Rational Synchronization Server: What to do when Rational Team Concert server is renamed

Authors: SuryaTripathi
Build basis: Rational Synchronization Server 1.4; Rational Team Concert 4.0; Rational Change 5.3.0.3 iFix001; Rational Synergy 7.2.0.2 iFix002

The purpose of this document is to help users of Rational Synchronization Server who have or are going to rename the Rational Team Concert server.

Why CLM server rename could be a problem for Rational Synchronization Server ?

The Rational Synchronization Server can be used to synchronize work items and change requests between IBM Rational Team Concert and IBM Rational Change. If a CLM server is renamed, the Rational Synchronization Server can not connect to Rational Team Concert thus stopping the synchronization of work items and change requests. Also, users can no longer navigate to work items from change requests in Rational Change.

What you need to do ?

So that the Synchronization Server can continue to synchronize data between Rational Team Concert and Change, you must perform the following steps:

Step 1: Update Rational Team Concert server URL stored in Rational Synchronization Server

Edit the template file and update URL.

• Stop the Rational Synchronization Server.
• Locate the adapter template file that contains the Rational Team Concert server URL. The template file is created in XML format and is located at:

  <TOMCAT_INSTALL_DIR>\webapps\TlogicIntegration\WEB-INF\conf\Templates\changertcadapter\adaptertemplates

• There is a template file for each RTC-Change synchronizer. You must update the Rational Team Concert server URL in each template file. Update the value of rtcservername tag with the new Rational Team Concert server URL.
• For example, you could change:

<rtcservername>https://<oldserver:port>/ccm</rtcservername>

to:

<rtcservername>https://<newserver:port>/ccm</rtcservername>

Step 2: Update Rational Team Concert work items URLs stored in Rational Change

The Rational Synchronization Server links a change request to a work item and keeps the two in sync. The system also stores the URL of the work item in an attribute on the change request. So, each change request contains the URL of the work item to which it is linked. While configuring the URL mapping of the synchronizer, the system determines which change request attribute stores the work item URL. Each RTC-Change synchronizer has a different URL mapping attribute.

When the Rational Team Concert server is renamed, the work item URL changes. So, for each synchronizer, you must replace the content of the URL mapping attribute with the new work item URL for each change request and for each Rational Synergy database.

Rational Synergy 7.2.0.2 iFix 002 and Rational Change 5.3.0.3 iFix 001 contain commands for you to use to update the URL. You do not need to know URL of every work item. All you need to know is the new base URL of the Rational Team Concert server and the Rational Change attributes that are storing the work item URL.

For each Synergy database containing URL mapping attributes, perform the following steps:

• Ensure that you have the ccm_admin role.
• Stop the Rational Change server and the Rational Synchronization Server.
• Determine which attributes in Rational Change the Synchronization Server is using to store work item URLs.
• Turn off DCM and process all pending receives to get DCM into a clean and stable state.
• Start a Synergy CLI session.
• Set your role to ccm_admin.
• Run the ccm update_urls command (see About update_urls command).
• Turn on DCM.

About update_urls command

ccm update_urls -change -old_url old_server_url -new_url new_server_url attribute_name...

• -change Specifies it is a Rational Change related command.
• -old_url Specifies the old server URL.
• -new_url Specifies the new server URL.
• -attribute_name Specifies the CR attribute names separated by space whose value may contain a reference to an old URL which needs to be updated.

For example, you have five RTC-Change synchronizers and the five change request attributes used for URL mapping are rtc_url1, rtc_url2, rtc_url3, rtc_url4 and rtc_url5.

The old work item URL is of the following form: !https://MyRTCServer:9443/ccm/resource/itemName/com.ibm.team.workitem.WorkItem/68

If MyRTCServer is renamed to MyNewRTCServer, the work item URL changes to the following form: !https://MyNewRTCServer:9443/ccm/resource/itemName/com.ibm.team.workitem.WorkItem/68

Run the following command to update the URL: ccm update_urls -change -old_url https://MyRTCServer:9443/ccm -new_url https://MyNewRTCServer:9443/ccm rtc_url1  rtc_url2 rtc_url3 rtc_url4 rtc_url5

What about comments?

The Rational Synchronization Server allows you to optionally synchronize comments between work items and change requests. When the server is renamed, Rational Team Concert updates all work item comments that contain old work items urls. You must run the update_urls command in Rational Change to replace old work item urls in change request comments with new urls ensuring that old change request comments do not synchronize and add to work item comments again. Run the following command to update URL in change request comments:
ccm update_urls -change -old_url https://MyRTCServer:9443/ccm -new_url https://MyNewRTCServer:9443/ccm transition_log

How to test that the URL update is working?

After you have successfully executed the update_urls command, start Rational Change and open a change request linked to a work item. Locate the URL mapping attribute. Copy the value, and then paste it into your web browser. You should be prompted to login to Rational Team Concert to view the work item details.

Start the Rational Synchronization Server. Look in the synchronization log. The log should indicate that Rational Synchronization Server is able to connect to Rational Team Concert Interface and is successfully synchronizing work items and change requests.

Related topics: Server Rename

Additional contributors: RosaNaranjo