Product Documentation

FairCom DB V12 Release Notes

Previous Topic

Next Topic

Ensure recoverability if server terminates while changing master encryption key

The changing of the master encryption key involves multiple steps. If an error occurs, the work is undone, but if the server terminates we did not ensure that the changes were all undone. This could render the server unable to start or unable to decrypt files.

If FairCom Server terminates while the master encryption key is being changed, the encrypted files (data and index files and transaction logs) might have been left in a state that is inconsistent with the current master key, causing them to fail to open with errors 606, 607, or 66 on the next restart of FairCom Server.

A write-ahead recovery log has been implemented for the master encryption key change. The log file, named CMPRECOV.FCS, is created in the same directory as the transaction logs. It records the change we are about to make to a file before we apply the change. When FairCom Server starts up, if this log file exists FairCom Server uses the information in this recovery log to undo all the changes to the files so the data, index, and transaction log files are all using the original master encryption key. This log also allows c-tree to undo the changes to non-transaction files, which are not recorded in c-tree's transaction logs.

TOCIndex