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'.