Reverse engineering attribute flows from server export

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ILM (MIIS) allows management agent configuration to be exported in two ways:

  • Management Agent export
  • Server configuration export.

Both options produces XML files, however in first case one will get single file which will contain only configuration for single MA. In second case series of XML files will be created, one for each MA and MV.XML file which will contain metaverse configuration.

 

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Few days ago I had to recover at customer ILM server one agent to previous configuration to restore some flows (I still would like to see option to disable attribute flow without deleting it). As we wanted to restore some flows without touching current configuration I had to analyze previous configuration and see what have to be restored.

With Management Agent export file it is relatively easy. It contains section for import and export flows and reviewing it, while not very handy is relatively easy. But in this case MA export was not available, we had only server export.

This makes this task a bit more tricky because:

  • respective XML file for management agent configuration contains only export flow sections defined for given MA
  • each MA is identified through GUID identifier
  • MV.XML file contains information about all metaverse attributes.

MV.XML for each metaverse attribute contains section, which identifies all import flows for given attribute (per attribute sections) from all MAs. So to recover information about attribute flows for given MA from server export configuration follow this path:

  • identify XML file for your MA, note GUID identifier and analyze all export flows defined in this MA
  • open MV.XML, navigate to import attribute… section, for each attribute look for flow defined with Your MA GUID.

Probably if I will have to do again I will write a script to do this :).

BTW – one thing to remember when dealing with server configuration import. If You are performing this operation and it will fail at any step .. DO IT AGAIN FROM THE BEGINNIGN. If this process will be stopped at some stage it will leave your configuration in some “incomplete” state. Now when I analyzed how it is stored in server configuration files I think I know why …

… I don’t know if this will be helpful to a lot of people … but I decided to post it in case it will help at least one person ;).