Automated rehosting. Bugs and problems help request.

[JimTVancouverCa]

Hello all,

I am attempting to do my first system rehost. I want to use the Windchill Rehosting Utility. I have fully read the guide and made detailed notes and the necessary configuration files. I must have missed something because I am receiving an error when I try to run. The error is:

[DBValidator] 2014-05-12 13:04:32,335 ERROR [main] com.ptc.wc.rehost.validate.DBConnectionValidator - Failed to validate db connection:[DBValidator] java.sql.SQLException: ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied

My projects.properties contains:

# Defines the modules for each use scenario. Modules are separated using a comma.

#rename.modules=StartProcessTask:${rehost.script.task1},IERehostTask,StartProcessTask:${rehost.script.task2},DBRehostTask# rename.modules=IERehostTask,ApacheRehostTask,DBRehostTask,OrgRehostTask,StartProcessTask:rehost.script.task1,VaultTaskrehost.modules=StartProcessTask:StartProcessTask:rehost.script.PTCFolderCopy,StartProcessTask:rehost.script.LDAPImport,IERehostTask,ApacheRehostTask,StartProcessTask:rehost.script.ORACLEDBCopy,StartProcessTask:rehost.script.ORACLEDBImport,DBRehostTask,StartProcessTask:rehost.script.WindchillOracleStart,VaultTask,FileServerTask,InstallerRegistryRehostTask

My renamed rehost.properties is attached. Note password lines are all referenced to encrypted passwords set by the setAuth.bat utility as directed in the Windchill Rehosting guide.

For the Oracle database connection I have verified both the PDMLink user account password and the system manager account password, and I have tried both with the setAuth.bat utility and re-ran the rehost.bat utility. Neither of these are successful.

I am working with PTC on this issue, but currently I am in a wait state so thought I'd reach out here for the record.

Has anyone successfully used the automated rehosting utility? If you have did you encounter this '[DBValidator] java.sql.SQLException: ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied' error?

Thanks again!

[SteveVinyard]

Hi Jim, your Target and Source Database names are mixed up.

Source = (Original name)
Target = (new name)

You have these reversed I think. Worth a shot

[MikeLockwood]

We put many hours' effort into attempting to use the (highly advertised) rehosting tool.
Also posted to the world wondering if anyone got it to work - many replied that they were interested if we could get it to work but they had not.

Attempted to do so for an OTB all-on-one-host PDMLink install with just one test product and one test WTPart.
Couldn't get square one.

Tech support advised "doesn't work very well - wait for the next release."

How can this possibly be released to the world?

[JimTVancouverCa]

Hello Steve,

Thx for the note. I think I have it right. I am going from production (windchill.oceanworks.com) to our test server (owi-ca-vpdmtest.oceanworks.cc). We do have another project coming up where people more skilled than I will rename our aliased production from owi-ca-vpdmapp.oceanworks.cc to windchill.oceanworks.com. But this case is separate.

I'll keep digging and working with PTC and post the eventual answer here for the record.

- Jim

[JimTVancouverCa]

Hmm, thanks Mike! I'll see if I get the same response. I do see the Release 2 is out for 10.2.

[jmomber]

For what it's worth, I had the same experience as Mike when PTC first released the tool.At the time itonly supported one rehost scenario, and after that failed, tech support said they really don't use the tool internally - they do it manuallybecause they know how to do it that way so it's easier. That was a year and a half ago at least, so maybe it has changed. However, it caused such issues for us, we haven't tried the tool since.

~Jamie

[kstevens]

I use the rehosting tool once a quarter to keep up with our SAP system refresh schedule. It takes a lot of time and effort to develop a process that will work for you. I have found that running the rehost tool in stages (a few tasks at a time) we get better results. Lately we''ve been able rehost our Production system back to Test/Sandbox in about 4 hours.

Jim...to answer your question, I ran into a similar issue (unable to connect to db) where Tech Support was unable to find a cause. What I ended up doing was renaming the rehost folder and downloading the tool again. Copy your rehost and project property files from the old directory to the new and run setAuth again. It worked for me.

[DanielReid]

We have a new WC admin here who similarly was successful in using the rehost tool at her last job. Her process also involved running in stages and the total time was about the same. However, though her process mostly worked here, in the end it didn't quite work because it messed up in the Active Directory LDAP connections we have. However, I was able to take some lessons from what she had done and merge that with the manual rehost process (partly scripted) I developed to come up with a new rehost procedure that also works in a few hours (well, about 2 hours after the database and application copy are complete).

I was also told, in troubleshooting the rehost utility, to just avoid it for now. In the end, my current process isn't much more hands-on than the rehost utility anyway, and the time is pretty much the same.

I am happy to share my process, though I suspect it will similarly crash and burn in other environments. Mike Lockwood could perhaps speak to that.

[MikeLockwood]

Being able to rehost is fundamental to being able to use Windchill. It's got to rank up in the top 3 to 5 processes that you absolutely have to have available and trustable. We now routinely rehost in < 3 hours and with very few manual steps (all home grown though).

Blows my mind that there is not a straight forward, standard procedure and tool to execute rehosting.

I'll buy a lobster dinner with all the trimmings (I'm serious) for any PTC employee who is generally familiar with Windchill but who has not yet ever done a rehost in their life if they can successfully rehost a system using PTC documentation and tools. This goes double for anyone in PTC management.

[JimTVancouverCa]

Hello all, Hello Kevin,

Thanks for the suggestion Kevin. I tried that, and the setAuth worked better in that it accepted my renamed rehost.properties, and it set the password encryption. But the rehost still fails. Doing some digging here is what I think is happening:

Recall the error is:

validate:[DBValidator] 2014-05-13 11:26:47,934 ERROR [main] com.ptc.wc.rehost.validate.DBConnectionValidator - Failed to validate db connection:[DBValidator] java.sql.SQLException: ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied

I think it has something to do with setting up the database user properly.

This may have to be done during import, or maybe it can be done after import. I ran the imp tool last night (I know it's deprecated in favour of impdp, but our backup is via exp and not expdp so I can't use impdp yet. I found this nugget yesterday in Oracle documentation:http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E11882_01/server.112/e23633/expimp.htm#BABIFFHB ).

When I ran the imp tool I used the following command:

imp system/manager file=pdmlink.dmp FULL=y commit=y

What leads me to this conclusion is that on the target test system I can't login to sqlplus with the username and password that works on the source production system.

If this causes any ideas in anyone, please share it here for the record. I'll post an update based on my current idea of setting the database user name or something like this.

- Jim

[RandyJones]

On 05/13/14 12:56, Lockwood, Mike wrote:
>
> Being able to rehost is fundamental to being able to use Windchill. It's got to rank up in the
> top 3 to 5 processes that you absolutely have to have available and trustable. We now routinely
> rehost in < 3 hours and with very few manual steps (all home grown though).
>

Windchill 10.2 M010 CPS05
I have a home grown script in which I can rehost (rehost refresh) in < 10 minutes. This includes our
4 replica sites. Since my Windchill is running on Solaris I am using zfs snapshots, zfs clones, and
zones to accomplish this task.

Rehosting can be actually thought of at 2 types.
- The initial rehost (everything)
- a rehost refresh (ldap, Oracle, and vaults)

The rehost refresh I can do in under 10 minutes. The initial rehost takes anywhere from 1 to 3 hrs
depending on if I have a brand new rehost (new host names and new zones) or I am "reusing" an
original rehosted setup.
>
> Blows my mind that there is not a straight forward, standard procedure and tool to execute rehosting.
>

A generic "doall" rehosting script would be very difficult to come up with. There are a lot of
differences in what is needed at each site. For example:

* Are there replicas?
* Are you giving the target(s) new hostname(s) or using the same hostname(s)
* Are you rehosting to the same architecture?
* What OS's are involved?
o with Windows you are limited in the administrative tools available
o with Windows you are hampered with drive letters as opposed to a true root file system
* Do you have "smart" file systems such as zfs with snapshot/cloning?
* Do you have a Windchill cluster?
* Is Windchill already installed on the target(s)?
* Is Oracle already installed on the target?
* And many many other items...

A set of rehosting "task" scripts that can do some of the tasks such as changing oracle, ldap,
properties, and xml files note controlled by properties however is doable. This is what the current
rehosting ant projects do. These currently do not work for Windchill 10.2 so my homegrown script now
does these.


> I'll buy a lobster dinner with all the trimmings (I'm serious) for any PTC employee who is
> generally familiar with Windchill but who has not yet ever done a rehost in their life if they can
> successfully rehost a system using PTC documentation and tools. This goes double for anyone in
> PTC management.
>

Make sure you clarify that to read "...using PTC documentation and tools *available to customers*."
I would pitch in on that meal if that employee exists.

> *From:*Daniel Reid [
> *Subject:* [solutions] - RE: Automated rehosting. Bugs and problems help request.
>
> I use the rehosting tool once a quarter to keep up with our SAP system refresh schedule. It takes
> a lot of time and effort to develop a process that will work for you. I have found that running
> the rehost tool in stages (a few tasks at a time) we get better results. Lately we''ve been able
> rehost our Production system back to Test/Sandbox in about 4 hours.
>
> Jim...to answer your question, I ran into a similar issue (unable to connect to db) where Tech
> Support was unable to find a cause. What I ended up doing was renaming the rehost folder and
> downloading the tool again. Copy your rehost and project property files from the old directory to
> the new and run setAuth again. It worked for me.
>
> *From:*Jamie Momber [
> *Subject:* [solutions] - RE: Automated rehosting. Bugs and problems help request.
>
> For what it's worth, I had the same experience as Mike when PTC first released the tool. At the
> time it only supported one rehost scenario, and after that failed, tech support said they really
> don't use the tool internally - they do it manually because they know how to do it that way so
> it's easier. That was a year and a half ago at least, so maybe it has changed. However, it caused
> such issues for us, we haven't tried the tool since.
>
> ~Jamie
>
> -----End Original Message-----
>
> -----End Original Message-----
>
> -----End Original Message-----
>
> -----End Original Message-----


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Randy Jones
Systems Administrator
Great Plains Mfg., Inc.
1525 E North St
PO Box 5060
Salina, KS USA 67401
email: -
Phone: 785-823-3276
Fax: 785-667-2695
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[ChrisWatson]

As the incoming PTC Product Owner for Rehosting - I concur with many of the points raised here. It would be nice if there was a standardized tool, but as Randy points out there does need to be a middle ground between a single script and the many variances in customer reality. The current and pending solutions do provide a box of tools but they need to be tailored heavily to a customer environment and indeed allow for customization since for example we don't support Copy-On-Write FSs out of the box (personally I can't get enough ZFS (although the current Linux implementation is a little buggy)).

Looking forward we are planning to both improve the box of tools and to reduce the level of tailoring - and that's something that I need feedback on.

I will say that I whilst I have 15+ years of Windchill experience under my belt, I have never rehosted a system (I've installed many and upgraded quite a few) - and I thoroughly intend to demonstrate rehosting based on PTC documentation and tools available to customers; at PTC Live Global - when I will expect Mike to make good on that Lobster dinner.

So challenge laid down - I expect to see you all at my session.....

Chris

[jzupfer]

That's great news, Chris-and we'll look forward to getting any and all feedback you have regarding the documentation.

Jane

[

[MikeLockwood]

Well said 🙂
[cid:image001.png@01CF6EAF.4F29B7E0]

I'll even pay up fully if you complete the simplest possible case:*

- Oracle, Windchill on same host, Windows, no replication, no cluster, no VMWare

- Only PDMLink installed, no Solr, no WBR, no visualization, no WPA

- Windchill data consists of one WTDocument, vaulted on same host (forceContentToVault=true)

- Target is different hostname, same architecture, standard file system

* Using only the documentation currently available to customers and creating no more than 10 tech support cases

Unfortunately, I'll miss PTC/User next month - first time in 12 years.

[ChrisWatson]

Linux not Windows - I have standards
And this round will need to run in a VMware guest - but won't use VMware features.

Chris

[JimTVancouverCa]

Hello Randy,

It sounds like you have a good system worked out. I do see that there are certain things that only have to be done the first time, and other tasks that can happen at other times. The rehosting utility can accomodate some of this by the looks of it. The guide perhaps doesn't cover this in enough detail, that being said it is not an easy topic to learn as many have said and I am experiencing.

- Jim

[JimTVancouverCa]

Hello Chris,

Congratulations on the new assignment. I wish I could attend this year's PTC Live to see your progress as you work to improve the rehost experience.

You commented, in a way, that you prefer linux. No site I have worked at yet has used Linux for their Windchill servers. Will there be good documentation, testing, and examples provided for those of us in a Microsoft / Oracle only world?

Thanks again.

[MarcHendrickson]

I will say this again, if you used your own technology, I.E. O&V, Technical Publications, etc... that you sell to your customers to provide better documentation of configurable products. You could build not only the streamline scripts for rehosting the Windchill Configurable Product but you could also provide specific admin guides specific to my installation...

Just a thought.

[ChrisWatson]

Jim,

Thanks

My personal preference reflects what I would use for demos and research. It doesn't affect what we would document, QA or support - that would of course be the full range of supported systems.

Chris

[RandyJones]

On 05/13/14 15:38, Jim Taylor wrote:
>
> Hello Randy,
>
> It sounds like you have a good system worked out. I do see that there are certain things that
> only have to be done the first time, and other tasks that can happen at other times. The
> rehosting utility can accomodate some of this by the looks of it. The guide perhaps doesn't cover
> this in enough detail, that being said it is not an easy topic to learn as many have said and I am
> experiencing.
>

Understanding what is happening in the rehosting process requires some knowledge of many items. A
small subset of these items include:

* Windchill itself
o properties that need changing
* Oracle
o how to tweak config files for hostname changes
o how to change Windchill tables for rehosting
* ldap
o how to export/import/modify data
* Apache
o apache config files
o what makes apache tick
* Good understanding of the OS you are using and its capablities and limitations
o Sites that use Windows to run Windchill are giving themselves a handicap when it comes to
things like rehosting
o For example running on a unix environment such as Solaris gives a whole host of tools that
are not available in Windows. A small selection of some of the more commonly used ones:
+ bash
+ tail
+ find
+ grep
+ awk
+ sed
+ ssh
+ sendmail
o Some other advantages unix OS's have
+ ability to mount a file system anywhere and have it called whatever
# This makes it easy to mount cloned zfs filesystems so a rehosted windchill server
sees the same filesystems, in the same place, and with the same name as the
production system.
+ ability to easily remotely run something via ssh
+ ability to easily remotely login (no bandwith hungry gui needed) via ssh

Rehosting a Windchill system is not a trivial process.

> - Jim
>
>
> -----End Original Message-----


--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Randy Jones
Systems Administrator
Great Plains Mfg., Inc.
1525 E North St
PO Box 5060
Salina, KS USA 67401
email: -
Phone: 785-823-3276
Fax: 785-667-2695
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[TomU]

I would like to see this demonstrated on Windows as well (with MS SQL server). The only place we run Linux is the VMware kernel, and we try to avoid that as much as possible (use the GUI instead). Everything else here is entirely Microsoft products (workstations, servers, databases, etc.).

Last year we were promised at PTC Live Global (PTC318 Rehosting and System Configuration Management) that anyone who sent a request to the presenter could get an advance "beta" copy of the 2.0 rehost tool on July 1st, 2013. After multiple requests directly to the presenter we never received anything. The production version was supposed to be released in November along with Windchill 10.2 M010. Here we are, almost a year later, and version 2.0 of the rehost utility is still not listed on the downloads page. It's very frustrating to have an entire session devoted to the wonders of the rehost utility, actually be able to watch it run real time, and then not be able to get a copy of it.

Tom U.

[kstevens]

I second that. I was at the same presentation and sent numerous e-mails to the presenter. And then in January, our PTC account team "said" they contacted support and 2.0 would be out in April. Not on my download page either.

[JimTVancouverCa]

So this came in from my clone posting to PTC Communities from Chris R Spartz:

Just replace with the password of your Windchill DB user (pdmlink). After running the xconfmanager command, try running the rehost utility again."

I'm going to try this next.

Look for results later today.

[JimTVancouverCa]

So I tried this, and it works, well getting past the db validation works anyway:

Now I think I have to xconfmanager set my ldap password, because now it halts with these two errors separated by a bunch of java calls:

...

[clawrenz-2]

Jim,

The format is as follows:

xconfmanager -s ie.ldap.managerPw=<password> -t codebase/WEB-INF/ieStructProperties.txt -p

Have a look at


So I tried this, and it works, well getting past the db validation works anyway:

Now I think I have to xconfmanager set my ldap password, because now it halts with these two errors separated by a munch of java calls:

[LdapValidator] 2014-05-15 16:35:59,455 ERROR [main] com.ptc.wc.rehost.validate.LdapV...

[JimTVancouverCa]

Hello Carsten,

I have been assigned to complete other tasks related to our PTC Creo and Windchill products. I'll try this solution as soon as I can and report back here.

Thanks again!