Special parameters: sync

Startup parameters change the behavior of the Service Manager server. You can always set a startup parameter from the server's operating system command prompt. You can set a startup parameter from the server OS command prompt on the server machine.

Parameter

sync

Description

This parameter starts the sync process, which identifies and removes locks owned by inactive processes and shared memory. The sync process performs the following tasks:

  • Checks for and removes processes that are no longer active.
  • Checks for and release semaphores that the server has held for more than 60 seconds.
  • Checks for and removes cached items in shared memory that are no longer in use.

The sync process checks Service Manager shared memory for processes that no longer exist.

When a Service Manager process starts, it stores data structures in shared memory indicating the process name and PID. You can see this information using the system status utility. When a process terminates, the information is removed.

The sync process checks the user chain for processes that are still active but no longer exist in the operating system. The process takes the PID and queries the operating system to see if this process still exists. If it does not, it terminated unexpectedly.

The sync process cleans all outstanding resource locks and semaphore locks and removes the processes from the user thread. By doing so, semaphores and locks become available again and other processes waiting for the resources begin to respond.

Note You must run the sm -sync command on every host in the clustering environment in order to clean user sessions. Thread level detection only occurs on the local host and each user runs as a thread. With no sync processing running, the local host is unable to terminate the expired user session.

Valid if set from

The server's operating system command prompt

Requires restart of the Service Manager server?

No

Default value

None

Possible values

Null – checks processes and semaphores

Example usage

Command line: sm -sync

Related topics

System parameters

Related topics

Enter a parameter in the sm.ini file

Related topics

Background and scheduled process parameters