Funny Sybase Fact - Boot Count

In the Sybase error log you can find information indicating how many times the server has been restarted since the installation. I have never seen this before. I also remember that many errors are generated, because the number a programmer wanted to save in the variable was too big in comparison  to the variable type. So I started if this can bring some bad consequences. Will my servers ever breach the maximal value that can be stored in Sybase? What will happen then? Will server stop working or only the counter will start from 0 again? Should we be afraid like about Millennium Bug in 2000 or not?


The line looks like:

The displayed here Boot Count value has type unsigned int, so the maximal value is
4 294 967 296

This causes some limitations to number of restarts:

• if you perform restart every day than you are allowed to do this only 11 767 033 years
• if you perform restart every hour than you are allowed to do this only 490 293 years
• if you perform restart every minute, than you are allowed to do this only 8 171 years

Do you see any problems with this? Can you advise?

Startup script to run Sybase ASE automatically after unix booting

Unfortunately after installation when the server is rebooted, Sybase is not starting automatically. The  problem is, that Sybase installation is done using a non privileged account, so there is no way to modify system files starting Sybase automatically.

Below you can find a script, that can be used to automatically manage Sybase on Linux machine and it can be probably also used on other Unix machines. You can call it with start or stop or restart parameter, so this is a good candidate to use it with every systemd compatible operating system.

If you would like to have Sybase starting after each OS boot perform following configuration. Create a service file and save it as /etc/systemd/sysctl/sybase.service. If required change the path to point to correct location of the scrip sybase_start

[Unit]
Description=SYBASE ASE
After=network.target

[Service]
ExecStart=/opt/sap/sybase_start start
Type=forking
PIDFile=/opt/sap/sybase.pid
ExecStop=/opt/sap/sybase_start stop

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target