4 Managing Configurations

You can create configurations by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Before You Begin

Before you begin creating a configuration, decide the following:

• A unique name for the configuration. Choose the name carefully; after creating a configuration, you cannot change its name.

• The user ID with which the Oracle Traffic Director instances of the configuration should run.

  Note:

  The server user that you specify for a configuration must meet the following requirements:

  • When the administration server is running as root, the server user of a configuration must either be root or belong to the same group as the user that installed Oracle Traffic Director.

  • When the administration server is running as a non-root user, the server user of a configuration must be the same as the administration server's server user.

  Note that the nodes to which a configuration is deployed must be homogenous in terms of the user accounts and groups configured on those systems.

• A unique listener host:port combination for the default virtual server that you will create as part of the configuration.

• host:port addresses of the servers in the origin-server pool that you will create as part of the configuration.

• (optional) Host names of the administration nodes on which you want to create instances of the configuration.

  Note:

  While creating a configuration by using the New Configuration wizard, you can choose to also instantiate the configuration on one or more administration nodes. The wizard enables you to do this by displaying the host names of the administration nodes that are registered with the administration server.

Creating a Configuration Using the Administration Console

To create a configuration by using the administration console, do the following tasks:

At any time, you can view a list of the available configurations by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Viewing a List of Configurations Using the Administration Console

To view a list of the available configurations by using the administration console, do the following:

You can view the properties of a configuration by clicking on its name.

You deploy a configuration to either create an instance of it on an administration node or update a previously created instance with new configuration settings. When you deploy a configuration, the running instances are reconfigured to reflect the configuration changes.

You can deploy a configuration by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Deploying a Configuration Using the Administration Console

To deploy a configuration by using the administration console, do the following:

1. Log in to the administration console, as described in Accessing the Administration Console.

2. Click the Configurations button that is situated at the upper left corner of the page.

   A list of the available configurations is displayed.

3. Select the configuration that you want to deploy.

   If there is no instance yet of the configuration that you selected to deploy, the message Undeployed Configuration is displayed at the top of the main pane. For the procedure to create one or more instances of an undeployed configuration, see Creating Oracle Traffic Director Instances.

   If instances of the configuration exist, but do not have the latest configuration settings, the message Deployment Pending is displayed at the top of the main pane. To update the instances with the latest configuration settings, do the following:

   1. Click Deploy Changes.

      A prompt to confirm deployment is displayed.

   2. Click Deploy.

      A message is displayed confirming that the updated configuration was successfully deployed.

   3. Click Close.

Deploying a Configuration Using the CLI

To deploy a configuration, run the deploy-config command.

For example, the following command updates all instances of the configuration soa.example.com with the latest configuration settings.

tadm> deploy-config soa.example.com
OTD-70201 Command 'deploy-config' ran successfully.

For more information about deploy-config, see the Oracle Traffic Director Command-Line Reference or run the command with the --help option.

After deploying an updated configuration, for the changes to take effect, you should restart the instance.

After you create a configuration and create instances from it, you might need to change some of the settings—log preferences, performance parameters, virtual server listener, origin-server pools, and so on.

You can modify a configuration by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Modifying a Configuration Using the Administration Console

To modify a configuration by using the administration console, do the following:

When you create a configuration, the configuration files—server.xml and vs_name-obj.conf—are created in the configuration store on the administration server.

When you create instances of the configuration, the configuration files are copied from the configuration store to the instance-specific configuration directories on the nodes, as in the following examples:

INSTANCE_HOME/net-soa.example.com/config
INSTANCE_HOME/net-dev.example.com/config

So the configuration files in the instance-specific configuration directories are usually identical to the configuration files stored in the configuration store on the administration server. In the following situations, a configuration stored on the administration server can be different from that of its instances.

• You modified a configuration on the administration server, by using the administration console or CLI, but have not yet deployed the modified configuration to its instances.

  You can rectify this out-of-sync situation by deploying the configuration as described in Deploying a Configuration.

• You changed the configuration of an instance manually, by editing a configuration file directly in the instance's config directory.

If you change the configuration of an instance manually by editing a configuration file—server.xml or vs_name-obj.conf in the INSTANCE_HOME/net-config_name/config directory, the next time you log in to the administration console and view the configuration, the alert Instance Configuration Modified is displayed. The alert indicates that the configuration stored on the administration server is different from the current configuration settings of one or more instances. The alert continues to be displayed till you synchronize the configuration stored on the administration server with that of all its instances, by doing one of the following:

• Pull the modified configuration from one of the modified instances back into the configuration store of the administration server.

• Discard the instance-specific configurations by redeploying the configuration from the administration server to the modified instances.

You can synchronize a configuration on the administration server with its instances by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Synchronizing Configurations on the Administration Server and Administration Nodes Using the Administration Console

To synchronize a configuration stored on the administration server with that of its instances by using the administration console, do the following:

When you want to create a configuration that is similar to an existing configuration, you can copy the existing configuration and make the required changes later.

You can copy a configuration by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Copying a Configuration Using the Administration Console

To copy a configuration by using the administration console, do the following:

You can delete a configuration by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Deleting a Configuration Using the Administration Console

To delete a configuration by using the administration console, do the following:

1. Log in to the administration console, as described in Accessing the Administration Console.

2. Click the Configurations button that is situated at the upper left corner of the page.

   A list of the available configurations is displayed.

3. Select the configuration that you want to delete.

4. In the Common Tasks pane, click Delete Configuration.

   • If there are no instances of the configuration that you want to delete, a prompt to confirm deletion of the configuration is displayed.

     1. Click Delete.

        A message is displayed confirming that the configuration was deleted.

     2. Click Close.

   • If there are instances of the configuration that you want to delete, a dialog box is displayed listing the administration nodes on which the configuration is deployed. The list also indicates whether the instances are running.

     1. If you want to proceed with the deletion, you can choose to save the log files of the instances by selecting the Save Instance Logs check box.

        To confirm deletion, click Delete.

        A message is displayed confirming that the configuration and its instances were deleted.

     2. Click Close.

     Note:

     If you selected the Save Instance Logs check box, the server access and error logs for the instances that were deleted are retained in the INSTANCE_HOME/net-config_name/logs directory.

5. Click the Delete button corresponding to the configuration that you want to delete.

Deleting a Configuration Using the CLI

To delete a configuration, run the delete-config command, as shown in the following example:

tadm> delete-config --config=soa.example.com
OTD-70201 Command 'delete-config' ran successfully.

For more information about delete-config, see the Oracle Traffic Director Command-Line Reference or run the command with the --help option.

When you redeploy a modified configuration to its instances, a backup of the previous configuration is stored in a zip file in the configuration store on the administration server.

You can view a list of the backups of a configuration by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Viewing a List of Configuration Backups Using the CLI

To view a list of the backups of a configuration by using the CLI, run the following command:

tadm> list-backups --config=config_name --verbose --all

The following is an example of the output of the list-backups command.

backup-id       backup-date
---------------------------
20110712_025354 "Jul 12, 2011 2:53:54 AM"
20110712_024410 "Jul 12, 2011 2:44:10 AM"
20110712_004743 "Jul 12, 2011 12:47:43 AM"
20110711_231826 "Jul 11, 2011 11:18:26 PM

As shown in the example output, each backup configuration has a unique ID, which is assigned automatically when it is created. The ID indicates the date and time when the backup was created.

Viewing a List of Configuration Backups Using the Administration Console

To view a list of the backups of a configuration by using the administration console, do the following:

When you redeploy a modified configuration to its instances, a backup of the previous configuration is created. For information about viewing a list of the available backups, see Viewing a List of Configuration Backups.

You can restore a configuration from a backup by using either the administration console or the CLI.

Restoring a Configuration from a Backup Using the Administration Console

To restore a configuration from a backup, by using the administration console, do the following: