[LON-CAPA-admin] System upgrade: moving users over?

Sun May 17 02:56:51 EDT 2009

Hi Stuart,

On Sat, May 16, 2009 at 5:16 AM, Stuart Raeburn <raeburn at msu.edu> wrote:
> Lars,
>
> Yes, 64 bit on the production server and 32 bit on the testing server
> explains the behavior you report.

Yes,  I have a 64 bit laptop, and I did a standalone install on it,
and everything worked right away. I tested changing a file
authenticated user to an internally authenticated one, and that works
flawlessly too.

Thanks for your help.
Lars.

> The GDBM roles.db files (and other .db
> files in LON-CAPA) created in 64 bit on the production machine are not
> readable by the 32 bit GDBM routines installed on the testing server.
>  Consequently, the user appears to have no roles on the testing server.
>
> At MSU we use a custom GDBM installed on a testing 32 bit machine which can
> work with the format of .db files generated on a 64 bit machine.  I can send
> you the rpm (with instructions) offlist. Of course, if you have a 64 bit
> testing machine available, you could use that instead to experiment with
> SuSE -> CentOS migration, and avoid the architecture-dependent GDBM issue
> which you have encountered.
>
> Stuart Raeburn
> MSU LON-CAPA group
>
> Quoting Lars Jensen <ljensen at mail.tmcc.edu>:
>
>> Hi Stuart,
>>
>> This just came to my mind: My test server is 32 bit, while my
>> production server is x86_64. Could this be why I see no roles? Is thre
>> ay way of convrting back to 32 bit while testing?
>>
>> Lars.
>>
>> On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 10:54 PM, Lars Jensen <ljensen at mail.tmcc.edu>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi Stuart and Stefan,
>>>
>>> After trying a fresh-install on my CentOS test server i have come to
>>> the same dead end: I can login, but after login, there are no roles or
>>> courses available. User information is not available either, and
>>> password cannot be changed. The lonUsers directory tree has the
>>> correct ownership, which is www:www, so I'm not sure what's going on.
>>> The users I'm login as are all internally authenticated.
>>>
>>> The lonUsers/ and res/ directories were copied over from a server
>>> running suse 10.2, and I changed ownership of both these trees to
>>> www:www on the new server.
>>>
>>> Any ideas how to fix this?
>>>
>>> Lars.
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 4:19 PM, Lars Jensen <ljensen at mail.tmcc.edu>
>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi Stuart,
>>>>
>>>> Before I upgrade the to CentOS, I'm testing the upgrade on another
>>>> (standalone) system. The new test-system has a different IP and dns
>>>> than the production server. Is it a problem to test on a server with a
>>>> different name?
>>>>
>>>> When trying to access the login page, I always get the following  screen
>>>> first:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> The LearningOnline Network with CAPA
>>>> This LON-CAPA server is temporarily not available for login.
>>>>
>>>> Please attempt to login to one of the following servers:
>>>>
>>>> Then when I click "Refresh" in the browser, I get the normal login
>>>> page. It looks first like everything works normal when I login as dc1,
>>>> but when I try to modify a user I know should exist, the user fields
>>>> come up blank. I'm wondering whether it has to do with the database?
>>>> It is as if the new server is not "seeing" the users...
>>>>
>>>> On the new server, I started he install of CentOS using the directions
>>>> at install.lon-capa.org. Is this the correct procedure? Should I do
>>>> step 6? Do I need to set a mysql password, or is this taken care of by
>>>> copying over the httpd directory from the old server?
>>>>
>>>> At what point should I copy over the old httpd directory?
>>>>
>>>> Should I set up the dc as a file system user before or after  copying
>>>> over httpd?
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>> Lars.
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, May 14, 2009 at 3:37 PM, Stuart Raeburn <raeburn at msu.edu> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Lars,
>>>>>
>>>>> When switching between SuSE and Fedora/CentOS distros, because of the
>>>>> different encryption algorithms you would need to create the user  and
>>>>> group
>>>>> accounts (with the same uids and gids as they had on the original
>>>>> system)
>>>>> from the command line.  That said this only applies to filesystem
>>>>> authenticated users, of which there should only be a few.  Although
>>>>> filesystem authentication (or "UNIX" auth) is still supported in
>>>>> LON-CAPA,
>>>>> in more recent releases it is not available via the web GUI as an
>>>>>  option to
>>>>> assign to new users or an authentication type to which existing  users
>>>>> can be
>>>>> changed.  As Stefan pointed out, the one filesystem authenticated user
>>>>> you
>>>>> would typically have in a recently created LON-CAPA domain is a Domain
>>>>> Coordinator (if created using the make_domain_coordinator.pl script.
>>>>>
>>>>> The fact that the user can login indicates that authentication is not
>>>>> the
>>>>> issue in this particular case.  It seems it is more likely to be a
>>>>> permissions issue (i.e., the www user can not read the contents of the
>>>>> user's roles.db file, e.g.,  in
>>>>>  /home/httpd/lonUsers/tmcc/l/j/e/ljensen) or
>>>>> an architecture change (e.g., 32 bit to 64 bit) if you have changed
>>>>> hardware, between the old installation and the new.  If this is a  32
>>>>> bit ->
>>>>> 64 bit issue, as described at: http://loncapa.org/hardwareupgrade.html,
>>>>> there is a LON-CAPA script which can be used to copy the db files.
>>>>>
>>>>> The fact that login was possible indicates that the www user was able
>>>>> to
>>>>> view the contents of, for example,
>>>>> /home/httpd/lonUsers/tmcc/l/j/e/ljensen/passwd which contains
>>>>> information
>>>>> about the the authentication type.  Is other information (e.g., from
>>>>> the
>>>>> user's environment.db file - full name, etc., displayed on the roles
>>>>> page
>>>>> which reports  "Currently no active roles or courses"?
>>>>>
>>>>> Stuart Raeburn
>>>>> MSU LON-CAPA group
>>>>>
>>>>> Quoting Lars Jensen <ljensen at tmcc.edu>:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Stefan,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for the reply. The problem is that I'm going from suse to
>>>>>> Centos, and apparently it is not possible to just copy over the
>>>>>> password fils - see comment on the page you referred me to:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "Transfer /etc/passwd, /etc/shadow, /etc/group, /etc/gshadow from the
>>>>>> old machine to the new one
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Warning: this does not work if you go from Fedora to SUSE or vice
>>>>>> versa, since these distributions use different encryption algorithms.
>>>>>> If you switch distributions, you need to make the file-system-based
>>>>>> LON-CAPA users from the command line."
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Two years ago, we went from Fedora to Suse, and we managed to transfer
>>>>>> the users fine. Unfortunately, I don't remember how we transferred the
>>>>>> users, but I recall a similar problem to the one I'm seeing here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Lars.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Stefan Bisitz wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Hi Lars,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I guess that the host entries somewhere in the system are not all
>>>>>>> correctly configured. But before starting to search please have a
>>>>>>> look
>>>>>>> at:
>>>>>>> http://loncapa.org/hardwareupgrade.html
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Your questions should be answered there. If not, please tell so the
>>>>>>> site
>>>>>>> can be updated.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> By the way, creation of a new domain coordinator is not necessary.
>>>>>>> Follow the steps carfully and you'll get your whole old system on the
>>>>>>> new one.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Stefan Bisitz
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On 13.05.2009, 21:14 -0700, Lars Jensen wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Hi everyone,
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> We're preparing for a system upgrade of our lon-capa system. We're
>>>>>>>>  moving from suse to CentOS 5.3. I moved the /home/httpd  directory
>>>>>>>>  over and
>>>>>>>> I created the domain coordinator. How do I move the users  over?
>>>>>>>> When I
>>>>>>>> login as a user, I get a "Currently no active roles  or  courses"
>>>>>>>> message.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Lars.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
>>>>> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>
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