supply your 3rd party vendor with the errors and have them fix this. Give them the size of $BASE and /home/compdir. They can tell you more quickly than anyone else what needs to be there and when you can safely delete files (deleting files should be part of the script unless it's saved for quicker restores).

Dear RTM,

I have checked with my 3rd party vendor, they have told me to make /home/compdir larger, would you please help me in this, because i don't have any idea, following is the partition table....

$ df -kl
filesystem kbytes used avail capacity mounted on
/dev/root 6474195 1351927 5122268 21% /
/dev/stand 24097 5721 18376 24% /stand
/proc 0 0 0 0% /proc
/dev/fd 0 0 0 0% /dev/fd
/dev/dsk/c0b0t0d0s4 10241437 5146527 5094910 51% /home
/dev/dsk/c0b0t1d0sc 17422492 11702259 5720233 68% /home2
/processorfs 0 0 0 0% /system/processor
/dev/_tcp 0 0 0 0% /dev/_tcp

Please guide me steps how can i increase /home partition size. Your help would be highly appreciated.

Regards,
Tayyab

See increase filesystem for a very short description. Suggest you start looking at the documentation for SCO to find more detailed info.

You would want to post the OS AND version so others who may be more familiar with it can assist also.

Also put what $BASE is equal to since it's impossible to tell how big it is compared to /home.

Some things you can do (since you know the system better than any of us) is look at moving other directories in /home to other file partitions (create sym link from old to new). If this was a new system build, you can consider rebuilding now that you have a better idea of the sizes some of the filesystems really need to be.

Dear RTM,

I am using SCO Unixware 7 CDE.

$BASE=/home2.

I am only depending on your help, because i don't have time to read SCO documentation and now backup is pending since 4 days now. I'll read documentation later, if any body else can help me, plz. do it.

Any help would be highly appreciated.

Regards,
Tayyab

See more space which was linked from the other link I sent. Reading documentation so you understand how things work is VERY important. There is no magic wand to fix your problem.

Since /home2 is using more space than is available in /home, you might consider buying a larger drive for /home or you need to repartition so /home is equal size of /home2 (just giving /home enough space for backing up /home2 won't help since /home2 will probably grow). Your only other choice is to remove un-needed files from /home2.

Dear RTM,

Thank you for your support. And sorry to bother you so much.
I have managed to delete few extra files both from /home as well as from /home2, now backup will run temporarily.

But still I'll want to replace disk for /home with a larger size. Would you please guide me the steps to replace it i.e. backup of /home, installing new disk, mouting of new disk as /home and etc.

Regards,
Tayyab

I'll want to add this too, FYI:

This is a NEC EXPRESS 5800/NEC 120LF system and disks are 2 x 18GB Ultra 160 SCSI Hot-Swap 10krmp HDD (Max Internal Storage is 732GB) and current disk usage is as follows:

$ df -kl
filesystem kbytes used avail capacity mounted on
/dev/root 6474195 1870132 4604063 29% /
/dev/stand 24097 5721 18376 24% /stand
/proc 0 0 0 0% /proc
/dev/fd 0 0 0 0% /dev/fd
/dev/dsk/c0b0t0d0s4 10241437 3811006 6430431 38% /home
/dev/dsk/c0b0t1d0sc 17422492 11533488 5889004 67% /home2
/processorfs 0 0 0 0% /system/processor
/dev/_tcp 0 0 0 0% /dev/_tcp

I think so /root and /home are mounted on same SCSI drive not sure about it since new to UNIX, if i am right in this so i think its going to be very difficult to replace this SCSI drive with new one. Please guide.

Waiting for your valued suggestions.

Regards,
Tayyab

Read the links posted already - there you will find other links which explain the procedure of replacement of a disk drive.