By managing the parameters of your SOLID Server, you can modify the environment, performance and operation of the server process. This chapter explains SOLID Server parameters and their settings. The topic Parameter management in this chapter gives you step-by-step instructions on how to view and set the parameter values on the Parameters page in SOLID Remote Control.
When SOLID Server is started, it attempts to open the configuration file solid.ini first from the directory set by SOLIDDIR environment variable. If the file is not found from the path specified by this variable or if the variable is not set, an attempt is made to open the file from the current working directory.
The configuration values for the server parameters are included in this file. If the file does not exist, SOLID Server will use default settings for the parameters. Also, if a value for a parameter is not set in the solid.ini file, SOLID Server will use a default value for the parameter. The default values depend on the operating system you are using.
Generally, default settings offer good performance and operability, but in some cases modifying some parameter values can improve performance.
Most Important Parameters
The following paragraphs will explain the most important SOLID Server parameters and their default settings. See Appendix B Configuration Parameters of this manual for a description of all parameters.
The parameter Connect in the [Com] section defines a network name for a client program. The client program will establish a connection to a server program with a similar Listen network name. The format for these parameters is explained in the chapter Communication protocols.
If the connect information is defined in the client program with the SQLConnect function, this parameter is ignored. In the Windows and Windows NT operating systems the connection can be made by using SOLID ODBC driver. When a client program is using SOLID ODBC driver the ODBC Data Source Name is used and the Connect parameter has no effect. The solid.ini file, which includes the Connect parameter, must be located in the client programs working directory or in the directory set by SOLIDDIR environment variable.
The following connect line will connect a client program using the TCP/IP protocol to a SOLID Server running in a computer named spiff and server port number 1313.
connect = tcpip spiff 1313
In SOLID Server data and indexes are stored in the same logical files. The term index file is used here as a synonym for the term database file.
The FileSpec parameter describes the location and the maximum size of the index file (database file). You can use it to define the location and maximum value the index file may grow to.
You can also use the FileSpec parameter to divide the index file into multiple files and onto multiple disks. To do this, specify another FileSpec parameter identified by the number 2. The index file will be written to the second file if it grows over the maximum value of the first FileSpec parameter. The default value for this parameter is solid.db, 2147483647 (which equals 2 GB expressed in bytes).
FileSpec_1=SOLID.DB 2147483647
In the following example, the parameters divide the index file on the disks C:, D: and G: to be split after growing larger than 1 GB (=1073741824 bytes).
FileSpec_1=C:\SOLID\SOLID.1 1073741824
FileSpec_2=D:\SOLID\SOLID.2 1073741824
FileSpec_3=G:\SOLID\SOLID.3 1073741824
NOTE. The index file locations entered must be valid path names in the server operating system! For example, if the server runs on a UNIX operating system, path separators must be slashes instead of backslashes.
Splitting the index file on multiple disks will increase the performance of the server because multiple disk heads will access the data in your index file. There is no limit to the number of index files you may use.
Backups of the database, log files and the configuration file solid.ini are copied to the backup directory. The default directory backup is a directory relative to your SOLID directory. For example if the parameter is
BackupDirectory= bu
then the backup will be written to a directory that is a sub-directory of the SOLID directory. You may also specify a absolute path name for the directory. For example:
BackupDirectory=e:\backup\solid
The backup directory must exist and it must have enough disk space for the backup files. It can be set to any existing directory except the database file directory, the log file directory or the working directory.
NOTE. The backup directory entered must be a valid path name in the servers operating system! For example if the server runs on a UNIX operating system, path separators must be slashes instead of backslashes.
Log files are created automatically to the directory specified and by using the filename structure specified by the parameter FileNameTemplate in the Logging section. For example, the following setting
FileNameTemplate = d:\logdir\sol#####.log
instructs SOLID Server to create log files to directory d:\logdir and to name them sequentially starting from sol00001.log .
The TmpDir[1...N] parameter in the Sorter section specifies the directory (or directories) that can be used for the external sorter algorithm which is used for sorting processes that do not fit in main memory. All temporary files used by the external sort are created in this directory (or directories) and are automatically deleted. Setting this parameter enables the use of external sorter.
The CacheSize parameter (the default value depends on the server operating system) defines the amount of main memory the server allocates for the cache. Although SOLID Server is able to run with a small cache size, a larger cache size speeds up the server. The cache size needed depends on the size of the index file, the number of connected users, and the nature of the operations executed against the server. You can view your current CacheSize parameter value with SOLID Remote Control.
The Threads parameter in the [Srv] section defines the amount of threads the SOLID database engine will use in addition to the communication, I/O and log manager threads. The default value is two threads for database engine use. When SMP support is not enabled the maximum number of threads in the server is limited to 5.
The Info parameter in the [SQL] section specifies the tracing level on the SQL parser and optimizer as an integer between 0 (no tracing) and 8 (extensive trace outputting). Trace information will be output to the file named soltrace.out in the SOLID directory.
These parameters control the outputting of network trace information vital to solving possible network problems. By setting the parameter Trace to the value Yes, SOLID Server starts logging trace information on network messages to the file specified in the TraceFile parameter.
SOLID Server parameters and their values can be viewed and modified from SOLID Remote Control or by directly editing the solid.ini file in the SOLID directory.
To View Current Parameter Values Using SOLID Remote Control
- Connect to the server from SOLID Remote Control.
- Select the Parameters page.
A list of current parameters and their values is displayed.
The parameters displayed are the parameters currently active in the server. If you have not set a parameter value, the displayed value is the default value for the parameter. The default values are set at start-up and depend on the operating system SOLID Server runs on.
To Set a New Parameter Value Using SOLID Remote Control
- Select from the list the parameter you want to modify.
- Press Edit or double click the parameter.
- Uncheck the Use default box if it is checked.
- Enter the new value for the parameter.
- Press Save to save the parameter value.
NOTE 1. To force a parameter value change to take effect you must shut down and restart the server process.
NOTE 2. The new parameter values are not checked by the server. Setting an unreasonable value for a parameter may result in an operation failure the next time the server process is started. Do not set a parameter to a random value unless you know what you are doing. Use the default parameter values as an indication on the value range.
On the PARAMETERS page, some parameters are shown in gray shade. These parameters have constant values. The values were set when the database was created, and they cannot be modified through SOLID Remote Control.
If you want to use different constant values, you have to create a new database. Before creating a new database, set new constant values by editing the solid.ini file in the SOLID directory.
The example below sets a new block size for the index file by adding the following lines to the solid.ini file:
[Indexfile]
Blocksize=4096
After editing and saving the solid.ini file, move the old database and log files, and start SOLID Server. The server program will create a new database with the new constant values from the solid.ini file.
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