The Historical Server control file maintains information about recording sessions that users create. This information persists across start-ups, so users can access recording sessions that they created during previous executions of Historical Server. The control file restricts user access to private recording session files. (Recording session files can have public or private access.)
The Historical Server home directory is important for two reasons:
It contains the Historical Server control file. When Historical Server starts, it looks for a control file in the home directory. If a control file does not exist, Historical Server creates it.
It is the default directory location for the data files that Historical Server writes during recording sessions. The users who create the recording sessions can override this default location.
The -D parameter in the Historical Server start-up command specifies the home directory location. This is a required parameter.
The current execution of Historical Server can access data files from previous executions only if the current execution is using the same control file, in the same home directory, as the previous executions were using. Therefore, in most cases, you should not change the Historical Server home directory (the -D start-up parameter) between start-ups. See “Configuring multiple instances of Historical Server” for a discussion about using different home directories.
For more information about the files created by Historical Server, see Chapter 5, “Data Files”.
