Validating the BI Presentation Catalog

http://docs.oracle.com/cd/E23943_01/bi.1111/e10541/prescatadmin.htm#BAJBJEFA

17.2.5 Validating the Catalog

Over time, inconsistencies can develop in the catalog as links are broken, users are deleted, or NFS file system issues are encountered. These inconsistencies can eventually lead to incorrect behavior, such as the inability to edit an agent's recipient list. You can periodically take the production system offline and validate the catalog, to be informed of and to take corrective action on inconsistencies.

This section contains the following topics about validating the catalog:

• Section 17.2.5.1, "Process: Validating the Catalog"
• Section 17.2.5.2, "Tasks in the Validation Process"
• Section 17.2.5.3, "Important Guidelines for Validating the Catalog"
• Section 17.2.5.4, "Performing a Basic Validation of the Catalog"
• Section 17.2.5.5, "Specifying the Elements for Validating the Catalog"
  
  
  

17.2.5.1 Process: Validating the Catalog

The process of validating the catalog involves creating a report for the catalog in offline mode and seeing the objects that require adjustment or removal. You might fix some objects manually in offline mode. Then run the validate operation again to allow the system to "clean" by deleting any unnecessary objects. You repeat the process of creating the report, manually fixing errors, and cleaning the catalog until it is validated.

17.2.5.2 Tasks in the Validation Process

The validation process performs the following tasks:

• Ensures that each object in the catalog is larger than zero bytes.
• Ensures that each item in the catalog has a valid corresponding .atr file.
• Ensures that each link in the catalog is valid.
• Ensures that the files in the account cache are valid.
• Ensures that all XML objects in the catalog pass schema validation.
• Attempts to repair object names that were damaged by ftp programs.

17.2.5.3 Important Guidelines for Validating the Catalog

Before you validate the catalog, keep the following guidelines in mind:

• You must refresh the user GUIDs before validating the catalog. If you attempt to validate a catalog whose user GUIDs are not synchronized, then the validation process assumes that all accounts have been deleted and effectively removes all account information from the catalog.
  Use care when validating a catalog in a development environment, if that environment has a different security store from the production environment. If the validation is performed with a different security store, then many accounts might be removed from the catalog.
• When you turn on any validation of the catalog, all ACLs (that is, all privileges and every item's permissions) are "scrubbed," which means that dead accounts are removed from them and any changed items are written to disk. Therefore, even if you simply create a report without fixing any broken items automatically, you might find that the catalog is still extensively "changed."
• Before validating the catalog in a clustered environment, do one of the following:
  
  • Shut down the Presentation Services cluster and run the validation directly against the cluster's catalog.
  • Make a copy of the cluster's catalog and run the validation against that copy.
    Before using the 7-Zip utility to make a copy of a catalog, first shut down all nodes in the Presentation Services cluster or put all nodes in that cluster into Maintenance Mode (which is the recommended approach).
    Be aware that any changes that are made to the catalog online concurrently to the validation process are not included in the validation.
    While backing up the catalog is always good practice, there is no practical difference between running validate against the catalog directly versus running the validation on a backup copy.

17.2.5.4 Performing a Basic Validation of the Catalog

You can perform a basic validation of the catalog on an ad-hoc basis as needed, immediately before pushing content from a development environment to a production environment, or per a regular schedule, such as on the first Tuesday of every month.
To validate the catalog:

1. Stop Presentation Services.
   For information, see Section 4.3, "Using Fusion Middleware Control to Start and Stop Oracle Business Intelligence System Components and Java Components."
2. Back up the catalog by using the 7-Zip utility to create a compressed file for it.
3. Refresh the user GUIDs for the catalog. See "Refreshing User GUIDs" in Oracle Fusion Middleware Security Guide for Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition for information.
   
   Caution:

   Ensure that you refresh the user GUIDs before validating the catalog. Failure to do so can result in the removal of all accounts, permissions, and privileges from the catalog.
4. Create a backup copy of the instanceconfig.xml file.
   For the location of the file, see Section 3.6, "Where Are Configuration Files Located?"
5. Edit the instanceconfig.xml file so that it contains the appropriate elements for performing the validation. You must set the elements to perform the tasks for creating the report and "cleaning" the catalog at the appropriate times.
   For information on these elements, see Section 17.2.5.5, "Specifying the Elements for Validating the Catalog."
6. Start Presentation Services to run the validation according to the values that you specified in the instanceconfig.xml file.
7. Edit the instanceconfig.xml file again so that it contains the appropriate elements for performing the validation. You must set the elements to perform the tasks for creating the report and "cleaning" the catalog at the appropriate times.
8. Repeat Steps 5 through 7 until the catalog is validated.
9. Stop Presentation Services.
10. Create a backup copy of the instanceconfig.xml file in which you added the validation elements, renaming the file similar to instanceconfig_validate.xml. In this way, you have a version of the file to use as a starting point for subsequent validations.
11. Restore the backup version of the instanceconfig.xml that you created earlier to use as the current version.
12. Start Presentation Services.

17.2.5.5 Specifying the Elements for Validating the Catalog

As part of the process of validating the catalog, you include elements in the instanceconfig.xml file that run the validation when you restart Presentation Services. The following procedure describes how to edit the instanceconfig.xml file to include these elements.
Before you begin this procedure, ensure that you are familiar with the information in Section 3.4, "Using a Text Editor to Update Configuration Settings."
To specify the element for validating the catalog:

1. Open the instanceconfig.xml file for editing as described in Section 3.6, "Where Are Configuration Files Located?"
2. Locate the Catalog section in which you must add the elements that are described in Table 17-1.
3. Include the elements and their ancestor element as appropriate, as shown in the following example. In this example, the validation runs when Presentation Services starts, and Presentation Services is stopped when the validation is complete. Inconsistent accounts (such as those for deleted users), links, and objects are removed. Inconsistent users' home directory names are logged but directories are not removed.
   

   
   
       OnStartupAndExit
       Clean
       Report
       Clean
       Clean
   
   
   

   Caution:

   Include only one Catalog element in the instanceconfig.xml file or unexpected results might occur. Unless expressly noted, include most nodes (such as that for the Catalog element) in an XML document only once.
4. Save your changes and close the file.

Table 17-1 Elements for Validating the Catalog

Element	Description	Default Value
Validate	Performs the validation of the catalog according to the values of the other Validate-related elements in this section. Values are described in the following list: None — Performs no validation. OnStartupAndExit — When Presentation Services starts, performs the validation, performs the Report or Clean operation, then stops Presentation Services. You run through multiple cycles of Report, Clean, Report, and so on for each element (such as ValidateAccounts, ValidateHomes, ValidateItems, and ValidateLinks) until the catalog is validated. If this value is not None, then all privileges and each object's ACLs in the entire catalog are cleaned of terminated accounts, regardless of the settings of the other Validate-related elements.	None
ValidateAccounts	Verifies that all information about users, roles, and groups in the catalog is consistent. Values are described in the list after this table.	None
ValidateHomes	Verifies that all information about home directories in the catalog is consistent. Values are described in the list after this table. ValidateHomes is executed only if ValidateAccounts is set to either Report or Clean.	None
ValidateItems	Verifies that all information about objects in the catalog is consistent. Values are described in the list after this table.	None
ValidateLinks	Cleans shortcuts in the catalog, but does not reconcile internal references to objects. For example, suppose that a dashboard page includes the text: "display the results here after running /shared/sales/myfavreport". If a user subsequently deletes the myfavreport object, then no fix or message is indicated during validation. Values are described in the list after this table.	None

The elements have the values that are described in the following list:

• None — Specifies that no validation is performed.
• Report — Specifies that details about each inconsistent object are written to the sawlog.log file.
  For information, see Section 8.3.2, "What Are Diagnostic Log Configuration Files and Where Are They Located?"
• Clean — Specifies that details about each inconsistent object are written to the sawlog.log file and that each object is removed from the catalog.