Alter System

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You can use this statement to start and stop applications, change system-wide variables, manage password and login activity, disconnect users, end processes, or shut down the server.

Permission required: Service Administrator.

Syntax

Description of the illustration altsys.gif

Use alter system to change the following system-wide settings:

Keywords

load application

Start an application, or start all applications on the Essbase Server.

unload application

Stop an application, or stop all applications on the Essbase Server. Unloading an application cancels all active requests and database connections, and stops the application. If Essbase encounters a problem when trying to cancel active requests and database connections, and stopping the application, an error is logged in the application log.

If you do not want to stop an application if it has active requests and database connections, use the no_force grammar. When using no_force:

If the application has active requests and database connections, the application is not stopped; it continues running and returns an error
If the application does not have active requests and database connections, the application is stopped, as if you used unload application without specifying no_force

set session_idle_limit

Set the interval of time permitted for a session to be inactive before Essbase Server logs off the user. The minimum limit that you can set is five minutes (or 300 seconds). When the session idle limit is set to none, all users can stay logged on until the Essbase Server is shut down.

The default user idle logout time is 60 minutes. When a user initiates a calculation in the background, after 60 minutes the user is considered idle and is logged out, but the calculation continues in the background.

Because the user may mistakenly assume that the calculation stopped because he or she was logged out, you can do one of the following to correct the user experience:

Run the calculation in the foreground
Increase the session idle limit in to a time that exceeds the duration of the calculation, or to none

set session_idle_poll

Set the time interval for inactivity checking and security-backup refreshing. The time interval specified in the session idle poll gives Essbase instructions:

Tells it how often to check whether user sessions have passed the allowed inactivity interval indicated by session_idle_limit in the alter system statement.
Tells it how often to refresh the security backup file. If session_idle_poll is set to zero, the security backup file is still refreshed every five minutes.

set invalid_login_limit

Set the number of unsuccessful login attempts allowed by any user before the system disables it. When you change this setting, the counter resets to 0. When the invalid login limit is set to none, there is no limit. By default, there is no limit.

set inactive_user_days

Set the number of days a user account may remain inactive before being disabled by the system. The counter resets when the user logs in, is edited, or is activated by an administrator. When the inactive days limit is set to none, user accounts remain enabled even if they are not used. By default, there is no limit.

set password_reset_days

Set the number of days users may retain passwords. After the allotted number of days, users are prompted at login to change their passwords. The counter resets for a user when the user changes the password, is edited, or is activated by an administrator. When the password reset days limit is set to none, there is no built-in limit for password retention. By default, there is no limit.

set variable

Change the value of an existing substitution variable on the system. The value must not exceed 256 bytes. It may contain any character except a leading ampersand (&).

set server_port

Expand a port range specified Essbase configuration properties. Each Essbase application uses two ports from this range. If no more ports are available, an error message is displayed.

Note:

You can expand port ranges only so that the beginning port range is less than SERVERPORTBEGIN and the ending port range is greater than SERVERPORTEND.

delete export_directory

Delete directories created for linked reporting objects exported from a database to a directory created in ARBORPATH\app. Use this grammar after the exported LROs are migrated into a database using import lro, and the directories containing the exported LRO information are not needed.

Note:

This process works only for directories created in ARBORPATH\app using the DBS-EXPORT-DIR option of the export lro statement. It does not work for directories created elsewhere using the FULL-EXPORT-DIR option of the export lro statement.

To view a list of names of exported linked-reporting-objects directories in ARBORPATH\app, use display system export_directory.

add variable

Create a system-level substitution variable by name, and optionally assign a string value for the variable to represent. You can assign or change the value later using set variable. A substitution variable acts as a global placeholder for information that changes regularly. Substitution variables may be referenced by calculations and report scripts.

If substitution variables with the same name exist at server, application, and database levels, the order of precedence for the variables is as follows: a database-level substitution variable supersedes an application-level variable, which supersedes a server-level variable.

drop variable

Remove a substitution variable and its corresponding value from the system.

logout session all

Terminate all user sessions running on the Essbase Server.

logout session...force

Terminate a session (or sessions) even if it is processing a request. The request is allowed to proceed to a safe point, and then the transaction is rolled back.

logout session <session-id>

Terminate a session by its unique session ID number. To see the session ID number, use display session.

logout session by user

Terminate all current sessions by a particular user, either across the entire Essbase Server, or limited to a specific application or database.

logout session by user on application

Terminate all current sessions by a particular user across a specific application.

logout session by user on database

Terminate all current sessions by a particular user across a specific database.

logout session on application

Terminate all current user sessions across a specific application.

logout session on database

Terminate all current user sessions across a specific database.

shutdown

Shut down the Essbase Server.

kill request all

Terminate all current requests on the Essbase Server.

Note:

To terminate your own active request in MaxL Shell, press the ESC key.

kill request <session-id>

Terminate the current request indicated by the session ID. You can obtain session IDs using display session.

kill request by user

Terminate all current requests by the specified user on the Essbase Server.

kill request on application

Terminate all current requests on the specified application.

kill request on database

Terminate all current requests on the specified database.

enable unicode

Set the Essbase Server to allow the creation of Unicode-mode applications and the migration of non-Unicode-mode applications to Unicode-mode applications.

disable unicode

Prevent the Essbase Server from allowing the creation of Unicode-mode applications or the migration of non-Unicode-mode applications to Unicode-mode applications.

reconcile

When Essbase is started using a security backup file (essbase_timestamp.bak) instead of essbase.sec, reconcile the security file to match the state of Essbase on an external disk. This grammar displays discrepancies in application and database information between the security file and the external disk:

If an application folder is on the disk but not in the security file, display a message indicating the discrepancy. (Essbase checks for the presence of a appname.app file in the ARBORPATH/app/appname directory.)

The force option does not apply in this scenario.
If an application file is in the security file but not on the disk, display a message indicating the discrepancy.

The force option removes the application from the security file.
If an application database folder is on the disk but not in the security file, display a message indicating the discrepancy. (Essbase checks for the presence of a dbname.otl file in the ARBORPATHapp/appname/dbname/cube directory.)

The force option does not apply in this scenario.
If an application database file is in the security file but not on the disk, display a message indicating the discrepancy.

The force option removes the database from the security file.

Notes

SESSION SPECIFICATION

A session is a single user connection to Essbase Server. The session can be identified by keywords and names indicating context, or by a unique session ID number.

A request is a query sent to Essbase Server by a user or by another process; for example, starting an application or restructuring a database outline. Only one request at a time can be processed in each session.

If a session is processing a request at the time that an administrator attempts to terminate the session, the administrator must either terminate the request first, or use the force kewyord available with alter system to terminate the session and the current request.

Syntax diagram for alter system SESSION SPEC.

Example

alter system unload application Sample;

Stops the Sample application, if it is currently running.

alter system unload application all;

Terminates all active requests and stops all applications.

alter system unload application Sample no_force;

Essbase prepares to unload the Sample application; however, if active requests are running, the application is not stopped.

alter system shutdown;

Stops all running applications and shuts down Essbase Server.

alter system logout session by user Fiona;

Disconnects Fiona from any applications or databases to which she is connected.

To log out a user, log out the sessions owned by that user.

alter system set password_reset_days 10;

Specifies that all users will be prompted after 10 days to change their passwords. The day count for any user is reset when the user changes the password or is edited or reactivated by an administrator.