A.06.31 Release Notes
Eloquence A.06.31 requires a license key version A.06.30 or above.
For a new Eloquence installation or when upgrading from a
Eloquence version before A.06.30 a license key must be installed
in order to use the Eloquence server components.
When updating from revision A.06.30 or an A.06.30 license key is
already present no new license key is required.
The default license file includes a license key for the Eloquence
Personal Edition. Please request a new permanent license key
using the form included with the delivery or refer to the
Eloquence web site
at URL
http://eloquence.marxmeier.com/license.
Eloquence for the Linux platform is available in separate packages
for libc6 (also known as glibc2) and libc5 based systems.
libc6 (glibc2) based systems
Recent Linux distributions (such as SuSE 6.x or RedHat 5.x) are based
on the glibc2 library and it is recommended to use the Eloquence
libc6 package for installation.
Please make sure that at least following shared library versions are
installed:
libc.so.6 (glibc-2.0.6)
libm.so.6 (glibc-2.0.6)
For distributions using a newer version of the glibc library such as
SuSE 6.2 and above or Red Hat 6.x and above you may need to install
backwards compatible library versions.
Eloquence provides its own copy of the following libraries
in the /opt/eloquence6/lib directory:
libncurses.so.4.2
libstdc++.so.2.9
Those libraries have been included to solve compatibility problems
with various Linux distributions providing prossibly incompatible
versions of those libraries.
libc5 based systems
For libc5 based distributions (eg. SuSE 5.x or Red Hat 4.x) you should
choose the Eloquence libc5 package for installation.
Please make sure that at least following shared library versions are
installed:
libc.so.5.4.33
libm.so.5.0.9
Earlier versions of those libraries are likely to cause problems. For
example the libc.so.5.3.12 included with old Red Hat distributions
does notwork with Eloquence and causes random failures.
Eloquence provides its own copy of the following libraries
in the /opt/eloquence6/lib directory:
libncurses.so.3.0
libstdc++.so.2.9
Those libraries have been included to solve compatibility problems
with various Linux distributions providing prossibly incompatible
versions of those libraries.
glibc2.1 based systems
For additional compatibility with current Linux distributions which
are using the glibc2.1 or glibc2.2 libraries a glibc2.1 based
Eloquence package is available.
Please note that this build has received less testing and we
recommend to use the libc6 build for glibc2.1 and glibc2.2 based
distributions.
If you have trouble getting Eloquence working reliable on a
glibc2.1 or glibc2.2 based distribution you may want to try the
glibc2.1 build though. Please send us a messsage at
feedback@marxmeier.com
if it makes a difference for you.
Please make sure that at least following shared library versions are
installed:
libc.so.6 (glibc-2.1.2)
libm.so.6 (glibc-2.1.2)
For distributions using the glibc 2.2 library such as SuSE 7.x and
Red Hat 7.x and above you may need to install backwards compatible
libraries.
Eloquence provides its own copy of the following libraries in the
/opt/eloquence6/lib directory:
libncurses.so.4.2
/usr/lib/libstdc++-libc6.1-1.so.2
Those libraries have been included to solve compatibility problems
with various Linux distributions providing prossibly incompatible
versions of those libraries.
Eloquence A.06.31 has been compiled with egcs-1.1.2 for the glibc
versions and egcs-1.1.1 for the libc5 version.
Linux kernel version
While Eloquence should work with any Linux kernel version 2.0 and
above. You are encouraged to use the latest stable kernel version
which fits for your installed system. New kernel versions include
bug fixes, updated drivers and security fixes. Your distribution should
provide an updated kernel package which fits for your base system.
We do not recommend to use early Linux 2.4 kernels (before version
2.4.6) in production environments.
For new installations, a recent glibc based distribution (such as
SuSE 7.x or RedHat 7.x) is recommended.
Future Eloquence release are likely to no longer support libc5
based systems and Linux kernel versions below 2.2.
Installation
Eloquence is available as a rpm package. The rpm package is not
specific to a particuar Linux distribution however it has only been
tested against SuSE and RedHat distributions. If you encounter a
problem during installation, please send us a notice at
support@marxmeier.com.
Please check the Eloquence web site for
updates and patches.
To install Eloquence execute the command below:
rpm -i B1368B-A.06.31.libc6-*.i386.rpm
To update an existing Eloquence installation, please shut down
Eloquence and execute the command below:
- SuSE Linux 7.1 and above:
/etc/init.d/eloq6 stop
rpm -U B1368B-A.06.31.libc6-*.i386.rpm
/etc/init.d/eloq6 start
- SuSE Linux before 7.1:
/sbin/init.d/eloq6 stop
rpm -U B1368B-A.06.31.libc6-*.i386.rpm
/sbin/init.d/eloq6 start
- RedHat Linux:
/etc/rc.d/init.d/eloq6 stop
rpm -U B1368B-A.06.31.libc6-*.i386.rpm
/etc/rc.d/init.d/eloq6 stop
Installation of automatic startup of Eloquence servers during boot
is only performed for SuSE and RedHat distributions. If you are using
another Linux distribution, you need to add the start and shut scripts
manually. Template files are provided in the directory
/opt/eloquence6/newconfig/startup.
Updating from a previous Eloquence version
When updating from a previous Eloquence release the following
actions should be performed in additon to updating the software.
License key
Eloquence A.06.31 requires a license key version A.06.30 or above.
If you are using the commercial Eloquence version, please request
the appropriate license key _before_ updating Eloquence. Currently
no temporary license key is generated on the Linux platform during
installation.
The new license key can be requested by either submitting the Form
enclosed with your software update or on-line at the Eloquence
web site:
http://eloquence.marxmeier.com/license.
Please comment out the previous license key when adding the new A.06.31
license key to your license file /etc/opt/eloquence6/license.
Otherwise the new license may not be recognized and chklic might
output the following messages:
A.06.20: Bad license key revision.
Duplicate sequence number: Ignoring license
Eloquence Personal Edition
With the Eloquence Personal Edition, please copy the A.06.31
license file template to /etc/opt/eloquence6/license. The new
license file includes an updated license key for the Eloquence
Personal Edition.
cp /opt/eloquence6/newconfig/config/license /etc/opt/eloquence6/license
Startup configuration on SuSE Linux
The A.06.31 startup script provides additional configuration options.
Updating /etc/rc.config is optional.
Please check file /opt/eloquence6/newconfig/startup/suse/config.eloq6
and update your /etc/rc.config manually.
New startup config options:
# The following settings are related to starting Eloquence
# automatically during system boot.
#
# Start Eloquence daemons? ("yes" or "no")
START_ELOQ="yes"
#
# The following settings allow specifying startup for specific
# daemons and daemon commandline arguments. They are all optional.
#
# Set START_ELOQSD to 1 to start the eloqsd daemon.
#START_ELOQSD=1
#ELOQSD_ARGS=""
#
# Set START_ELOQDB6 to 1 to start the eloqdb6 daemon.
#START_ELOQDB6=1
#ELOQDB6_ARGS=""
Ext2 filesystem performance in sync write mode
The algorithm used by the ext2 filesystem for syncing buffers to disk
is inefficient for big files (this is a known problem but not
easy to change). When using the eloqdb6 in sync write mode (which
is the default now) this may cause delays and the system may seem
to stall for a few seconds when eloqdb6 performs a checkpoint
operation (by default every 60 seconds). This gets noticeable when the
database volume files grow beyound 300 MB and gets worse the bigger
the files get.
The solution is to use a larger block size for the ext2 filesystem
which holds the database.
File system block size
The eloqdb6 database server always accesses the volume
files in 8 KB block units. Those read or write requests can be
combined to access up to 64 KB at a time.
Classical UNIX file systems are usually organized in blocks. The file
system block size can be choosen at file system creation time (eg. on
Linux by using the -b 4096 command line argument to mk2efs would result
in a 4KB block size).
For the Linux ext2 file system, the default block size used to be 1 KB
for older distributions. The current mk2efs uses a block size of 4 KB.
In order to maintain your data on the disk, the operating system
maintains additional information where your data is located on disk.
When files get bigger so does the overhead to keep track where your
data is located.
Enlarging the file system block size greatly reduces the amount of
overhead required to maintain your data if you use big files (as
eloqdb6 does) at the expense of using slightly more disk space for
small files.
In addition to the data blocks (holding the file contents)
additional information is maintained where the data blocks are actually
located on the disk. When the file size exceeds a trivial size, the
location of the data blocks is also maintained in a separate block
on disk (indirect blocks - which the OS also needs to keep track of).
At some point (depending on file size and block size) you need blocks
that specify the location of blocks that specify the location of your
data on disk (double indirection). At this point maintaining this
information becomes a factor when reading or writing the database.
While a block size of 8 KB would be a "perfect fit", the max. usable
block size depends on the architecture (processor). On the x86 this is 4 KB.
We recommend to specify a block size of 4 KB for the Linux platform
to create a file system dedicated to hold your database.
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