Testing upgrades on a cloned on-prem installation
You can install a new HCL Launch server and then populate it with data from the production server.
Procedure
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Create a host machine that is similar to your production server
configuration.
Note: The cloned server must not be an exact copy of your production environment, but is similar enough to test an upgrade.
- Install the same version of Java that the production host uses.
- Stop the production server.
-
Clone the database:
Contact your database administrators (DBAs) to clone the database. Your DBA must backup the existing database and restore it to a new database that can be accessed from the newly cloned HCL Launch server. If more assistance is needed than your DBA can provide, use your support case for assistance.
-
Clone the application data (appdata) folder:
The location of your appdata is defined by the
server.appdata.dir
property in the server's installed.properties file.Most application data folders are mount points to an external file system. If your application data folder is external to the HCL Launch server, clone the application data folder. Point your cloned HCL Launch server to the cloned application data folder to avoid using the application data folder of your production server.If your application data folder is large and you do not want to clone it for your test environment, you can skip cloning the application data folder and start a new one. If you chose not to clone the application data folder, no production component versions can be used nor can you view any production step output (both are stored in the application data folder). New component versions must be created to deploy.If you choose not to clone the application data folder, copy the other application data folder files like:- Custom email notification templates, if you want to test them after you upgrade the clone.
- The plug-ins directory.
- If you want to verify the clone's health before you perform an upgrade, copy the patches. During an upgrade, HCL Launch turns off any patches by appending ".off" to the patch name.
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If HCL Launch is
configured to use S3 storage, which is available starting with v7.0.5, clone the
S3 bucket if you want to use the same component versions artifacts as the
production server.
Note: You can skip this step if you prefer to create new component version artifacts.
- Start the production server.
-
Transfer the HCL Launch
installation files to the clone host.
Place the JDBC driver JAR file that production is using into the clone system's lib/ext directory so that the same JDBC driver is used by the clone.
-
Run the same HCL Launch
version installer as your production server, choosing not to install the
database.
The installer prompts you to configure HCL Launch to use an application data folder. If you do not use an application data folder, this configuration is corrected in a later step.
-
Copy the contents of the conf/encryption.keystore
directory of the production server to the clone’s
conf/encryption.keystore location.
To handle the differences in encryption keys, you can either replace the clone’s encryption.keystore folder after installation with the production one.
-
Modify the cloned database.
update DS_COMPONENT set IMPORT_AUTOMATICALLY='N' where IMPORT_AUTOMATICALLY='Y';
-
If HCL Launch is
configured to use S3 storage, which is available starting with v7.0.5, clone the
S3 bucket if you want to use the same component versions artifacts as the
production server.
Note: You can skip this step if you prefer to create new component version artifacts.
-
If you are not using an application data folder, replace the clone server's
var directory with the production server's
var directory.
This replacement copies over files like the artifact repository and plug-ins. You can delete the application data folder that was created during the installation because the server does not use it.
-
Start the clone server.
Note: Use the machine IP address to access the HCL Launch UI for the next step.
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Make additional changes to the clone.