Environment Variables Used by the Historian Database

The environment variables used by the Historian database are available in the historian-archiver-conf.json file. The following table describes these variables.
Note: Before applying changes to the environment variables, ensure that the number of archive files do not exceed 1024. Otherwise, the archiver will crash. This is because 1024 is the default number of file descriptors a process can open on Linux. We recommend that you create archive files daily or by size so that you can monitor the number of archive files created.
Environment Variable Description Default Value Valid Values
HS_ARCHIVER_CREATE_TYPE The type of the archive file creation. Days
  • BySize: An archive file of a specified size is created each time the size of the file reaches a specified limit.
  • Days: An archive file is created for the duration specified in the HS_ARCHIVE_DURATION_IN_DAYS variable.
  • Hours: An archive file is created for the duration specified in the HS_ARCHIVE_DURATION_IN_HOURS variable.
HS_DEFAULT_CYCLIC_ARCHIVING Indicates whether data must be overwritten after a specified duration. If the value of this variable is true, data is overwritten after the duration specified in the HS_CYCLIC_ARCHIVE_DURATION_HOURS variable. This is used for the SCADA buffer data store. If the value of this variable is true, the default data store is set to SCADA buffer. false
  • true
  • false
HS_CYCLIC_ARCHIVE_DURATION_HOURS The duration, in hours, after which cyclic archiving (data overwrite) begins. A value is required if the value of the HS_DEFAULT_CYCLIC_ARCHIVING variable is true. 8760 0 to 8760
HS_ARCHIVE_SIZE_IN_MB The size limit, in MB, of an archive file. After an archive reaches the specified size, a new archive file is created. A value is required if the value of the HS_ARCHIVER_CREATE_TYPE variable is BySize. This is used during start-up or creation of a data store. 100 1 to 99999
HS_ARCHIVE_DURATION_IN_HOURS The number of hours an archive file is used for archiving data. After this duration, a new archive file is created. A value is required if the value of the HS_ARCHIVER_CREATE_TYPE variable is Hours. This is used during start-up or creation of a data store. 1 1 to 90 * 24
HS_ARCHIVE_DURATION_IN_DAYS The number of days an archive file is used for archiving data. After this duration, a new archive file is created. A value is required if the value of the HS_ARCHIVER_CREATE_TYPE variable is Daily. This is used during start-up or creation of a data store. 1 1 to 1440
HS_FREE_SPACE_REQUIRED_IN_MB Defines the free space, in MB, required for the archiver to work. This is used during start-up or creation of a data store.
Tip: Set this value, in MB, to be at least five times the integral multiple of the archive size.
500 1 to 999999999
HS_USE_ARCHIVE_CACHING Indicates whether data must be cached. When caching is enabled, when data queries are requested, they are cached according to the system RAM size available in the main memory. The cache is released if the RAM is used within a certain limit. This helps querying of data faster for future requests. This is used during start-up or creation of a data store. true
  • true
  • false
HS_CREATE_OFFLINE_ARCHIVE Indicates whether to allow writing of past data in an archive file until January 1, 1970. true
  • true
  • false
HS_ARCHIVE_ACTIVE_HOURS The number of hours an archive file was used to write data. This is used during start-up or creation of a data store. 8760 1 to hours till January 1, 1970
HS_MODE_OF_OPERATION

Indicates whether .ihc and .iha files must be loaded from a different Historian database (can be from a Windows-based Historian as well). If you set the value to reload, .ihc and .iha files from the Historian database running on one machine (Windows or Linux) is loaded to the Historian database on another machine.

normal
  • normal
  • reload
HS_ALLOW_HELD_VALUE_QUERY Indicates whether the held sample must be queried when Archive compression is enabled. false
  • true
  • false
HS_LICENSE_FILE_PATH

The absolute path of the license file of Historian for Linux.

Important: The Historian database container must have a valid license file for all the enabled features, including high tag count support. If a valid license is not provided, Historian for Linux switches to demo mode (which supports only 32 tags) while starting the Docker container.

For example, if you mount a /data/edgedata directory with /data/ with the Historian database container, you can keep the license file in /data/edgedata/historian-license on the host machine. But you should set the variable to /data/historian-license because in a Docker-container context, the path is /data/historian-license.

/config/historin-license
HS_NUMBER_OF_LOG_FILES The maximum number of log files to be created. Once this value exceeds, the oldest file will be deleted to accommodate the new one. 100 1 to 100
HS_SIZE_OF_EACH_LOG_FILE The maximum size of a single log file, in MB. If this value exceeds, a new log file will be created. 10 1 to 10
debug Indicates whether debug logs must be enabled. off
  • on
  • off