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    What tasks are required to maintain the Voyager server?

    • Article Type: Q&A
    • Product: Voyager
    • Relevant for Installation Type: Local;

    Question

    What common tasks are required in order to maintain my Voyager system and keep it running smoothly?

    Answer

    Backups
    • Maintaining, and testing the quality of backups is an obligation.
    • Ex Libris installs a default backup script that stops the software, takes a disk snapshot, starts the software, then writes the snapshot to tape
    • Alternate backups are allowed, and Ex Libris recommends that backups are: run nightly, full, and cold
    Reboots
    • While many applications can be run indefinitely in linux/unix without issue, periodic reboots of the Voyager server are mandatory to ensure correct functionality.
    • Recommended: Daily reboot of server.
    • Minimum: Weekly restart of Oracle, and Voyager application.

    Voyager Support recommends rebooting the server on a weekly or monthly basis. If Support receives a report of mysterious issues with Voyager and the server has been up for more than a month, our recommendation will be to reboot it.  If the server has been up for more than a year, we will recommend the server be rebooted during the day -- to ensure there are no problems bringing it back up.  

    Regens
    • KEYWORD regens are a periodically required maintenance procedure. Frequency depends on usage and database size.
    • Failing to run a keyword regen when required, will result in slower search performance, or the failure of the search to retrieve all relevant records.
    • A keyword regen is required if a bulk import is conducted without keyword indexing.
    • A keyword regen is required if the size of the dynamic index file is greater that half the size of the largest static index file.
    • A FULL regen reindexes all the Voyager indexes (see: Types of Voyager regens). FULL regens are done during a server upgrade as part of the procedure. There are other times when a FULL regen is required, such as after an authority load project or when enormous numbers of records are deleted or reloaded (such as during significant data cleanup).
    Rotate Logs/Monitor Disk Space
    • Monitor disk space usage using df -h /m1. If /m1 usage is >80% Ex Libris recommends taking measures to clear or add disk space.
    • Rotate OS and Voyager log files on a regularly or automation rotation. Maintaining logs on the system for >14 days is usually not neccesary.
    • If log.voyager becomes 2 GB or larger in size, Voyager application componenets associated with this log will fail to start.
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