(Re)Generating database using dbtool

Using dbtool/obseron-dbdump

An Obseron database can get malformed in the case of a disk failure. dbtool (or dbdump on Linux) is included with every Obseron installation, and can be used to regenerate the database file from existing recordings. This page covers the usage of the tool.

The tool can be found from the installation directory on Windows systems and from the /usr/bin/ directory on Linux systems.

Before using the tool, the Obseron process must be terminated and the old database files (*.db* in database storage folder) removed. Obseron can be restarted after the regeneration has started.

Usage: dbTool.exe <drive>=<sourceDir>[,<drive>=<sourceDir>][,...] <targetDir> [<beginTime> <endTime>]

Time format: "YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM"

Case 1:

The recorder is equipped with 3 hard drives; 1 for the operating system (C:), 1 for a database (D:), 1 for recordings (E:). The hard drive for the database fails and is replaced.
Restoring all the recordings is required.

Generating a new database (to d:\capture) for all the recordings on drive E: (e:\capture), the command will go through all the recording files on the given folder and generate a database for them:

dbTool.exe e=e:\capture d:\capture

Case 2:

The recorder is equipped with 3 hard drives; 1 for the operating system (C:), 1 for the database (D:), 1 for recordings (E:). The hard drive for the database fails and is replaced.
To save time on regeneration, only the past month of recordings is restored. The current date in this example is 1st Feb 2017 10:10.

dbTool.exe e=e:\capture d:\capture "2017-01-01 10:10" "2017-02-01 10:10"

Case 3:

The recorder is equipped with 4 hard drives; 1 for the operating system (C:), 1 for the database (D:), 2 for recordings (E: and F:). The hard drive for the database fails and is replaced.
To save time on regeneration, only the past month of recordings is restored. This month's recordings reside both on E: and F: drives. The current date in this example is 1st Feb 2017 10:10.

dbtool.exe e=e:\capture,f=f:\capture d:\capture "2017-01-01 10:10" "2017-02-01 10:10"

Case 4:

There are some .tt recording files on a usb stick (D:\), which should be converted to a backup that can be opened for viewing with Obseron.

Create a base folder "mybackup". Create a new folder "a" inside this base folder. Move the .tt files to the new "a" folder to represent a capture drive:

mkdir d:\mybackup

mkdir d:\mybackup\a

move d:\*.tt d:\mybackup\a\

Now generate a database:

dbtool.exe a=d:\mybackup\a d:\mybackup

Generating the database will take some time, depending on the number of recording files.