Chapter 3: GSPLIT - Firebird Backup File Splitting Filter

Table of Contents

Introduction
GSPLIT Command line Options
GSPLIT Command Parameters
Splitting Backups
Joining Backup Files

Introduction

In the past, many operating systems imposed a limit which defined how large a single file could become. This limit was 2 Gb on some systems, and 4 Gb on others. For example, on HP-UX 10.20 or 11.00 Unix systems, the maximum file size is 2 Gb unless the file system has the largefiles option turned on. This limit still exists on some operating systems.

GSPLIT is a filter utility introduced with Interbase 5.0 which allows the output file from the GBAK utility (when backing up a database) to be split into a number of chunks, or a number of chunks to be joined together and used to restore a database. Up until Interbase 5.0, dump files were limited to 2 Gb by the GBAK utility itself - even if running on a system which allowed files to be 4 Gb.

Coming up in this chapter, we have :

Command line options for GSPLIT.
GSPLIT options and their parameters.
Splitting backups using GSPLIT.
Joining backup chunks using GSPLIT.

Note

From Interbase 6.0, GSPLIT is no longer required as GBAK allows large files to be split directly. The details for GSPLIT given here are for reference only and you are advised to use GBAK to split large backup files even if GSPLIT is supplied with your Firebird release.

GSPLIT is only supplied with the Windows version of Firebird 1.5, it is not supplied with the Linux version. Linux doesn't require a separate utility as it can split files using the split command as well as using GBAK.

Warning

In testing with Firebird 1.5, on Windows XP Home, GSPLIT doesn't seem to work and always returns error 9.

Because of the problems in getting GSPLIT to work correctly, as you shall see in the remainder of this chapter, you are advised to use the splitting and joining facilities of the GBAK utility itself rather than trying to make GSPLIT work for you.