Using Db Maint, Working with…

Server Properties

In Server properties, you define general server side settings for Db Maint. To get a description for each parameter, position the mouse pointer over the option and a ToolTip will be displayed.

General tab

Location of dbm.exe on server

Enter the path on the SQL Server machine where Db Maint is installed (including the file name itself, dbm.exe). There will be a verification to ensure that the path is valid.

Login mode

The default is that dbm.exe does a windows login when executing steps such as BACKUP, DBCC CHECKDB etc. This is done by using xp_cmdshell and ISQL/OSQL. This means that the SQL Server service account need to be added as a Windows account in SQL Server (this is done automatically by the SQL Server setup program in 7.0 and higher).

You can specify a SQL Server account instead. This IS NOT recommended since the account name and password is stored in clear text in the msdb database. Only do this for emergency and diagnostic purposes.

Disk space tracking

Specify the minimum amount of disk space to be available, and the disks to check. DbM.exe will check and generate a warning unless this amount of disk space is available. You must choose Check disk space in the task configuration for this check to occur.

Backup tab

Log warning if database not backed up within this number of days

You can specify in the task configuration that a warning is generated if a database haven’t been backed up in a certain number of days. Specify that number of days here.

Delete backup history in msdb

SQL Server keeps backuphistory in the msdb database. SQL Server never truncates these tables by itself. In order to avoid filling the msdb database, you have an option to let DbM.exe truncate those tables, saving only the amount of history (in days) that you choose.

The tables will be truncated at each Db Maint task execution.

Backup file compression command

You can define a command line command to be used to compress the backup files. You then specify in the task configuration whether to use this command to compress original, copy and archive backup files, respectively. Use the placeholder <%outfile%> where you want to substitute with the compressed file and use <%infile%> for the input file name. Db Maint is pre-configured to use with command-line zip:

"C:\Program Files\WinZip\wzzip" <%outfile%> <%infile%>

Test restore and log shipping options

Specify the path for the test restored database files. Also specify the database prefix name for the test restored and log shipped databases.

Log destinations tab

Max number of rows in Db Maint log

This is the maximum number of rows in msdb..dbmsyslog table. Dbm.exe will truncate the log table to this number at each execution.

Path and filename of the server report file

Enter the path where the server report file should be created. There is an option in the task dialog to create a server report on each execution. This information can be very valuable in case you have to reinstall SQL server and also in troubleshooting situations.

Master log server name

Enter the name of the server name that Db Maint should log to. This option gives you the ability to log information to a central server, which makes supervising several servers easier. SQLExecutive/SQLServerAgent must be able to log on to that server using a Windows login.

UNC path for printer

Specify the printer, if any, that Db Maint should be able to log to. This printer must be available from the SQL Server machine, using the SQL Server service account.

Enable SNMP (SNMP support is only available for 6.5)

Check this if you want to be able to specify that a task can generate an SNMP trap at execution time.

Log to HTML

Check this if you want to be able to specify that a task can generate a HTML file with task information at execution time.

Path to HTML-file folder on server

This is where the HTML file should be created. You can specify an UNC name (possibly on a directory published by a Web server). The SQL Server service needs write permissions to that directory. Do not specify an UNC name if SQL Server is using the LocalSystem account.

Email settings tab

Send email using MAPI

This requires that the MAPI support is installed and configured on the SQL Server machine. We encourage that this is tested using the xp_sendmail procedure from within Query Analyzer.

Send email using SMTP

This requires virtually no configuration and is considerably easier to get working than the MAPI support. If you installed the SMTP DLL files when installing Db Maint, you can select to add these as extended stored procedures from this dialog. You can also download the xp_smtp_sendmail extended stored procedure from www.sqldev.net and use the instruction on that site to install it (copy the DLL file to the SQL Server binn folder and install in SQL Server using sp_addextendedproc).

SMTP server name

This is the SMTP server that the emails will be sent to. Specify an IP DNS machine name.

E-mail operators

Add, configure and remove email operators.

Performance monitoring tab

Select the database where Db Maint is to log the performance counters. We encourage you to use a dedicated database for this. You will get a question whether to create these tables if they don’t exist.