dbmcli to backint (backup tool) communication

[Former Member]

We use dbmcli and supply a backint (backup tool) as part of our backup solution. Customers who have upgraded to MaxDB 7.6.05.09 are reporting their backups are failing. We have researched this and discovered that the Environment Variables we set before calling dbmcli are no longer being passed to the children of dbmcli (dbmsrv and then backint). It seems that 7.6.05.09 dbmcli is deliberately only passing the default Windows Environment variables plus its own Environment Varibales downwards to its children.

Does anyone knoe if this is a bug or feature, is it deliberate, is there a way to revert to the former behaviour?

Thanks.

[lbreddemann · Accepted solution]

Hi John,

the passing of environment settings is not done by the parent process but by the system call that runs the child process.

Anyhow, if you're a SAP customer, please do open a support message for this problem.

BTW: I guess you're talking about the BACKINT related environment variables are you?

If so, you might circumvent the issue by using the DBM_CONFIGSET command as I demonstrated in in .

regards,

Lars

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Lars,

Thanks for your speedy response. We are not SAP customers ourselves but our customers are so we could pursue the change in behaviour through them.

Agreed it's the system call that passes on the environment. Nevertheless I can see a straight difference between an older version of MaxDB and the new one. Watching the process with procexp (from MS Sysinternals) I see that the Environment Variables that we set before calling dbmcli are present in the dbmcli process but not in that of its children. Therefore our backint never sees "our" variables form the parent of dbmcli.

John

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Lars,

I have tried using

dbm_configset -raw FOO BAR

as you suggested and although I do see the FOO=BAR with a dbm_configget, I don't see a FOO Environment Variable appear visable to the supprocesses of dbmcli. Have I understood your suggestion correctly? BTW, the -raw does not seem to be documented.

Any further help would be much appreciated.

John

[lbreddemann · Accepted solution]

I did not write that

> dbm_configset -raw FOO BAR

will change anything with the environment.

It's just another way to pass parameters to the dbmserver - just like environment variables are.

>BTW, the -raw does not seem to be documented.

As I wrote, this may help you as long as the origin of the problem is unsolved by us yet.

And, if you actually dare to check the documentation, you'll find it [Exporting Environment Variables for the External Backup Tool|http://maxdb.sap.com/doc/7_6/a2/bf8164c43c82449ea6bc26fb4ab696/content.htm]

regards,

Lars

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Lars,

After I replied earlier to you, I searched the doc (which I have been studying honest and found the reference you mentioned. As a result, instead of:

dbm_configset -raw FOO BAR

I tried:

dbm_configset -raw set_variable_1 FOO=BAR

and it worked.

Thanks for your help getting to this solution.

John

Edited by: John Chittock on Oct 31, 2008 1:18 PM