About Lotus Domino transaction logs

Lotus Domino has the ability to log transactions for one or more Lotus Domino databases. Lotus Domino databases are logged by default when transaction logging is enabled on the Lotus Domino server and the database is in the Domino data directory.

When transaction logging is enabled on the server, each Lotus Domino database is assigned a database instance ID (DBIID). Each transaction recorded in the log includes the DBIID, which is used to match transactions to the database during a restore.

A new DBIID may be assigned to the database when some Lotus Domino operations are performed. When the new DBIID is assigned, all new transactions recorded in the log use the new DBIID; however, previous transactions have the old DBIID and will not match the new DBIID for the database. To prevent data loss, it is recommended that a full backup be performed when a database receives a new DBIID since transactions with the old DBIID cannot be restored to the database. A full backup includes all current transactions on the database and ensures that only the transactions with the new DBIID are needed to restore the database.

You can select only one logging style when transaction logging is enabled on the server.

Following are the two styles of logging for Lotus Domino databases:

Caution:

When circular logging is enabled, the circular transaction log cannot be backed up, which could result in the loss of changes made to the database since the last backup was performed.