Cisco Cisco Prime Network Registrar 8.0 White Paper

 

 

© 2011 Cisco and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. This document is Cisco Public Information. 

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Introduction 

This document provides an overview of Network Registrar databases used for: 

● 

DHCP lease storage 

● 

DNS authoritative data 

● 

CCM configuration management 

This document presents different backup and recovery strategies for each type of data, based on operational 

considerations. 

Network Registrar Databases 

The Network Registrar databases include two types of embedded databases and sequential access files that are 

managed through the host file system. Most server data is stored in high-performance embedded databases using 

Berkeley DB distributed by Sleepycat Software. Configuration data is split between newer Sleepycat databases 

and the original Raima database distributed by Bristol Technologies. 

The original Raima database is generally referred to as the MCD database, while the collection of Sleepycat 

configuration databases is generally referred to as the CCM database. The small amount of server data still stored 

in the Raima database is referred to as MCD state data, to distinguish it from the MCD configuration data managed 

by the CCM server. A few data items used by the Server Agent are also stored in the Raima database. These are 

not managed by the CCM server and are configured during installation. 

Both the Sleepycat and Raima databases use transaction logs to save changes as they are committed to the 

databases. These are stored in associated logs subdirectories in the database directory tree. When the database 

performs its database checkpoints, these transactions are incorporated into the main database file, and the logs 

are marked redundant. The redundant logs are trimmed periodically by the servers. 

It is critical that any snapshot of a given database also include all its current transaction logs. Any inconsistency 

between these files compromises the integrity of the database. Because the servers operate in a concurrent, 

multi-threaded environment, a database snapshot can only be reliably made using file system copy commands 

when the servers are stopped. For this reason, you are provided the mcdshadow utility to pause the servers while 

making backup copies of the server databases. The mcdshadow utility runs automatically on a nightly basis, or you 

can run it manually at any time. For details on how to use the mcdshadow utility, refer to the section on Performing 

Manual Backups on page 7-2 of the Network Registrar User's Guide. 

You can export and re-import configuration data with the cnr_exim utility. You can use this utility to save the 

configuration to a simple text file in either a readable text or hexadecimal format. You must use the hexadecimal 

format to re-import the configuration. Whenever you export the configuration, you should export both file types 

concurrently. For details on how to use the cnr_exim utility, refer to the section on Using the cnr_exim Data Import 

and Export Tool on page 7-10 of the Network Registrar User's Guide. 

DHCP Data 

The DHCP lease database is the primary data store of the DHCP server. This database was converted to a 

Sleepycat database structure in version 5.0. Starting with version 6.1, both active and historical lease data are 

stored in a single, private, embedded Sleepycat database. The database file dhcp.ndb and its associated 

transaction logs are stored within the database directory tree at: 

datadir/dhcp/ndb/