How To: Use symbolic links to perform an ArcSDE upgrade on Unix/Linux machines


Instructions provided describe how to use symbolic links to perform an upgrade on Unix/Linux machines, in particular an upgrade from a lower version to a higher version, for example, from ArcSDE 9.1 to ArcSDE 9.2.


The steps below are using ArcSDE 9.1 and ArcSDE 9.2 as the examples throughout the upgrading process.

  1. Backup the SDE schema or the entire database.
  2. Make sure the SDE schema is a 'clean' ArcSDE 9.1 schema, which means that an upgrade has not been run and failed against the schema. If there was a failed attempt, the original sde schema must be restored.
  3. Create a new directory for ArcSDE 9.2 and create symbolic links pointing to where the physical files are located.
    ▪ Due to an UTF-8 characterset issue, perform the following steps:
    a. Apply ArcSDE 9.2 Service Pack 1 (SP1) to the physical directory of ArcSDE 9.2.
    b. Apply the ArcSDE Oracle patch (it requires ArcSDE 9.2 SP1) to the physical directory of ArcSDE 9.2, which has been applied ArcSDE 9.2 SP1.
    The same procedure applies to other similar scenario as well. For example, when upgrading from ArcSDE 9.1 to ArcSDE 9.2 SP4.
  4. Copy the entire 'etc' folder from the physical ArcSDE 9.2 directory to the new directory created in Step 3 containing symbolic links.
    A copy of the existing services.sde file needs to be saved if the same service name and port number are being used.
    ▪ This step is very important, since ArcSDE 9.2 introduces some new files and has modified some exiting files in the 'etc' folder. If the files under the ArcSDE 9.2 'etc' directory are not copied over, the upgrade will fail. This is also true for any future upgrades.
  5. Grant all necessary privileges needed by SDE user.
    For example, for an ArcSDE 9.2 upgrade to Service Pack 4, go to the following link and refer to Step 5 of the Installation steps provided: ArcSDE Service Pack 4.
  6. Run the upgrade using the commands below:
    a. sdesetup -o upgrade
    b. sdesetup -o update_key
    c. sdemon -o start -p