DB5.3_RECOVER(1)

✨ NAME ✨

db5.3_recover — bestie, it restores the database to a consistent state 💖

(also hi, you're reading the DB5.3_RECOVER(1) page from the General Commands Manual, we love a classic 💅)

🫶 SYNOPSIS 🫶

db5.3_recover [-ceVv] [-h home] [-P password] [-t
[[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS]]]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so listen. the db5.3_recover utility is literally the "we need to talk" of Unix — you must run it after an unexpected application, Berkeley DB, or system failure to restore the database to a consistent state. no skipping, no "it's probably fine" 🫠

and here's the promise, no cap: all committed transactions are guaranteed to appear after db5.3_recover has run, and all uncommitted transactions will be completely undone. so if it wasn't committed, it never happened. periodt. 💅✨

👑 OPTIONS 👑

• -c — perform catastrophic recovery instead of normal recovery. it's giving emergency mode 😭
• -e — retain the environment after running recovery. ngl you'll rarely use this unless a DB_CONFIG file is present in the home directory. if a DB_CONFIG file is not present, then the regions will be created with default parameter values. that's just how it is 🎀
• -h — specify a home directory for the database environment. by default, the current working directory is used. (yes, the default is just here 🏠)
• -P — specify an environment password. and bestie, a real talk moment: although Berkeley DB utilities overwrite password strings as soon as possible, be aware there may be a window of vulnerability on systems where unprivileged users can see command-line arguments or where utilities are not able to overwrite the memory containing the command-line arguments. so like… be careful out there 🙈
• -t — recover to the time specified rather than to the most current possible date. the timestamp argument should be in the form [[CC]YY]MMDDhhmm[.SS] where each pair of letters represents the following:
  • CC — the first two digits of the year (the century).
  • YY — the second two digits of the year. if "YY" is specified, but "CC" is not, a value for "YY" between 69 and 99 results in a "CC" value of 19. otherwise, a "YY" value of 20 is used.
  • MM — the month of the year, from 1 to 12.
  • DD — the day of the month, from 1 to 31.
  • hh — the hour of the day, from 0 to 23.
  • mm — the minute of the hour, from 0 to 59.
  • SS — the second of the minute, from 0 to 61.
  • if the "CC" and "YY" letter pairs are not specified, the values default to the current year. if the "SS" letter pair is not specified, the value defaults to 0.
• -V — write the library version number to the standard output, and exit. a little flex, then bye 👋
• -v — run in verbose mode. say more, bestie 🗣️

in the case of catastrophic recovery, an archival copy — or snapshot — of all database files must be restored along with all of the log files written since the database file snapshot was made. (if disk space is a problem, log files may be referenced by symbolic links). iconic little space-saving hack tbh 🌈

if the failure was not catastrophic, the files present on the system at the time of failure are sufficient to perform recovery. so like, chill, you might already have everything 🧚

if log files are missing, db5.3_recover will identify the missing log file(s) and fail, in which case the missing log files need to be restored and recovery performed again. no cap, it will tell you which ones are missing and then just… stop 💀

the db5.3_recover utility uses a Berkeley DB environment (as described for the -h option, the environment variable DB_HOME, or because the utility was run in a directory containing a Berkeley DB environment). in order to avoid environment corruption when using a Berkeley DB environment, db5.3_recover should always be given the chance to detach from the environment and exit gracefully. to cause db5.3_recover to release all environment resources and exit cleanly, send it an interrupt signal (SIGINT). be nice to it and it'll be nice to your data 🥺

also, the db5.3_recover utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs. that's the vibe check right there ⭐

🌈 ENVIRONMENT 🌈

• DB_HOME — if the -h option is not specified and the environment variable DB_HOME is set, it is used as the path of the database home, as described in DB_ENV->open.

💜 AUTHORS 💜

Sleepycat Software, Inc. this manual page was created based on the HTML documentation for db_recover from Sleepycat, by Thijs Kinkhorst <thijs@kinkhorst.com>, for the Debian system (but may be used by others). absolute icons for documenting all this fr fr 👑

and that's the whole page, bestie — the DB5.3_RECOVER(1) manual page, dated 28 January 2005. go forth and recover 💖✨🎀