Stopping SAPOSCOL

The command to stop SAPOSCOL varies depending on the operating system:

• Under UNIX, you stop SAPOSCOL with the command
saposcol -k.
• Under Windows NT, you stop SAPOSCOL by stopping the corresponding service (by choosing Start ® Settings ® Control Panel ® Services).
• You can also stop SAPOSCOL in the operating system monitor.

Do not stop SAPOSCOL using other operating system commands, as the data in the shared memory could become corrupted. Also, in this case you cannot start a new SAPOSCOL, but receive an error message that a SAPOSCOL is already running.

Procedure

The command to stop SAPOSCOL first starts a new SAPOSCOL that stops the active SAPOSCOL after a second. The following occurs:

1. The new SAPOSCOL connects to the shared memory.
2. Using the shared memory, it determines the process ID (PID) of the SAPOSCOL that is collecting data.
3. If the new SAPOSCOL finds a valid PID, it sets a flag in shared memory. When the old SAPOSCOL finds this flag, it resets the flag and deletes the PID from shared memory. If this is not complete within 20 seconds, the new SAPOSCOL stops the old SAPOSCOL.




How long a shared memory segment exists depends on the operating system. On a UNIX operating system, it is stored until SAPOSCOL deletes it. On Windows NT, the shared memory is deleted by the operating system if no process is connected with it.

4. The old SAPOSCOL writes the data in shared memory to the file
coll.put in the SAPOSCOL working directory. The program then ends.

When the host is restarted, the file coll.put is imported so that the combined data is available in the shared memory. If, for example, SAPOSCOL is stopped at 12:03 and is restarted at 14:49, the data until 12:00 is still available for the SAP system. To avoid confusion, invalid data for the time from 12:00 until 14:00 is not displayed in the overview of the last hours in the operating system monitor.

Delete the file coll.put, if you stop SAPOSCOL in the context of error analysis, as the program imports the (possibly erroneous) measured values from the file to the shared memory segment if it is restarted.