Replication Analyzer Tool
Installing the application
RepCAT uses server mapping documents with a source and a target
server. RepCAT must be installed on each server that acts like a
source server in server mapping documents. The collect/compare task
is a server task that will treat only server mapping documents on
which the server is listed as the source server. All other server
mapping documents will be ignored. You can either opt for a new
copy of RepCAT on each server, or use replication to distribute one
centrally configured version RepCAT over several servers.
Signing
After installing RepCAT on a server, the application needs to be
signed with an ID that has access to all databases to be monitored
and is allowed to run restricted lotusscript agents. This can
either be a server ID or an administrator ID. For more information
on signing a database, please refer to the Lotus Domino
Administrator help and select 'Signing\Databases and templates'
from the index.
Security
If you would like to schedule the collect / compare task, it
will be necessary to check the server security. For a server to
open a database on another server, the server should be listed in
the 'Trusted servers' field on the server document of the server
that it tries to open the database. The 'Trusted servers' field can
be found on the server document in the domino directory, on the tab
'Security'.
RepCAT Configuration
In RepCAT a global configuration document is used to set
application preferences. The document can be opened by clicking the
button that is located in the view-action bar of most views. The
following screen will appear:
Significant differences
Use this checkbox to determine which differences between to
replica's of a database are significant. Only significant
differences will be listed in the 'Reports\Significant differences'
view and only significant differences can optionally be notified
via e-mail.
Notification options
Select wether or not you want to notify significant differences
or new replica requests (if you let RepCAT create requests) via
e-mail. If you choose to notify these events, you will also have to
provide the addressee(s) for the notification.
Setup Server Mapping
The server mapping setup is a lot like setting up the
replication connection documents in the domino directory. You can
create as many mappings as you like, but on each of the mapping
documents there is only one source and one target server. Below is
an example of a server mapping document:
This example is a server mapping from server 'Source/MyCorp' to
server 'Target/MyCorp'. There is also an optional server
description entered.
The list of directories to include specifies that information of
all databases with a filepath starting with either 'mail\' or with
'Applications\' will be retrieved. However, all databases with a
filepath starting with 'Applications\logs\' will not be retrieved.
Furthermore, that information is specified on both databases when
master templates are retrieved.
For all databases that are within the specified directories, RepCAT
will retrieve the database properties. Using the replica ID of the
database, RepCAT will try to locate a replica of the database on
server 'Target/MyCorp'. If a replica was found, its properties will
be retrieved and compared to the properties on the source server.
The results of the comparision will be writte to a report.
If no replica of the source database was found, RepCAT may create
one. In the example above is selected that replica's will be
created using a replica request, that has to be approved first.
Other options are to create replica requests that are automatically
approved, or not to create replica requests at all.
If RepCAT creates replica requests, you may set any number of find
and replace rules for the filepath. In the example form, two rules
are set. The first rule replaces all backslashes with as
slash-forward, as the target server is on Linux. The second rule
replaces any occurrence of 'Applications/MyApp' with
'Applications/MyOtherApp'.
Note that find/replace rules are executed in the order in which
they are listed! Therefore, the second rule searches for the
filepath 'Applications/MayApp' (slash-forward) in stead of
'Applications\MyApp' (backslash)
Find/replace rules are CASE SENSITIVE!
Scheduling the server task
All actions that RepCAT performs are combined into one scheduled
server agent. This agent ('ScheduleCollectCompare'), calls another
agent ('RunCollectCompare') and runs it on the Lotus Domino server.
The construction of using two agents and having one agent calling
the other, simplifies the application's maintenance. There is no
need to sign the application with the server ID (to obtain access
to all databases), each time the agent schedule changes. The agent
which is called on the server will not be modified and will
therefore still be executed with the access rights of the ID file
it is signed with.
To change the schedule of the task open the agent
'ScheduleCollectCompare'. Change the schedule and make sure the
agent is enabled to run on the correct server. In case of multiple
replica's of RepCAT, you can either create more instances of the
agent 'ScheduleCollectCompare' (copy-paste the agent), or schedule
the agent to run on any server
Running the agent on any server does however increase the
possibility of replication conflicts.
Log
During the execution of the collect/compare task, RepCAT will
log events and errors in the log section of the application. There
is an agent that can be scheduled to cleanup all log documents
older than 3 days. You may change this number by modifying the
agent 'CleanupLog'.