What uses identity services' ids.db?

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Level 1

19 points

What uses identity services' ids.db?

Reviewing logs from nightly backups, I see entries nearly every day reporting ids.db and ids.db-shm don't compare. That is, the copy just saved is not identical to the master. These errors happen most days but not every day. I want to understand what these databases are and what application or process are using them.

I have a Early 2008 Mac Pro running OS X 10.9.1 with 2 x 3 GHz Quadcore Intel Xeon processors, 8 GB RAM, 1 GB display storage, about 9 TB HD storage. I do heavy amounts of image processing with Adobe tools. Otherwise, routine home computer activity. My scripted backups run in Retrospect.

The messages appear in the report from the scripts that backup my user account. They point to the two files named above: ~/Library/IdentityServices/ids.db and ids.db-shm.

My backup scripts had run successfully and without error for several years. I began seeing these messages after changing to Mavericks in December '13.

What should I love about Identity Services? I've looked at the Apple Developers' documentation but do not know how to query to see what is using or calling these files.

Thank you,

Doug

OS X Mavericks (10.9.1), 8 GB RAM

Posted on Feb 6, 2014 12:20 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

HunterHillegas

Level 1

5 points

Feb 27, 2014 12:33 PM in response to Johnsond

I believe that IdentityServices came in when NetInfo went out in OS X 10.5 - basically a shared system to handle access control to files, network resources and the like. As I understand it, it's a core part of the system.

One note about ids.db and ids.db-shm: with SQLite (and thus Core Data based apps that use it), if journaling (a data integrity feature) is turned on, the database will not only generate the main file (idb.db) but also related files (idb.db-shm and idb.db-wal). These files store in-flight transactions for the main file (i.e. they're not discreet, they always go together).

These files change all the time so it's not surprising that after a backup the contents would have already changed.

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Answer 2

Johnsond Author

Level 1

19 points

Feb 27, 2014 12:48 PM in response to HunterHillegas

Thanks for your explanation. Helps a lot. Don't understand what work they would be doing at 1:00 a.m. 3-4 hrs after I've quit for the day but it is clear I should not be concerned about a "does not compare" message from the verification process.

Appreciate your help.

Doug

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