Difference between revisions of "AppSuite:Running a cluster"

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<div class="title">OX Drive API</div>
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<div class="title">Running a cluster</div>
  
 
__TOC__
 
__TOC__
  
= Introduction =
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= Concepts =
  
The module <code>drive</code> is used to synchronize files and folders between server and client, using a server-centric approach to allow an easy implementation on the client-side.
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For inter-OX-communication over the network, multiple Open-Xchange servers can form a cluster. This brings different advantages regarding distribution and caching of volatile data, load balancing, scalability, fail-safety and robustness. Additionally, it provides the infrastructure for upcoming features of the Open-Xchange server.
 +
The clustering capabilities of the Open-Xchange server are mainly built up on [http://hazelcast.com Hazelcast], an open source clustering and highly scalable data distribution platform for Java. The following article provides an overview about the current featureset and configuration options.
  
The synchronization is based on checksums for files and folders, differences between the server- and client-side are determined using a three-way comparison of server, client and previously acknowledged file- and directory-versions. The synchronization logic is performed by the server, who instructs the client with a set of actions that should be executed in order to come to a synchronized state.
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= Requirements =
  
Therefore, the client takes a snapshot of it's local files and directories, calculates their checksums, and sends them as a list to the server, along with a list of previously acknowledged checksums. The server takes a similar snapshot of the files and directories on the underlying file storages and evaluates which further actions are necessary for synchronization. After executing the server-side actions, the client receives a list of actions that should be executed on the client-side. These steps are repeated until the server-state matches the client-state.  
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== Synchronized system clock times ==
 +
It is crucial that all involved members in a cluster do have their system clock times in sync with each other; e.g. by using an NTP service.
  
Key concept is that the synchronization works stateless, i.e. it can be interrupted and restarted at any time, following the eventual consistency model.  
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== HTTP routing ==
 +
An OX cluster is always part of a larger picture. Usually there is front level loadbalancer as central HTTPS entry point to the platform. This loadbalancer optionally performs HTTPS termination and forwards HTTP(S) requests to webservers (the usual and only supported choice as of now is Apache). These webservers are performing HTTPS termination (if this is not happening on the loadbalancer) and serve static content, and (which is what is relevant for our discussion here) they forward dynamic requests to the OX backends.
  
Entry point for the synchronization is the [[#Synchronize_folders|<code>syncfolders</code>]] request, where the directories are compared, and further actions are determined by the server, amongst others actions to synchronize the files in a specific directory using the [[#Synchronize_files_in_a_folder|<code>syncfiles</code>]] request. After executing the actions, the client should send another <code>syncfolders</code> request to the server and execute the returned actions (if present), or finish the synchronization if there are no more actions to execute. In pseudo-code, the synchronization routine could be implemented as follows:
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A central requirement for the interaction of these components (loadbalancer, webservers, OX nodes) is that we have session stability based on the JSESSIONID cookie / jsessionid path component suffix. This means that our application sets a cookie named JSESSIONID which has a value like <large decimal number>.<route identifier>, e.g. "5661584529655240315.OX1". The route identifier here ("OX1" in this example) is taken by the OX node from a configuration setting from a config file and is specific to one OX node. HTTP routing must happen such that HTTP requests with a cookie with such a suffix always end up the corresponding OX node. There are furthermore specific cirumstances when passing this information via cookie is not possible. Then the JSESSIONID is transferred in a path component as "jsessionid=..." in the HTTP request. The routing mechanism needs to take that into account also.
  
WHILE TRUE
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There are mainly two options to implement this. If the Apache processes are running co-located on the same machines running the OX groupware processes, it is often desired to have the front level loadbalancer perform HTTP routing to the correct machines. If dedicated Apache nodes are employed, is is usually sufficient to have the front-level loadbalancer do HTTP routing to the Apache nodes in a round-robin fashion and perform routing to the correct OX nodes in the Apache nodes.
{
 
  response = SYNCFOLDERS()
 
  IF 0 == response.actions.length
 
    BREAK
 
  ELSE
 
    EXECUTE(response.actions)
 
}
 
  
Basically, it's up to the client how often such a synchronization cycle is initiated. For example, he could start a new synchronization cycle after a fixed interval, if he recognizes that the client directories have changed, or if he is informed that something has changed on the server by an event. It's also up to the client to interrupt the synchronization cycle at any time during execution of the actions and continue later on, however, it's recommended to start a new synchronization cycle each time to avoid possibly outdated actions.
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We provide sample configuration files to configure Apache (with mod_proxy_http) to perform HTTP routing correctly in our guides on OXpedia, e.g. [[AppSuite:Main_Page_AppSuite#quickinstall]]. Central elements are the directives "ProxySet stickysession=JSESSIONID|jsessionid scolonpathdelim=On" in conjunction with the "route=OX1" parameters to the BalancerMember lines in the Proxy definition. This is valid for Apache 2.2 as of Sep-2014.
  
= API =
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How to configure a front level loadbalancer to perform HTTP equivalent HTTP routing is dependent on the specific loadbalancer implementation. If Apache is used as front level loadbalancer, the same configuration as discussed in the previous section can be employed. As of time of writing this text (Sep 2014), the alternative choices are thin. F5 BigIP is reported to be able to implement "jsessionid based persistence using iRules". nginx has the functionality in their commercial "nginx plus" product. (Both of these options have not been tested by OX.) Other loadbalancers with this functionality are not known to us.
  
As part of the [[HTTP_API|HTTP API]], the basic conventions for exchanging messages that described there are also valid for this case, especially the [[HTTP_API#Low_level_protocol|low level protocol]] and [[HTTP_API#Error_handling|error handling]]. Each request against the Drive API assumes a valid server session that is uniquely identified by the session id and the corresponding cookies and are sent with each request. A new session can be created via the [[HTTP_API#Module_.22login.22|login module]].
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If the front level loadbalancer is not capable of performing correct HTTP routing, is is required to configure correct HTTP routing on Apache level, even if Apache runs co-located on the OX nodes and thus cross-routing happens.
  
The root folder plays another important role for the message exchange. The root folder has a unique identifier. It is the parent server folder for the synchronization. All path details for directories and files are relative to this folder. This folder's id is sent with each request. To select the root folder during initial client configuration, the client may get a list of synchronizable folders with the [[#Get_synchronizable_Folders|<code>subfolders</code>]] action.
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There are several reasons why we require session stability in exactly this way. We require session stability for horizontal scale-out; while we support transparent resuming / migration of user sessions in the OX cluster without need for users to re-authenticate, sessions wandering around randomly will consume a fixed amount resources corresponding to a running session on each OX node in the cluster, while a session sticky to one OX node will consume this fixed amount of resources only on one OX node. Furthermore there are mechanisms in OX like TokenLogin which work only of all requests belonging to one sequence get routed to the same OX node even if they stem from different machines with different IPs. Only the JSESSIONID (which in this case is transferred as jsessionid path component, as cookies do not work during a 302 redirect, which is part of this sequence) carries the required information where the request must be routed to.
  
Subsequently all transferred objects and all possible actions are listed.
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Usual "routing based on cookie hash" is not sufficient here since it disregards the information which machine originally issued the cookie. It only ensures that the session will be sticky to any target, which statistically will not be the same machine that issued the cookie. OX will then set a new JSESSIONID cookie, assuming the session had been migrated. The loadbalancer will then route the session to a different target, as the hash of the cookie will differ. This procedure then happens iteratively until by chance the routing based on cookie hash will route the session to the correct target. By then, a lot of resources will have been wasted, by creating full (short-term) sessions on all OX nodes. Furthermore, processes like TokenLogin will not work this way.
  
== File Version ==
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== Same Packages ==
  
A file in a directory is uniquely identified by its filename and the checksum of its content.  
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All middleware nodes participating in the Hazelcast cluster need to have the same ''open-xchange-*'' packages installed, so that all dynamically injected class definitions are available during (de-)erialization on all nodes. So for example, even if a node does not serve requests from the web client, it still requires the realtime packages for collaborative document editing or the packages for the distributed session storage being installed.
  
{| id="FileVersion" cellspacing="0" border="1"
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= Configuration =
|+ align="bottom" | File Version
 
! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| name || String || The name of the file, including its extension, e.g. <code>test.doc</code>.
 
|-
 
| checksum || String || The MD5 hash of the file, expressed as a lowercase hexadecimal number string, 32 characters long, e.g. <code>f8cacac95379527cd4fa15f0cb782a09</code>.
 
|}
 
  
== Directory Version ==
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All settings regarding cluster setup are located in the configuration file ''hazelcast.properties''. The former used additional files ''cluster.properties'', ''mdns.properties'' and ''static-cluster-discovery.properties'' are no longer needed. The following gives an overview about the most important settings - please refer to the inline documentation of the configuration file for more advanced options.
  
A directory is uniquely identified by its full path, relative to the root folder, and the checksum of its content.  
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Note: The configuration guide targets v7.4.0 of the OX server (and above). For older versions, please consult the history of this page. A full list of Hazelcast-related properties is available at https://documentation.open-xchange.com/components/middleware/config/7.8.4/#mode=features&feature=Hazelcast .
  
{| id="DirectoryVersion" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
== General ==
|+ align="bottom" | Directory Version
 
! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| path || String || The path of the directory, including the directory's name, relative to the root folder, e.g. <code>/sub/test/letters</code>.
 
|-
 
| checksum || String || The MD5 hash of the directory, expressed as a lowercase hexadecimal number string, 32 characters long, e.g. <code>f8cacac95379527cd4fa15f0cb782a09</code>.
 
|}
 
  
Note: the checksum of a directory is calculated based on its contents in the following algorithm:
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To restrict access to the cluster and to separate the cluster from others in the local network, a name and password needs to be defined. Only backend nodes having the same values for those properties are able to join and form a cluster.
  
* Build a list containing each file in the directory (not including subfolders or files in subfolders)
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# Configures the name of the cluster. Only nodes using the same group name
* Ensure a lexicographically order in the following way:
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# will join each other and form the cluster. Required if
** Normalize the filename using the <code>NFC</code> normalization form (canonical decomposition, followed by canonical composition) - see http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/tr15-23.html for details
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# "com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join" is not "empty" (see below).
** Encode the filename to an array of UTF-8 unsigned bytes (array of codepoints)
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com.openexchange.hazelcast.group.name=
** Compare the filename (encoded as byte array "fn1") to another one "fn2" using the following comparator algorithm:
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 +
# The password used when joining the cluster. Defaults to "wtV6$VQk8#+3ds!a".
 +
# Please change this value, and ensure it's equal on all nodes in the cluster.
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com.openexchange.hazelcast.group.password=wtV6$VQk8#+3ds!a
  
min_length = MIN(LENGTH(fn1), LENGTH(fn2))
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== Network ==
FOR i = 0; i < min_length; i++
 
{
 
  result = fn1[i] - fn2[i]
 
  IF 0 != result RETURN result
 
}
 
RETURN LENGTH(fn1) - LENGTH(fn2)
 
  
* Calculate the aggregated MD5 checksum for the directory based on each file in the ordered list:
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It's required to define the network interface that is used for cluster communication via ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.interfaces''. By default, the interface is restricted to the local loopback address only. To allow the same configuration amongst all nodes in the cluster, it's recommended to define the value using a wildcard matching the IP addresses of all nodes participating in the cluster, e.g. ''192.168.0.*''
** Append the file's NFC-normalized (see above) name, encoded as UTF-8 bytes
 
** Append the file's MD5 checksum string, encoded as UTF-8 bytes
 
  
== Actions ==
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# Comma-separated list of interface addresses hazelcast should use. Wildcards
 +
# (*) and ranges (-) can be used. Leave blank to listen on all interfaces
 +
# Especially in server environments with multiple network interfaces, it's
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# recommended to specify the IP-address of the network interface to bind to
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# explicitly. Defaults to "127.0.0.1" (local loopback only), needs to be
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# adjusted when building a cluster of multiple backend nodes.
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com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.interfaces=127.0.0.1
  
All actions are encoded in the following format. Depending on the action type, not all properties may be present.
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To form a cluster of multiple OX server nodes, different discovery mechanisms can be used. The discovery mechanism is specified via the property ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join'':
  
{| id="Actions" cellspacing="0" border="1"
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# Specifies which mechanism is used to discover other backend nodes in the
|+ align="bottom" | Actions
+
# cluster. Possible values are "empty" (no discovery for single-node setups),
! Name !! Type !! Value
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# "static" (fixed set of cluster member nodes) or "multicast" (automatic
|-
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# discovery of other nodes via multicast). Defaults to "empty". Depending on
| action || String || The type of action to execute, currently one of <code>acknowledge</code>, <code>edit</code>, <code>download</code>, <code>upload</code>, <code>remove</code>, <code>sync</code>, <code>error</code>.
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# the specified value, further configuration might be needed, see "Networking"
|-
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# section below.  
| version || Object || The (original) file- or directory-version referenced by the action.
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com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join=empty
|-
 
| newVersion || Object || The (new) file- or directory-version referenced by the action.
 
|-
 
| path || String || The path to the synchronized folder, relative to the root folder.
 
|-
 
| offset || Number || The requested start offset in bytes for file uploads.
 
|-
 
| totalLength || Number || The total length in bytes for file downloads.
 
|-
 
| contentType || String || The file's content type for downloads.
 
|-
 
| created || Timestamp || The file's creation time (always UTC, not translated into user time).
 
|-
 
| modified || Timestamp || The file's last modification time (always UTC, not translated into user time).
 
|-
 
| error || Object || The error object in case of synchronization errors.
 
|-
 
| quarantine || Boolean || The flag to indicate whether versions need to be excluded from synchronization.
 
|-
 
| reset || Boolean || The flag to indicate whether locally stored checksums should be invalidated.
 
|-
 
| stop || Boolean || The flag to signal that the client should stop the current synchronizsation cycle.  
 
|-
 
| acknowledge || Boolean || The flag to signal if the client should not update it's stored checksums when performing an <code>EDIT</code> action.  
 
|-
 
| thumbnailLink || String || A direct link to a small thumbnail image of the file if available (deprecated, available until API version 2).  
 
|-
 
| previewLink || String || A direct link to a medium-sized preview image of the file if available (deprecated, available until API version 2).  
 
|-
 
| directLink || String || A direct link to the detail view of the file in the web interface (deprecated, available until API version 2).  
 
|-
 
| directLinkFragments || String || The fragments part of the direct link (deprecated, available until API version 2).
 
|}
 
  
The following list gives an overview about the used action types:
+
Generally, it's advised to use the same network join mechanism for all nodes in the cluster, and, in most cases, it's strongly recommended to use a ''static'' network join configuration. This will allow the nodes to join the cluster directly upon startup. With a ''multicast'' based setup, nodes will merge to an existing cluster possibly at some later time, thus not being able to access the distributed data until they've joined.
  
=== <code>acknowledge</code> ===
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Depending on the network join setting, further configuration may be necessary, as decribed in the following paragraphs.
Acknowledges the successful synchronization of a file- or directory version, i.e., the client should treat the version as synchronized by updating the corresponding entry in its metadata store and including this updated information in all following <code>originalVersions</code> arrays of the <code>syncfiles</code> / <code>syncfolders</code> actions. Depending on the <code>version</code> and <code>newVersion</code> parameters of the action, the following acknowledge operations should be executed (exemplarily for directory versions, file versions are acknowledged in the same way):
 
  
* Example 1: Acknowledge a first time synchronized directory <br /> The server sends an <code>acknowledge</code> action where the newly synchronized directory version is encoded in the  <code>newVersion</code> parameter. The client should store the version in his local checksum store and send this version in the <code>originalVersions</code> array in upcoming <code>syncfolders</code> requests.
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=== empty ===
{
 
  "action" : "acknowledge",
 
  "newVersion" : {
 
      "path" : "/",
 
      "checksum" : "d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e"
 
  }
 
}
 
  
* Example 2: Acknowledge a synchronized directory after updates <br /> The server sends an <code>acknowledge</code> action where the previous directory version is encoded in the <code>version</code>, and the newly synchronized directory in the <code>newVersion</code> parameter. The client should replace any previously stored entries of the directory version in his local checksum store with the updated version, and send this version in the <code>originalVersions</code> array in upcoming <code>syncfolders</code> requests.
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When using the default value ''empty'', no other nodes are discovered in the cluster. This value is suitable for single-node installations. Note that other nodes that are configured to use other network join mechanisms may be still able to still to connect to this node, e.g. using a ''static'' network join, having the IP address of this host in the list of potential cluster members (see below).
{
 
  "action" : "acknowledge",
 
  "newVersion" : {
 
    "path" : "/",
 
    "checksum" : "7bb1f1a550e9b9ab4be8a12246f9d5fb"
 
  },
 
  "version" : {
 
    "path" : "/",
 
    "checksum" : "d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e"
 
  }
 
}
 
  
* Example 3: Acknowledge the deletion of a previously synchronized directory <br /> The server sends an <code>acknowledge</code> where the <code>newVersion</code> parameter is set to <code>null</code> to acknowledge the deletion of the previously synchronized directory version as found in the <code>version</code> parameter. The client should remove any stored entries for this directory from his local checksum store, and no longer send this version in the <code>originalVersions</code> array in upcoming <code>syncfolders</code> requests. <br /> Note that an acknowledged deletion of a directory implicitly acknowledges the deletion of all contained files and subfolders, too, so the client should also remove those <code>originalVersion</code>s from his local checksum store.
+
=== static ===
{
 
  "action" : "acknowledge",
 
  "version" : {
 
    "path" : "/test",
 
    "checksum" : "3525d6f28eb8cb30eb61ab7932367c35"
 
  }
 
}
 
  
=== <code>edit</code> ===
+
The most common setting for ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join'' is ''static''. A static cluster discovery uses a fixed list of IP addresses of the nodes in the cluster. During startup and after a specific interval, the underlying Hazelcast library probes for not yet joined nodes from this list and adds them to the cluster automatically. The address list is configured via ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.static.nodes'':
Instructs the client to edit a file- or directory version. This is used for move/rename operations. The <code>version</code> parameter is set to the version as sent in the <code>clientVersions</code> array of the preceding <code>syncfiles</code>/</code>syncfolders</code> action. The <code>newVersion</code> contains the new name/path the client should use. Unless the optional boolean parameter <code>acknowledge</code> is set to <code>false</code> an <code>edit</code> action implies that the client updates its known versions store accordingly, i.e. removes the previous entry for <code>version</code> and adds a new entry for <code>newVersion</code>.
 
When editing a directory version, the client should implicitly take care to create any not exisiting subdirectories in the <code>path</code> of the <code>newVersion</code> parameter.
 
A concurrent client-side modification of the file/directory version can be detected by the client by comparing the current checksum against the one in the passed <code>newVersion</code> parameter.
 
  
* Example 1: Rename a file <br /> The server sends an <code>edit</code> action where the source file is encoded in the <code>version</code>, and the target file in the <code>newVersion</code> parameter. The client should rename the file identified by the <code>version</code> parameter to the name found in the <code>newVersion</code> parameter. Doing so, the stored checksum entry for the file in <code>version</code> should be updated, too, to reflect the changes.
+
# Configures a comma-separated list of IP addresses / hostnames of possible
{
+
# nodes in the cluster, e.g. "10.20.30.12, 10.20.30.13:5701, 192.178.168.110".
  "path" : "/",
+
# Only used if "com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join" is set to "static".  
  "action" : "edit",
+
# It doesn't hurt if the address of the local host appears in the list, so
  "newVersion" : {
+
# that it's still possible to use the same list throughout all nodes in the
    "name" : "test_1.txt",
+
# cluster.
    "checksum" : "03395a94b57eef069d248d90a9410650"
+
  com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.static.nodes=
  },
 
  "version" : {
 
    "name" : "test.txt",
 
    "checksum" : "03395a94b57eef069d248d90a9410650"
 
  }
 
  }
 
  
* Example 2: Move a directory <br /> The server sends an <code>edit</code> action where the source directory is encoded in the <code>version</code>, and the target directory in the <code>newVersion</code> parameter. The client should move the directory identified by the <code>version</code> parameter to the path found in the <code>newVersion</code> parameter. Doing so, the stored checksum entry for the directory in <code>version</code> should be updated, too, to reflect the changes.
+
For a fixed set of backend nodes, it's recommended to simply include the IP addresses of all nodes in the list, and use the same configuration for each node. However, it's only required to add the address of at least one other node in the cluster to allow the node to join the cluster. Also, when adding a new node to the cluster and this list is extended accordingly, existing nodes don't need to be shut down to recognize the new node, as long as the new node's address list contains at least one of the already running nodes.  
{
 
  "action" : "edit",
 
  "newVersion" : {
 
    "path" : "/test2",
 
    "checksum" : "3addd6de801f4a8650c5e089769bdb62"
 
  },
 
  "version" : {
 
    "path" : "/test1/test2",
 
    "checksum" : "3addd6de801f4a8650c5e089769bdb62"
 
  }
 
}
 
  
* Example 3: Rename a conflicting file <br /> The server sends an <code>edit</code> action where the original client file is encoded in the <code>version</code>, and the target filename in the <code>newVersion</code> parameter. The client should rename the file identified by the <code>version</code> parameter to the new filename found in the <code>newVersion</code> parameter. If the <code>acknowledge</code> parameter is set to <code>true</code> or is not set, the stored checksum entry for the file in <code>version</code> should be updated, too, to reflect the changes, otherwise, as in this example, no changes should be done to the stored checksums.
+
=== multicast ===
{
 
  "action" : "edit",
 
  "version" : {
 
    "checksum" : "fade32203220752f1fa0e168889cf289",
 
    "name" : "test.txt"
 
  },
 
  "newVersion" : {
 
    "checksum" : "fade32203220752f1fa0e168889cf289",
 
    "name" : "test (TestDrive).txt"
 
  },
 
  "acknowledge" : false,
 
  "path" : "/"
 
}
 
  
=== <code>download</code> ===
+
For highly dynamic setups where nodes are added and removed from the cluster quite often and/or the host's IP addresses are not fixed, it's also possible to configure the network join via multicast. During startup and after a specific interval, the backend nodes initiate the multicast join process automatically, and discovered nodes form or join the cluster afterwards. The multicast group and port can be configured as follows:
Contains information about a file version the client should download. For updates of existing files, the previous client version is supplied in the <code>version</code> parameter. For new files, the <code>version</code> parameter is omitted. The <code>newVersion</code> holds the target file version, i.e. filename and checksum, and should be used for the following <code>download</code> request. The <code>totalLength</code> parameter is set to the file size in bytes, allowing the client to recognize when a download is finished. Given the supplied checksum, the client may decide on its own if the target file needs to be downloaded from the server, or can be created by copying a file with the same checksum to the target location, e.g. from a trash folder. The file's content type can be retrieved from the <code>contentType</code> parameter, similar to the file's creation and modification times that are availble in the <code>created</code> and <code>modified</code> parameters.
 
  
* Example 1: Download a new file <br /> The server sends a <code>download</code> action where the file version to download is encoded in the <code>newVersion</code> paramter. The client should download and save the file as indicated by the <code>name</code> property of the <code>newVersion</code> in the directory identified by the supplied <code>path</code>. After downloading, the <code>newVersion</code> should be added to the client's known file versions database.  
+
# Configures the multicast address used to discover other nodes in the cluster
  {
+
# dynamically. Only used if "com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join" is set
  "totalLength" : 536453,
+
  # to "multicast". If the nodes reside in different subnets, please ensure that
  "path" : "/",
+
# multicast is enabled between the subnets. Defaults to "224.2.2.3".
  "action" : "download",
+
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.multicast.group=224.2.2.3
  "newVersion" : {
+
    "name" : "test.pdf",
+
# Configures the multicast port used to discover other nodes in the cluster
    "checksum" : "3e0d7541b37d332c42a9c3adbe34aca2"
+
# dynamically. Only used if "com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join" is set
  },
+
# to "multicast". Defaults to "54327".
  "contentType" : "application/pdf",
+
  com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.multicast.port=54327
  "created" : 1375276738232,
 
  "modified" : 1375343720985
 
  }
 
  
* Example 2: Download an updated file <br /> The server sends a <code>download</code> action where the previous file version is encoded in the <code>version</code>, and the file version to download in the <code>newVersion</code> parameter. The client should download and save the file as indicated by the <code>name</code> property of the <code>newVersion</code> in the directory identified by the supplied <code>path</code>, replacing the previous file. After downloading, the <code>newVersion</code> should be added to the client's known file versions database, replacing an existing entry for the previous <code>version</code>.
+
== Example ==
{
 
  "totalLength" : 1599431,
 
  "path" : "/",
 
  "action" : "download",
 
  "newVersion" : {
 
    "name" : "test.pdf",
 
    "checksum" : "bb198790904f5a1785d7402b0d8c390e"
 
  },
 
  "contentType" : "application/pdf",
 
  "version" : {
 
    "name" : "test.pdf",
 
    "checksum" : "3e0d7541b37d332c42a9c3adbe34aca2"
 
  },
 
  "created" : 1375276738232,
 
  "modified" : 1375343720985
 
}
 
  
=== <code>upload</code> ===
+
The following example shows how a simple cluster named ''MyCluster'' consisting of 4 backend nodes can be configured using ''static'' cluster discovery. The node's IP addresses are 10.0.0.15, 10.0.0.16, 10.0.0.17 and 10.0.0.18. Note that the same ''hazelcast.properties'' is used by all nodes.
Instructs the client to upload a file to the server. For updates of existing files, the previous server version is supplied in the <code>version</code> parameter, and should be used for the following <code>upload</code> request. For new files, the <code>version</code> parameter is omitted. The <code>newVersion</code> holds the target file version, i.e. filename and checksum, and should be used for the following <code>upload</code> request. When resuming a previously partly completed upload, the <code>offset</code> parameter contains the offset in bytes from which the file version should be uploaded by the client. If possible, the client should set the <code>contentType</code> parameter for the uploaded file, otherwise, the content type falls back to <code>application/octet-stream</code>.
 
  
=== <code>remove</code> ===
+
com.openexchange.hazelcast.group.name=MyCluster
Instructs the client to delete a file or directory version. The <code>version</code> parameter contains the version to delete. A deletion also implies a removal of the corresponding entry in the client's known versions store.
+
com.openexchange.hazelcast.group.password=secret
A concurrent client-side modification of the file/directory version can be detected by comparing the current checksum against the one in the passed <code>version</code> parameter.
+
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join=static
 +
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.static.nodes=10.0.0.15,10.0.0.16,10.0.0.17,10.0.0.18
 +
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.interfaces=10.0.0.*
  
* Example 1: Remove a file <br /> The server sends a <code>remove</code> action where the file to be removed is encoded as <code>version</code> parameter. The <code>newVersion</code> parameter is not set in the action. The client should delete the file identified by the <code>version</code> parameter. A stored checksum entry for the file in <code>version</code> should be removed, too, to reflect the changes. The <code>newVersion</code> parameter is not set in the action.
 
{
 
  "path" : "/test2",
 
  "action" : "remove",
 
  "version" : {
 
    "name" : "test.txt",
 
    "checksum" : "03395a94b57eef069d248d90a9410650"
 
  }
 
}
 
  
* Example 2: Remove a directory <br /> The server sends a <code>remove</code> action where the directory to be removed is encoded as <code>version</code> parameter. The <code>newVersion</code> parameter is not set in the action. The client should delete the directory identified by the <code>version</code> parameter. A stored checksum entry for the directory in <code>version</code> should be removed, too, to reflect the changes.
+
== Advanced Configuration ==
{
 
  "action" : "remove",
 
  "version" : {
 
    "path" : "/test1",
 
    "checksum" : "d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e"
 
  }
 
}
 
  
=== <code>sync</code> ===
+
=== Lite Members (available since v7.8.4) ===
The client should trigger a synchronization of the files in the directory supplied in the <code>version</code> parameter using the <code>syncfiles</code> request. A <code>sync</code> action implies the client-side creation of the referenced directory if it not yet exists, in case of a new directory on the server. \\
 
If the <code>version</code> parameter is not specified, a synchronization of all folders using the <code>syncfolders</code> request should be initiated by the client. \\
 
If the <code>reset</code> flag in the <code>SYNC</code> action is set to <code>true</code>, the client should reset his local state before synchronizing the files in the directory. This may happen when the server detects a synchronization cycle, or believes something else is going wrong. Reset means that the client should invalidate any stored original checksums for the directory itself and any contained files, so that they get re-calculated upon the next synchronization. If the <code>reset</code> flag is set in a <code>SYNC</code> action without a apecific directory version, the client should invalidate any stored checksums, so that all file- and directory-versions get re-calculated during the following synchronizations.
 
  
* Example 1: Synchronize folder <br /> The server sends a <code>sync</code> action with a <code>version</code>. The client should trigger a <code>syncfiles</code> request for the specified folder.
+
Lite members in a Hazelcast cluster are members that do not hold any data partitions, i.e. all read- and write operations to distributed maps are delegated to non-lite ("full") members. Apart from not having data partitions, lite members participate in the same way as other members: they can register listeners for distributed topics (e.g. cache invalidation events) or can be addressed for task execution (e.g. during realtime communication).
{
 
  "action": "sync",
 
  "version": {
 
    "path": "<folder>",
 
    "checksum": "<md5>"
 
  }
 
}
 
  
* Example 2: Synchronize all folders <br /> The server sends a <code>sync</code> action without <code>version</code> (or version is //null//). The client should trigger a <code>syncfolder</code> request, i.e. the client should synchronize all folders.
+
Similar to using a custom partitioning scheme, separating the nodes of a large cluster into few "full" members and many "lite" members helps to minimize the impact of JVM activities from a single node (mainly the garbage collector) on the whole cluster communication. Additionally, when starting or stopping lite members, no repartitioning of the distributed cluster data needs to be performed, which significantly decreases the node's startup- and shutdown time and reduces the necessary network communication to a minimum.
{
 
  "action": "sync",
 
  "version": null
 
}
 
  
=== <code>error</code> ===
+
In medium or larger sized clusters, it is sufficient to have roughly 10 to 20 percent of the nodes configured as "full" members, while all other ones can be started as "lite" member nodes. Additionally, please note that the configured backup count in the map configurations should always be smaller than the total number of "full" members, otherwise, there may be problems if one of those data nodes is shut down temporarily for maintenance. So, the minimum number of "full" members is implicitly bound to the sum of a map's ''backupCount'' and ''asyncBackupCount'' properties, plus ''1'' for the original data partition.  
With the <code>error</code> action, file- or directory versions causing a synchronization problem can be identified. The root cause of the error is encoded in the <code>error</code> parameter as described at the [[HTTP_API#Error_handling|HTTP API]].  
 
  
Basically, there are two scenarios where either the errorneous version affects the synchronization state or not. For example, a file that was deleted at the client without sufficient permissions on the server can just be downloaded again by the client, and afterwards, client and server are in-sync again. On the other hand, e.g. when creating a new file at the client and this file can't be uploaded to the server due to missing permissions, the client is out of sync as long as the file is present. Therefore, the boolean parameter <code>quarantine</code> instructs the client whether the file or directory version must be excluded from the synchronization or not. If it is set to <code>true</code>, the client should exclude the version from the <code>clientVersions</code> array, and indicate the issue to the enduser. However, if the synchronization itself is not affected and the <code>quarantine</code> flag is set to <code>false</code>, the client may still indicate the issue once to the user in the background, e.g. as a balloontip notification.  
+
The configured "full" members should preferrably not be used to serve client requests (by not adding them as endpoint in the loadbalancer), to ensure they are always responsive. Also, shutdown and startups of those "full" members should be reduced to a minimum to avoid repartitioning operations.  
  
The client may reset it's quarantined versions on it's own, e.g. if the user decides to "try again", or automatically after a configurable interval.  
+
More general information regarding lite members is available at http://docs.hazelcast.org/docs/latest/manual/html-single/index.html#enabling-lite-members .
  
The server may also decide that further synchronization should be suspended, e.g. in case of repeated synchronization problems. Such a situation is indicated with the parameter <code>stop</code> set to <code>true</code>. In this case, the client should at least cancel the current synchronization cycle. If appropriate, the client should also be put into a 'paused' mode, and the user should be informed accordingly.
+
To configure a node as "lite" member, the following configuration should be applied in the node's ''hazelcast.properties'' file:
  
There may also be situations where a error or warning is sent to the client, independently of a file- or directory version, e.g. when the client version is outdated and a newer version is available for download.
+
com.openexchange.hazelcast.liteMember=true
  
The most common examples for errors are insufficient permissions or exceeded quota restrictions, see examples below.
+
It's also recommended to use a "static" cluster discovery for the network join, and list all "full" member nodes here, so that join requests are handled by those nodes, too (and not the other nodes that are potentially prone to garbage collection delays.  
  
* Example 1: Create a file in a read-only folder <br /> The server sends an <code>error</code> action where the errorneous file is encoded in the <code>newVersion</code> parameter and the <code>quarantine</code> flag is set to <code>true</code>. The client should exclude the version from the <code>clientVersions</code> array in upcoming <code>syncFiles</code> requests so that it doesn't affect the synchronization algorithm. The error message and further details are encoded in the <code>error</code> object of the action.
+
=== Custom Partitioning ===
{
 
  "error" : {
 
    "category" : 3,
 
    "error_params" : ["/test"],
 
    "error" : "You are not allowed to create files at \"/test\"",
 
    "error_id" : "1358320776-69",
 
    "categories" : "PERMISSION_DENIED",
 
    "code" : "DRV-0012"
 
  },
 
  "path" : "/test",
 
  "quarantine" : true,
 
  "action" : "error",
 
  "newVersion" : {
 
    "name" : "test.txt",
 
    "checksum" : "3f978a5a54cef77fa3a4d3fe9a7047d2"
 
  }
 
}
 
  
* Example 2: Delete a file without sufficient permissions <br /> Besides a new <code>download</code> action to restore the locally deleted file again, the server sends an <code>error</code> action where the errorneous file is encoded in the <code>version</code> parameter and the <code>quarantine</code> flag is set to <code>false</code>. Further synchronizations are not affected, but the client may still inform the user about the rejected operation. The error message and further details are encoded in the <code>error</code> object of the action.
+
Note: Starting with v7.8.4, "Lite Members" should be used in favor of applying a custom partitioning scheme.
{
 
  "error" : {
 
    "category" : 3,
 
    "error_params" : ["test.png", "/test"],
 
    "error" : "You are not allowed to delete the file \"test.png\" at \"/test\"",
 
    "error_id" : "1358320776-74",
 
    "categories" : "PERMISSION_DENIED",
 
    "code" : "DRV-0011"
 
  },
 
  "path" : "/test",
 
  "quarantine" : false,
 
  "action" : "error",
 
  "newVersion" : {
 
    "name" : "test.png",
 
    "checksum" : "438f06398ce968afdbb7f4db425aff09"
 
  }
 
}
 
  
* Example 3: Upload a file that exceeds the quota <br /> The server sends an <code>error</code> action where the errorneous file is encoded in the <code>newVersion</code> parameter and the <code>quarantine</code> flag is set to <code>true</code>. The client should exclude the version from the <code>clientVersions</code> array in upcoming <code>syncFiles</code> requests so that it doesn't affect the synchronization algorithm. The error message and further details are encoded in the <code>error</code> object of the action.
+
While originally being designed to separate the nodes holding distributed data into different risk groups for increased fail safety, a custom partitioning strategy may also be used to distinguish between nodes holding distributed data from those who should not.  
{
 
  "error" : {
 
    "category" : 3,
 
    "error_params" : [],
 
    "error" : "The allowed Quota is reached",
 
    "error_id" : "-485491844-918",
 
    "categories" : "PERMISSION_DENIED",
 
    "code" : "DRV-0016"
 
  },
 
  "path" : "/",
 
  "quarantine" : true,
 
  "action" : "error",
 
  "newVersion" : {
 
    "name" : "test.txt",
 
    "checksum" : "0ca6033e2a9c2bea1586a2984bf111e6"
 
  }
 
}
 
  
* Example 4: Synchronize with a client where the version is no longer supported. <br /> The server sends an <code>error</code> action with code <code>DRV-0028</code> and an appropriate error message. The <code>stop</code> flag is set to <code>true</code> to interrupt the synchronization cycle.  
+
This approach of custom partitioning may be used in a OX cluster, where usually different backend nodes serve different purposes. A common scenario is that there are nodes handling requests from the web interfaces, and others being responsible for USM/EAS traffic. Due to their nature of processing large chunks of synchronization data in memory, the USM/EAS nodes may encounter small delays when the Java garbage collector kicks in and suspends the Java Virtual Machine. Since those delays may also have an influence on hazelcast-based communication in the cluster, the idea is to instruct hazelcast to not store distributed data on that nodes. This is where a custom partitioning scheme comes into play.
{
 
  "stop" : true,
 
  "error" : {
 
    "category" : 13,
 
    "error_params" : [],
 
    "error" : "The client application you're using is outdated and no longer supported - please upgrade to a newer version.",
 
    "error_id" : "103394512-13",
 
    "categories" : "WARNING",
 
    "code" : "DRV-0028",
 
    "error_desc" : "Client outdated - current: \"0.9.2\", required: \"0.9.10\""
 
  },
 
  "quarantine" : false,
 
  "action" : "error"
 
}
 
  
* Example 5: Synchronize with a client where a new version of the client application is available. <br /> The server sends an <code>error</code> action with code <code>DRV-0029</code> and an appropriate error message. The <code>stop</code> flag is set to <code>false</code> to indicate that the synchronization can continue.
+
To setup a custom partitioning scheme in the cluster, an additional ''hazelcast.xml'' configuration file is used, which should be placed into the ''hazelcast'' subdirectory of the OX configuration folder, usually at ''/opt/openexchange/etc/hazelcast''. Please note that it's vital that each node in the cluster is configured equally here, so the same ''hazelcast.xml'' file should be copied to each server. The configuration read from there is used as basis for all further settings that are taken from the ordinary ''hazelcast.properties'' config file.  
{
 
  "stop" : false,
 
  "error" : {
 
    "category" : 13,
 
    "error_params" : [],
 
    "error" : "A newer version of your client application is available for download.",
 
    "error_id" : "103394512-29",
 
    "categories" : "WARNING",
 
    "code" : "DRV-0029",
 
    "error_desc" : "Client update available - current: \"0.9.10\", available: \"0.9.12\""
 
  },
 
  "quarantine" : false,
 
  "action" : "error"
 
}
 
 
== Synchronize folders ==
 
  
This request performs the synchronization of all folders, resulting in different actions that should be executed on the client afterwards. This operation typically serves as an entry point for a synchronization cycle.
+
To setup a custom partitioning scheme, the partition groups must be defined in the ''hazelcast.xml'' file. See the following file for an example configuration, where the three nodes ''10.10.10.60'', ''10.10.10.61'' and ''10.10.10.62'' are defined to form an own partitioning group each. Doing so, all distributed data will be stored at one of those nodes physically, while the corresponding backup data (if configured) at one of the other two nodes. All other nodes in the cluster will not be used to store distributed data, but will still be "full" hazelcast members, which is necessary for other cluster-wide operations the OX backends use.  
  
PUT <code>/ajax/drive?action=syncfolders</code>
+
Please note that the configured backup count in the map configurations should be smaller than the number of nodes here, otherwise, there may be problems if one of those data nodes is shut down temporarily for maintenance. So, the minimum number of nodes to define in the partition group sections is implicitly bound to the sum of a map's ''backupCount'' and ''asyncBackupCount'' properties, plus ''1'' for the original data partition.
  
Parameters:
 
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
 
* <code>root</code> - The ID of the referenced root folder on the server.
 
* <code>version</code> - The current client version (matching the pattern <code>^[0-9]+(\\.[0-9]+)*$</code>). If not set, the initial version <code>0</code> is assumed.
 
* <code>apiVersion</code> - The API version that the client is using. If not set, the initial version <code>0</code> is assumed.
 
* <code>diagnostics</code> (optional) - If set to <code>true</code>, an additional diagnostics trace is supplied in the response.
 
* <code>pushToken</code> (optional) - The client's push registration token to associate it to generated events.
 
  
Request Body: <br />
+
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
A JSON object containing two JSON arrays named <code>clientVersions</code> and <code>originalVersions</code>. The client versions array lists all current directories below the root directory as a flat list, encoded as [[#Directory_Version|Directory Versions]]. The original versions array contains all previously known directories, i.e. all previously synchronized and acknowledged directories, also encoded as [[#Directory_Version|Directory Versions]]. \\
+
<!--
Optionally, available since API version 2, the JSON object may also contain two arrays named <code>fileExclusions</code> and <code>directoryExclusions</code> to define client-side exclusion filters, with each element encoded as [[#File_pattern|File patterns]] and [[#Directory_pattern|Directory patterns]] accordingly. See [[#Client_side_filtering]] for details.
+
  ~ Copyright (c) 2008-2013, Hazelcast, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
 
+
  ~
Response: <br />
+
  ~ Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
A JSON array containing all actions the client should execute for synchronization. Each array element is an action as described in [[#Actions | Actions]]. <br /> If the <code>diagnostics</code> flag was set (either to <code>true</code> or <code>false</code>), this array is wrapped into an additional JSON object in the <code>actions</code> parameter, and the diagnostics trace is provided at <code>diagnostics</code>.
+
  ~ you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 
+
  ~ You may obtain a copy of the License at
Example:
+
  ~
==> PUT http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=syncfolders&root=56&session=5d0c1e8eb0964a3095438b450ff6810f
+
  ~ http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
   > Content:
+
   ~
    {
+
  ~ Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
      "clientVersions" : [{
+
  ~ distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
          "path" : "/",
+
  ~ WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
          "checksum" : "7b744b13df4b41006495e1a15327368a"
+
  ~ See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
        }, {
+
  ~ limitations under the License.
          "path" : "/test1",
+
  -->
          "checksum" : "3ecc97334d7f6bf2b795988092b8137e"
+
        }, {
+
<hazelcast xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/config hazelcast-config-3.1.xsd"
          "path" : "/test2",
+
            xmlns="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/config"
          "checksum" : "56534fc2ddcb3b7310d3ef889bc5ae18"
+
            xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
        }, {
+
    <partition-group enabled="true" group-type="CUSTOM">
          "path" : "/test2/test3",
+
         <member-group>
          "checksum" : "c193fae995d9f9431986dcdc3621cd98"
+
            <interface>10.10.10.60</interface>
        }
+
         </member-group>
      ],
+
         <member-group>
      "originalVersions" : [{
+
            <interface>10.10.10.61</interface>
          "path" : "/",
+
         </member-group>
          "checksum" : "7b744b13df4b41006495e1a15327368a"
+
         <member-group>
        }, {
+
            <interface>10.10.10.62</interface>
          "path" : "/test2/test3",
+
         </member-group>
          "checksum" : "c193fae995d9f9431986dcdc3621cd98"
+
     </partition-group>
        }, {
+
  </hazelcast>
          "path" : "/test2",
 
          "checksum" : "35d1b51fdefbee5bf81d7ae8167719b8"
 
        }, {
 
          "path" : "/test1",
 
          "checksum" : "3ecc97334d7f6bf2b795988092b8137e"
 
        }
 
      ]
 
    }
 
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (8.0004 ms elapsed, 102 bytes received)
 
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data" : [{
 
          "action" : "sync",
 
          "version" : {
 
            "path" : "/test2",
 
            "checksum" : "56534fc2ddcb3b7310d3ef889bc5ae18"
 
          }
 
        }
 
      ]
 
    }
 
 
 
Example 2:
 
==> PUT http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=syncfolders&root=56&session=5d0c1e8eb0964a3095438b450ff6810f
 
  > Content:
 
    {
 
      "clientVersions" : [{
 
          "path" : "/",
 
          "checksum" : "7b744b13df4b41006495e1a15327368a"
 
        }, {
 
          "path" : "/test1",
 
          "checksum" : "3ecc97334d7f6bf2b795988092b8137e"
 
        }, {
 
          "path" : "/test2",
 
          "checksum" : "56534fc2ddcb3b7310d3ef889bc5ae18"
 
        }, {
 
          "path" : "/test2/test3",
 
          "checksum" : "c193fae995d9f9431986dcdc3621cd98"
 
         }
 
      ],
 
      "originalVersions" : [{
 
          "path" : "/",
 
          "checksum" : "7b744b13df4b41006495e1a15327368a"
 
         }, {
 
          "path" : "/test2/test3",
 
          "checksum" : "c193fae995d9f9431986dcdc3621cd98"
 
         }, {
 
          "path" : "/test2",
 
          "checksum" : "35d1b51fdefbee5bf81d7ae8167719b8"
 
         }, {
 
          "path" : "/test1",
 
          "checksum" : "3ecc97334d7f6bf2b795988092b8137e"
 
         }
 
      ]
 
      "fileExclusions" : [{
 
          "path" : "/",
 
          "name" : "excluded.txt",
 
          "type" : "exact"
 
        }
 
      ], "directoryExclusions" : [{
 
          "path" : "/temp",
 
          "type" : "exact"
 
         }, {
 
          "path" : "/temp/*",
 
          "type" : "glob"
 
        }
 
      ]
 
     }
 
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (8.0004 ms elapsed, 102 bytes received)
 
  <   Content:
 
    {
 
      "data" : [{
 
          "action" : "sync",
 
          "version" : {
 
            "path" : "/test2",
 
            "checksum" : "56534fc2ddcb3b7310d3ef889bc5ae18"
 
          }
 
        }
 
      ]
 
    }
 
  
 +
More general information regarding custom partioning is available at http://hazelcast.org/docs/latest/manual/html/partitiongroupconfig.html .
  
== Synchronize files in a folder ==
+
It's also recommended to use a "static" cluster discovery for the network join, and list same the nodes that are also configured in the parition groups here, so that join requests are handled by those nodes, too (and not the other nodes that are potentially prone to garbage collection delays.  
 
 
This request performs the synchronization of a single folder, resulting in different actions that should be executed on the client afterwards. This action is typically executed as result of a <code>syncfolders</code> action.
 
 
 
PUT <code>/ajax/drive?action=syncfiles</code>
 
 
 
Parameters:
 
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
 
* <code>root</code> - The ID of the referenced root folder on the server.
 
* <code>path</code> - The path to the synchronized folder, relative to the root folder.
 
* <code>device</code> (optional) - A friendly name identifying the client device from a user's point of view, e.g. "My Tablet PC".
 
* <code>apiVersion</code> - The API version that the client is using. If not set, the initial version <code>0</code> is assumed.
 
* <code>diagnostics</code> (optional) - If set to <code>true</code>, an additional diagnostics trace is supplied in the response.
 
* <code>columns</code> (optional) -  A comma-separated list of columns representing additional metadata that is relevant for the client. Each column is specified by a numeric column identifier. Column identifiers for file metadata are defined in [[#File Metadata]]. If available, the requested metadata of files is included in the corresponsing <code>DOWNLOAD</code> and <code>ACKNOWLEDGE</code> actions (deprecated, available until API version 2).
 
* <code>pushToken</code> (optional) - The client's push registration token to associate it to generated events.
 
 
 
Request Body: <br />
 
A JSON object containing two JSON arrays named <code>clientVersions</code> and <code>originalVersions</code>. The client versions array lists all current files in the client directory, encoded as [[#File Version | File Versions]]. The original versions array contains all previously known files, i.e. all previously synchronized and acknowledged files, also encoded as [[#File Version | File Versions]]. \\
 
Optionally, available since API version 2, the JSON object may also contain an array named <code>fileExclusions</code> to define client-side exclusion filters, with each element encoded as [[#File pattern | File patterns]]. See [[#Client side filtering]] for details.
 
 
 
Response: <br />
 
A JSON array containing all actions the client should execute for synchronization. Each array element is an action as described in [[#Actions | Actions]]. <br /> If the <code>diagnostics</code> flag was set (either to <code>true</code> or <code>false</code>), this array is wrapped into an additional JSON object in the <code>actions</code> parameter, and the diagnostics trace is provided at <code>diagnostics</code>.
 
 
 
Example:
 
==> PUT http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=syncfiles&root=56&path=/test2&device=Laptop&session=5d0c1e8eb0964a3095438b450ff6810f
 
  > Content:
 
    {
 
      "clientVersions" : [{
 
          "name" : "Jellyfish.jpg",
 
          "checksum" : "5a44c7ba5bbe4ec867233d67e4806848"
 
        }, {
 
          "name" : "Penguins.jpg",
 
          "checksum" : "9d377b10ce778c4938b3c7e2c63a229a"
 
        }
 
      ],
 
      "originalVersions" : [{
 
          "name" : "Jellyfish.jpg",
 
          "checksum" : "5a44c7ba5bbe4ec867233d67e4806848"
 
        }
 
      ]
 
    }
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (6.0004 ms elapsed, 140 bytes received)
 
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data" : [{
 
          "path" : "/test2",
 
          "action" : "upload",
 
          "newVersion" : {
 
            "name" : "Penguins.jpg",
 
            "checksum" : "9d377b10ce778c4938b3c7e2c63a229a"
 
          },
 
          "offset" : 0
 
        }
 
      ]
 
    }
 
 
 
Example 2:
 
==> PUT http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=syncfiles&root=56&path=/test2&device=Laptop&session=5d0c1e8eb0964a3095438b450ff6810f
 
  > Content:
 
    {
 
      "clientVersions" : [{
 
          "name" : "Jellyfish.jpg",
 
          "checksum" : "5a44c7ba5bbe4ec867233d67e4806848"
 
        }, {
 
          "name" : "Penguins.jpg",
 
          "checksum" : "9d377b10ce778c4938b3c7e2c63a229a"
 
        }
 
      ],
 
      "originalVersions" : [{
 
          "name" : "Jellyfish.jpg",
 
          "checksum" : "5a44c7ba5bbe4ec867233d67e4806848"
 
        }
 
      ]
 
      "fileExclusions" : [{
 
          "path" : "*",
 
          "name" : "*.tmp",
 
          "type" : "glob"
 
        }
 
      ]
 
    }
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (6.0004 ms elapsed, 140 bytes received)
 
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data" : [{
 
          "path" : "/test2",
 
          "action" : "upload",
 
          "newVersion" : {
 
            "name" : "Penguins.jpg",
 
            "checksum" : "9d377b10ce778c4938b3c7e2c63a229a"
 
          },
 
          "offset" : 0
 
        }
 
      ]
 
    }
 
  
== Download a file ==
+
After configuring a custom partitioning scheme, the data distribution may be verified, e.g. by inspecting the MBeans of the distributed maps via JMX.
  
Downloads a file from the server.
+
= Features =
  
GET <code>/ajax/drive?action=download</code>
+
The following list gives an overview about different features that were implemented using the new cluster capabilities.
  
or
+
== Distributed Session Storage ==
  
PUT <code>/ajax/drive?action=download</code>
+
Previously, when an Open-Xchange server was shutdown for maintenance, all user sessions that were bound to that machine were lost, i.e. the users needed to login again. With the distributed session storage, all sessions are backed by a distributed map in the cluster, so that they are no longer bound to a specific node in the cluster. When a node is shut down, the session data is still available in the cluster and can be accessed from the remaining nodes. The load-balancing techniques of the webserver then seamlessly routes the user session to another node, with no ''session expired'' errors. The distributed session storage comes with the package ''open-xchange-sessionstorage-hazelcast''. It's recommended to install this optional package in all clustered environments with multiple groupware server nodes.
  
Parameters:
+
'''Notes:'''
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
+
* While there's some kind of built-in session distribution among the nodes in the cluster, this should not be seen as a replacement for session-stickiness between the loadbalancer and groupware nodes, i.e. one should still configure the webserver to use sticky sessions for performance reasons.
* <code>root</code> - The ID of the referenced root folder on the server.
+
* The distributed session storage is still an in-memory storage. While the session data is distributed and backed up on multiple nodes in the cluster, shutting down multiple or all nodes at the same time will lead to loss of the the distributed data. To avoid such data loss when shutting down a node, please follow the guidelines at [[ Updating_a_Cluster ]].
* <code>path</code> - The path to the synchronized folder, relative to the root folder.
 
* <code>name</code> - The name of the file version to download.
 
* <code>checksum</code> - The checksum of the file version to download.
 
* <code>apiVersion</code> - The API version that the client is using. If not set, the initial version <code>0</code> is assumed.
 
* <code>offset</code> (optional) - The start offset in bytes for the download. If not defined, an offset of <code>0</code> is assumed.
 
* <code>length</code> (optional) - The number of bytes to include in the download stream. If not defined, the file is read until the end.
 
  
Request Body: <br />
+
Depending on the cluster infrastructure, different backup-count configuration options might be set for the distributed session storage in the map configuration file ''sessions.properties'' in the ''hazelcast'' subdirectory:
Optionally, available since API version 3, if client-side file- and/or directory exclusion filters are active, a PUT request can be used. The request body then holds a JSON object containing two arrays named <code>fileExclusions</code> and <code>directoryExclusions</code> to define client-side exclusion filters, with each element encoded as [[File_pattern|File patterns]] and [[Directory_pattern|Directory patterns]] accordingly. See [[Client_side_filtering|Client side filtering]] for details.
 
  
Response: <br />
+
  com.openexchange.hazelcast.configuration.map.backupCount=1
The binary content of the requested file version. Note that in case of errors, an exception is not encoded in the default JSON error format here. Instead, an appropriate HTTP error with a status code != 200 is returned. For example, in case of the requested file being deleted or modified in the meantime, a response with HTTP status code 404 (not found) is sent.
 
  
Example:
+
The ''backupcount'' property configures the number of nodes with synchronized backups. Synchronized backups block operations until backups are successfully copied and acknowledgements are received. If 1 is set as the backup-count for example, then all entries of the map will be copied to another JVM for fail-safety. 0 means no backup. Any integer between 0 and 6. Default is 1, setting bigger than 6 has no effect.
==> GET http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=download&root=56&path=/test2&name=Jellyfish.jpg&checksum=5a44c7ba5bbe4ec867233d67e4806848&offset=0&length=-1&session=5d0c1e8eb0964a3095438b450ff6810f
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (20.0011 ms elapsed, 775702 bytes received)
 
  
== Upload a file ==
+
  com.openexchange.hazelcast.configuration.map.asyncBackupCount=0
  
Uploads a file to the server.
+
The ''asyncbackup'' property configures the number of nodes with async backups. Async backups do not block operations and do not require acknowledgements. 0 means no backup. Any integer between 0 and 6. Default is 0, setting bigger than 6 has no effect.
  
PUT <code>/ajax/drive?action=upload</code>
+
Since session data is backed up by default continuously by multiple nodes in the cluster, the steps described in [[ Session_Migration ]] to trigger session migration to other nodes explicitly is obsolete and no longer needed with the distributed session storage.
  
Parameters:
+
Normally, sessions in the distributed storages are not evicted automatically, but are only removed when they're also removed from the session handler, either due to a logout operation or when exceeding the long-term session lifetime as configured by ''com.openexchange.sessiond.sessionLongLifeTime'' in ''sessiond.properties''. Under certain circumstances, i.e. the session is no longer accessed by the client and the OX node hosting the session in it's long-life container being shutdown, the remove operation from the distributed storage might not be triggered. Therefore, additionaly a maximum idle time of map-entries can be configured for the distributed sessions map via
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
 
* <code>root</code> - The ID of the referenced root folder on the server.
 
* <code>path</code> - The path to the synchronized folder, relative to the root folder.
 
* <code>newName</code> - The target name of the file version to upload.
 
* <code>newChecksum</code> - The target checksum of the file version to upload.
 
* <code>name</code> (optional) - The previous name of the file version being uploaded. Only set when uploading an updated version of an existing file to the server.
 
* <code>checksum</code> - The previous checksum of the file version to upload. Only set when uploading an updated version of an existing file to the server.
 
* <code>apiVersion</code> - The API version that the client is using. If not set, the initial version <code>0</code> is assumed.
 
* <code>contentType</code> (optional) - The content type of the file. If not defined, <code>application/octet-stream</code> is assumed.
 
* <code>offset</code> (optional) - The start offset in bytes for the upload when resuming a previous partial upload. If not defined, an offset of <code>0</code> is assumed.
 
* <code>totalLength</code> (optional) - The total expected length of the file (required to support resume of uploads). If not defined, the upload is assumed completed after the operation.
 
* <code>created</code> (optional) - The creation time of the file as timestamp.
 
* <code>modified</code> (optional) - The last modification time of the file as timestamp. Defaults to the current server time if no value or a value larger than the current time is supplied.
 
* <code>binary</code> - Expected to be set to <code>true</code> to indicate the binary content.
 
* <code>device</code> (optional) - A friendly name identifying the client device from a user's point of view, e.g. "My Tablet PC".
 
* <code>diagnostics</code> (optional) - If set to <code>true</code>, an additional diagnostics trace is supplied in the response.
 
* <code>pushToken</code> (optional) - The client's push registration token to associate it to generated events.
 
  
Request body: <br />
+
com.openexchange.hazelcast.configuration.map.maxIdleSeconds=640000
The binary content of the uploaded file version.  
 
  
Response: <br />
+
To avoid unnecessary eviction, the value should be higher than the configured ''com.openexchange.sessiond.sessionLongLifeTime'' in ''sessiond.properties''.
A JSON array containing all actions the client should execute for synchronization. Each array element is an action as described in [[#Actions | Actions]]. <br /> If the <code>diagnostics</code> flag was set (either to <code>true</code> or <code>false</code>), this array is wrapped into an additional JSON object in the <code>actions</code> parameter, and the diagnostics trace is provided at <code>diagnostics</code>.
 
  
Example:
+
== Remote Cache Invalidation ==
==> PUT http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=upload&root=56&path=/test2&newName=Penguins.jpg&newChecksum=9d377b10ce778c4938b3c7e2c63a229a&contentType=image/jpeg&offset=0&totalLength=777835&binary=true&device=Laptop&created=1375343426999&modified=1375343427001&session=5d0c1e8eb0964a3095438b450ff6810f
 
  > Content:
 
    [application/octet-stream;, 777835 bytes]
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (108.0062 ms elapsed, 118 bytes received)
 
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data" : [{
 
          "action" : "acknowledge",
 
          "newVersion" : {
 
            "name" : "Penguins.jpg",
 
            "checksum" : "9d377b10ce778c4938b3c7e2c63a229a"
 
          }
 
        }
 
      ]
 
    }
 
  
== Listen for changes (long polling) ==
+
For faster access, groupware data is held in different caches by the server. Formerly, the caches utilized the TCP Lateral Auxiliary Cache plug in (LTCP) for the underlying JCS caches to broadcast updates and removals to caches on other OX nodes in the cluster. This could potentially lead to problems when remote invalidation was not working reliably due to network discovery problems. As an alternative, remote cache invalidation can also be performed using reliable publish/subscribe events built up on Hazelcast topics. This can be configured in the ''cache.properties'' configuration file, where the 'eventInvalidation' property can either be set to 'false' for the legacy behavior or 'true' for the new mechanism:
  
Listens for server-side changes. The request blocks until new actions for the client are available, or the specified waiting time elapses. May return immediately if previously received but not yet processed actions are available for this client.
+
com.openexchange.caching.jcs.eventInvalidation=true
  
GET <code>/ajax/drive?action=listen</code>
+
All nodes participating in the cluster should be configured equally.
  
Parameters:
+
Internally, if ''com.openexchange.caching.jcs.eventInvalidation'' is set to ''true'', LTCP is disabled in JCS caches. Instead, an internal mechanism based on distributed Hazelcast event topics is used to invalidate data throughout all nodes in the cluster after local update- and remove-operations. Put-operations aren't propagated (and haven't been with LTCP either), since all data put into caches can be locally loaded/evaluated at each node from the persistent storage layer.
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
 
* <code>root</code> - The ID of the referenced root folder on the server.
 
* <code>timeout</code> (optional) - The maximum timeout in milliseconds to wait.
 
* <code>pushToken</code> (optional) - The client's push registration token to associate it to generated events.
 
  
Response: <br />
+
Using Hazelcast-based cache invalidation also makes further configuration of the JCS auxiliaries obsolete in the ''cache.ccf'' configuration file. In that case, all ''jcs.auxiliary.LTCP.*'' configuration settings are virtually ignored. However, it's still required to mark caches that require cluster-wide invalidation via ''jcs.region.<cache_name>=LTCP'', just as before. So basically, when using the new default setting ''com.openexchange.caching.jcs.eventInvalidation=true'', it's recommended to just use the stock ''cache.ccf'' file, since no further LTCP configuration is required.
A JSON array containing all actions the client should execute for synchronization. Each array element is an action as described in [[#Actions | Actions]]. If there no changes were detected, an empty array is returned. Typically, the client will continue with the next <code>listen</code> request after the response was processed.
 
  
Example:
 
==> GET http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=listen&root=65841&session=51378e29f82042b4afe4af1c034c6d68
 
 
   
 
   
<== HTTP 200 OK (63409.6268 ms elapsed, 28 bytes received)
+
= Adminstration / Troubleshooting =
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data" : [{
 
          "action" : "sync",
 
        }
 
      ]
 
    }
 
  
== Get quota ==
+
== Hazelcast Configuration ==
  
Gets the quota limits and current usage for the storage the supplied root folder belongs to. Depending on the filestore configuration, this may include both restrictions on the number of allowed files and the total size of all contained files in bytes. If there's no limit, -1 is returned.
+
The underlying Hazelcast library can be configured using the file ''hazelcast.properties''.
  
GET <code>/ajax/drive?action=quota</code>
+
'''Important''':<br>
 +
By default property ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.interfaces'' is set to ''127.0.0.1''; meaning Hazelcast listens only to loop-back device. To build a cluster among remote nodes the appropriate network interface needs to be configured there. Leaving that property empty lets Hazelcast listen to all available network interfaces.
  
Parameters:
+
The Hazelcast JMX MBean can be enabled or disabled with the property ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.jmx''. The properties ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.mergeFirstRunDelay'' and ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.mergeRunDelay'' control the run intervals of the so-called ''Split Brain Handler'' of Hazelcast that initiates the cluster join process when a new node is started. More details can be found at http://www.hazelcast.com/docs/2.5/manual/single_html/#NetworkPartitioning.  
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
 
* <code>root</code> - The ID of the referenced root folder on the server.
 
  
Response: <br />
+
The port ranges used by Hazelcast for incoming and outgoing connections can be controlled via the configuration parameters ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.networkConfig.port'', ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.networkConfig.portAutoIncrement'' and ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.networkConfig.outboundPortDefinitions''.
A JSON object containing the quota restrictions inside a JSON array with the property name <code>quota</code>. The JSON array contains zero, one or two <code>quota</code> objects as described below, depending on the filestore configuration. If one or more quota <code>type</code>s are missing in the array, the client can expect that there are no limitations for that type. Besides the array, the JSON object also contains a hyperlink behind the <code>manageLink</code> parameter, pointing to an URL where the user could manage his quota restrictions.
 
  
{| id="Quota" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
== Commandline Tool ==
|+ align="bottom" | Quota
 
! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| limit || Number || The allowed limit (either number of files or sum of filesizes in bytes).
 
|-
 
| use || Number || The current usage (again either number of files or sum of filesizes in bytes).
 
|-
 
| type || String || The kind of quota restriction, currently either <code>storage</code> (size of contained files in bytes) or <code>file</code> (number of files).
 
|}
 
  
Example:
+
To print out statistics about the cluster and the distributed data, the ''showruntimestats'' commandline tool can be executed witht the ''clusterstats'' ('c') argument. This provides an overview about the runtime cluster configuration of the node, other members in the cluster and distributed data structures.
==> GET http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=quota&root=56&session=35cb8c2d1423480692f0d5053d14ba52
 
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (9.6854 ms elapsed, 113 bytes received)
 
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data" : {
 
        "quota" : [{
 
            "limit" : 107374182400,
 
            "use" : 1109974882,
 
            "type" : "storage"
 
          }, {
 
            "limit" : 800000000000,
 
            "use" : 1577,
 
            "type" : "file"
 
          }
 
        ],
 
        "manageLink" : "https://www.example.com/manageQuota"
 
      }
 
    }
 
  
== Get Settings ==
+
== JMX ==
  
Gets various settings applicable for the drive clients.
+
In the Open-Xchange server Java process, the MBean ''com.hazelcast'' can be used to monitor and manage different aspects of the underlying Hazelcast cluster. The ''com.hazelcast'' MBean provides detailed information about the cluster configuration and distributed data structures.
  
GET <code>/ajax/drive?action=settings</code>
+
== Hazelcast Errors ==
  
Parameters:
+
When experiencing hazelcast related errors in the logfiles, most likely different versions of the packages are installed, leading to different message formats that can't be understood by nodes using another version. Examples for such errors are exceptions in hazelcast components regarding (de)serialization or other message processing.
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
+
This may happen when performing a consecutive update of all nodes in the cluster, where temporarily nodes with a heterogeneous setup try to communicate with each other. If the errors don't disappear after all nodes in the cluster have been update to the same package versions, it might be necessary to shutdown the cluster completely, so that all distributed data is cleared.
* <code>root</code> - The ID of the referenced root folder on the server.
 
* <code>language</code> (optional) - The locale to use for language-sensitive settings (in the format <code><2-letter-language>_<2-letter-region></code>, e.g. <code>de_CH</code> or <code>en_GB</code>). Defaults to the user's configured locale on the server.
 
  
Response:<br />
+
== Cluster Discovery Errors ==
A JSON object holding the settings as described below. This also includes a JSON array with the property name <code>quota</code> that contains zero, one or two quota objects as described below, depending on the filestore configuration. If one or more quota types are missing in the array, the client can expect that there are no limitations for that type.
 
  
{| id="Quota" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
* If the started OX nodes don't form a cluster, please double-check your configuration in ''hazelcast.properties''
|+ align="bottom" | Quota
+
* It's important to have the same cluster name defined in ''hazelcast.properties'' throughout all nodes in the cluster
! Name !! Type !! Value
+
* Especially when using multicast cluster discovery, it might take some time until the cluster is formed
|-
+
* When using ''static'' cluster discovery, at least one other node in the cluster has to be configured in ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.static.nodes'' to allow joining, however, it's recommended to list all nodes in the cluster here
| limit || Number || The allowed limit (either number of files or sum of filesizes in bytes).
 
|-
 
| use || Number || The current usage (again either number of files or sum of filesizes in bytes).
 
|-
 
| type || String || The kind of quota restriction, currently either <code>storage</code> (size of contained files in bytes) or <code>file</code> (number of files).
 
|}
 
  
{| id="Settings" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
== Disable Cluster Features ==
|+ align="bottom" | Settings
 
! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| helpLink || String || A hyperlink to the online help.
 
|-
 
| quotaManageLink || String || A hyperlink to an URL where the user could manage his quota restrictions.
 
|-
 
| quota || Array || A JSON array containing the quota restrictions as described above.
 
|-
 
| serverVersion || String || The server version string.
 
|-
 
| supportedApiVersion || String || The API version supported by the server.
 
|-
 
| minApiVersion || String || The API version required to synchronize with the server.
 
|}
 
  
Example:
+
The Hazelcast based clustering features can be disabled with the following property changes:
==> GET http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=settings&root=56&session=35cb8c2d1423480692f0d5053d14ba52
+
* Disable cluster discovery by setting ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join'' to ''empty'' in ''hazelcast.properties''
 
+
* Disable Hazelcast by setting ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.enabled'' to false in ''hazelcast.properties''
<== HTTP 200 OK (11.3530 ms elapsed, 318 bytes received)
+
* Disable message based cache event invalidation by setting ''com.openexchange.caching.jcs.eventInvalidation'' to ''false'' in ''cache.properties''
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data" : {
 
        "quota" : [{
 
            "limit" : 107374182400,
 
            "use" : 8828427,
 
            "type" : "storage"
 
          }, {
 
            "limit" : 800000000000,
 
            "use" : 1559,
 
            "type" : "file"
 
          }
 
        ],
 
        "helpLink" : "http://192.168.32.191/ajax/help/en_US/index.html",
 
        "quotaManageLink" : "https://192.168.32.191/manageQuota",
 
        "serverVersion" : "7.4.2-Rev1",
 
        "supportedApiVersion" : "2",
 
        "minApiVersion" : "1"
 
      }
 
    }
 
  
== Subscribe to Push-Events ==
+
== Update from 6.22.1 to version 6.22.2 and above ==
  
Registers a client device to receive push notifications from the server. The subscription is performed based on the configured root folder ID of the client application that identifies itself with it's device token. Supported services currently include the Apple Push Notification Service (APN) and Google Cloud Messaging (GCM). Trying to perform an identical subscription (same <code>root</code>, <code>service</code> and <code>token</code>) from the same user account again is treated as a no-op.
+
As hazelcast will be used by default for the distribution of sessions starting 6.22.2 you have to adjust hazelcast according to our old cache configuration. First of all it's important that you install the open-xchange-sessionstorage-hazelcast package. This package will add the binding between hazelcast and the internal session management. Next you have to set a cluster name to the cluster.properties file (see [[#Cluster Discovery Errors]]). Furthermore you will have to add one of the two discovery modes mentioned in [[#Cluster Discovery]].
  
GET <code>/ajax/drive?action=subscribe</code>
 
  
Parameters:
+
= Updating a Cluster =
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
 
* <code>root</code> - The ID of the referenced root folder on the server.
 
* <code>service</code> - The name of the underlying push service to use, currently one of <code>gcm</code>, <code>apn</code> or <code>apn.macos</code>.
 
* <code>token</code> - The device's registration token as assigned by the service.
 
  
Response:<br />
+
Running a cluster means built-in failover on the one hand, but might require some attention when it comes to the point of upgrading the services on all nodes in the cluster. This chapter gives an overview about general concepts and hints for silent updates of the cluster.
An empty JSON result.
 
  
Example:
+
== The Big Picture ==
==> GET http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=subscribe&root=65841&session=51378e29f82042b4afe4af1c034c6d68&service=apn&token=28919862989a1b5ba59c11d5f7cb7ba2b9678be9dd18b033184d04f682013677
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (13.6268 ms elapsed, 11 bytes received)
 
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data" : {
 
      }
 
    }
 
  
 +
Updating an OX App Suite cluster is possible in several ways. The involved steps always include
  
== Unsubscribe from Push-Events ==
+
* Update the software by updating the packages through the distro's repository / software update tool
 +
* Update the database schemas (so-called update tasks)
  
Unregisters a previously registered client device to stop receiving push notifications from the server. The same parameters that were used to perform the subscription need to be passed again, which includes the root folder ID,  the device token and the service name.
+
There are some precautions required, though.
  
GET <code>/ajax/drive?action=unsubscribe</code>
+
=== Update Tasks Management ===
  
Parameters:
+
It is a feature of the OX App Suite middleware to automatically start update tasks on a database schema when a user tries to login whose context lives on that schema. For installations beyond a certain size, if you just update the OX App Suite software without special handling of the update tasks, user logins will trigger an uncontrolled storm of update tasks on the databases, potentially leading to resource contention, unnecessary long update tasks runtimes, excessive load on the database server, maybe even service outages.
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
 
* <code>root</code> - The ID of the referenced root folder on the server.
 
* <code>service</code> - The name of the underlying push service to use, currently one of <code>gcm</code>, <code>apn</code> or <code>apn.macos</code>.
 
* <code>token</code> - The device's registration token as assigned by the service.
 
  
Response:<br />
+
So one key element of every update strategy is to avoid user logins on nodes which have already been updated to the new software version, while the database schemas are still on the old version. There are two fundamentally different approaches to this goal: use either a full downtime, or use a rolling update strategy.
An empty JSON result.
 
  
Example:
+
We describe the update strategy in more detail in the next section. Note that these are still high-level outlines of the actual procedure, which requires additional details with regards to Hazelcast, given further down below.
==> GET http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=unsubscribe&root=65841&session=51378e29f82042b4afe4af1c034c6d68&service=apn&token=28919862989a1b5ba59c11d5f7cb7ba2b9678be9dd18b033184d04f682013677
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (26.0015 ms elapsed, 11 bytes received)
 
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data" : {
 
      }
 
    }
 
  
== Update the subscription token ==
+
==== Full downtime approach ====
  
Updates a device's registration token in case a new one was assigned by the service.
+
The full downtime approach is quite straightforward and involves
  
GET <code>/ajax/drive?action=updateToken</code>
+
* shutdown of all OX middleware nodes
 +
* update the software on all OX App Suite (middleware and frontend) nodes
 +
* execute the update tasks in a controlled way from one OX node
 +
* restore the service
  
Parameters:
+
This is the most general approach and always available, even if the rolling approach is not available due to Hazelcast constraints.
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
 
* <code>service</code> - The name of the underlying push service to use, currently one of <code>gcm</code>, <code>apn</code> or <code>apn.macos</code>.
 
* <code>token</code> - The previous registration token as assigned by the service.
 
* <code>newToken</code> - The new registration token as assigned by the service.
 
  
Response:<br />
+
==== Rolling strategy ====
An empty JSON result.
 
  
Example:
+
It is possible to execute the update tasks decoupled from the real update of the rest from the cluster, days or even weeks ahead of time, with the following approach:
==> GET http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=updateToken&service=apn&session=51378e29f82042b4afe4af1c034c6d68&token=28919862989a1b5ba59c11d5f7cb7ba2b9678be9dd18b033184d04f682013677&newToken=38919862989a1b5ba59c11d5f7cb7ba2b9678be9dd18b033184d04f682013677
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (15.6653 ms elapsed, 11 bytes received)
 
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data" : {
 
      }
 
    }
 
  
== Get file metadata ==
+
* If the load situation allows for it, take one node out of the loadbalancer (we call it the upgrade node). Otherwise, add a dedicated upgrade node to your cluster, identically configured to the other middleware nodes.
 +
* Make sure there are no user sessions left on the upgrade node, and that no new sessions will be routed to that node
 +
* update the software on the upgrade node
 +
* execute all update tasks from the update node.
  
Deprecated, available until API version 2. <br />
+
In the last step, users from affected schemas will be logged out and denied service while the update tasks are running on their database schema. This is typically a short unavailability (some minutes) for a small part (1000...7000 depending on the installation) of the user base. This unavailability is of much lower impact than the unavailability of a full downtime, but you still might want to do this in the off-business hours.
Additional metadata of synchronized files is made available via the <code>fileMetadata</code> request.
 
  
PUT <code>/ajax/drive?action=fileMetata</code>
+
This way you end up with the production cluster running on the old version of OX App Suite, with the database already being upgraded to the next version. This is explicitly a valid and supported configuration. This approach offers the advantage that update tasks can be executed in advance, instead of doing them while the whole system is in a full maintenance downtime. Since update tasks can take some time, this is a considerable advantage.
  
Parameters:
+
For the actual upgrade of the production cluster, the remaining steps are:
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
 
* <code>root</code> - The ID of the referenced root folder on the server.
 
* <code>path</code> - The path to the synchronized folder, relative to the root folder.
 
* <code>columns</code> -  A comma-separated list of columns to return. Each column is specified by a numeric column identifier. Column identifiers for file metadata are defined in [[#File Metadata]].
 
  
Request Body:<br />
+
* Upgrade and restart the OX App Suite software on one middleware node after another, one by one
A JSON array containing the file versions to get the metadata for. Each object in the array should be sent as [[#File Version | File Versions]], and needs to be present in the referenced path.
+
* Upgrade the software on the OX App Suite frontend nodes (if these are separate nodes from the middleware nodes)
  
Response:<br />
+
Hazelcast will ensure that sessions from nodes which you restart are taken over by other nodes in the cluster, so ideally this step works without losing user sessions.
A JSON array containing the file metadata in the order of the requested file versions. Each array element describes one file metadata and is itself an array. The elements of each array contain the information specified by the corresponding identifiers in the columns parameter.
 
  
{| id="FileMetadataDeprecated" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
For the rolling strategy to work as described, it is required that the old and new version of OX App Suite use compatible versions of the Hazelcast library. This is the case for most upgrades. However some upgrades must handle the situation that the new version of OX App Suite ships with a new version of Hazelcast incompatible to the version of Hazelcast shipped with the old version of OX App Suite. It will be stated in the release notes if this is the case for a given release. If so, then some additional steps are required during a rolling update to ensure session handling / invalidating during update tasks works properly. See below.
|+ align="bottom" | File Metadata (deprecated)
 
! ID !! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| name || String || The name of the file version.
 
|-
 
| 4 || created || Timestamp || The file's last modification time (always UTC, not translated into user time).
 
|-
 
| 5 || modified || Timestamp || The file's last modification time (always UTC, not translated into user time).
 
|-
 
| 702 || name || String || The name of the file, including it's extension, e.g. <code>test.doc</code>.
 
|-
 
| 703 || contentType || String || The file's content type, e.g. "image/png".
 
|-
 
| 708 || checksum || String || The MD5 hash of the file, expressed as a lowercase hexadecimal number string, 32 characters long, e.g. <code>f8cacac95379527cd4fa15f0cb782a09</code>.
 
|-
 
| 750 || previewLink || String || A direct link to a medium-sized preview image of the file if available.  
 
|-
 
| 751 || directLinkFragments || String | The fragments part of the direct link that can be used in combination with the [[http://oxpedia.org/index.php?title=HTTP_API#Token_Login_.28since_7.0.1.29 |token login]] method to jump directly to the detail view of the file in the web interface, bypassing the need to login manually.  
 
|-
 
| 752 || directLink || String || A direct link to the detail view of the file in the web interface.  
 
|-
 
| 753 || thumbnailLink || String || A direct link to a small thumbnail image of the file if available.  
 
|}
 
  
Example:
+
== HOWTO / step-by-step instructions ==
==> PUT http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=fileMetadata&root=97974&path=%2f&columns=702%2c708%2c752%2c750%2c753&session=43aca91a80de42559ff0c2493dd973d0
 
  > Content:
 
    [
 
      {
 
        "name" : "image.jpg",
 
        "checksum" : "2b04df3ecc1d94afddff082d139c6f15"
 
      }, {
 
        "name" : "song.mp3",
 
        "checksum" : "5a9a91184e611dae3fed162b8787ce5f"
 
      }, {
 
        "name" : "test1.txt",
 
        "checksum" : "7e36f409a042f06ecb88606a97a88c8f"
 
      }, {
 
        "name" : "test3.txt",
 
        "checksum" : "703bc9aabff33faf07cf121dcda12ec8"
 
      }
 
    ] 
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (6.0004 ms elapsed, 140 bytes received)
 
<  Content:
 
    [
 
      ["image.jpg", "2b04df3ecc1d94afddff082d139c6f15", "https://192.168.32.191/ox6/index.html#m=infostore&f=97974&i=179629", "https://192.168.32.191/ajax/files?action=document&folder=97974&id=179629&version=1&delivery=download&scaleType=contain&width=128&height=90", "m=infostore&f=97974&i=179629"],
 
      ["song.mp3", "5a9a91184e611dae3fed162b8787ce5f", "https://192.168.32.191/ox6/index.html#m=infostore&f=97974&i=179630", "https://192.168.32.191/ajax/image/file/mp3Cover?folder=97974&id=179630&version=1&delivery=download&scaleType=contain&width=128&height=90", "m=infostore&f=97974&i=179630"],
 
      ["test1.txt", "7e36f409a042f06ecb88606a97a88c8f", "https://192.168.32.191/ox6/index.html#m=infostore&f=97974&i=179626", null, "m=infostore&f=97974&i=179626"],
 
      ["test3.txt", "703bc9aabff33faf07cf121dcda12ec8", "https://192.168.32.191/ox6/index.html#m=infostore&f=97974&i=179624", null, "m=infostore&f=97974&i=179624"]
 
    ]
 
  
== Get a direct link for a folder/a file into appsuite ==
+
* Take backups of as much as possible (databases, OX config files, etc).
 +
* Announce the maintenance to the users. The communication depends on which approach you chose: the full downtime approach will come with a full downtime for all users, while the rolling upgrade approach will result in some users will have a short loss of service while their schema upgrades.
  
Generate a direct link into appsuite UI for a synchronized file/a synchronized folder and a token for token-based login.
+
=== Full downtime approach ===
  
POST <code>/ajax/drive?action=jump</code>
+
* Initiate maintenance: Block HTTP sessions to the service. Put a reasonable maintenance page in place, probably some HTTP error 503 with a reasonable Retry-After header.
 +
* Shutdown the service on all middleware nodes. Upgrade the software on all middleware and frontend nodes using the disto's package manager. See [[AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages]] for details on how to do that. Don't forget the <code>touch-appsuite</code> step if required ("If you update only UI plugins without simultaneously upgrading the core UI packages to a new version").
 +
* Start the <code>open-xchange</code> service on one node
 +
* Execute update tasks from that node. See [[UpdateTasks]] for an explanation how to do that, in particular the [[UpdateTasks#How_to_see_all_schemas.3F|section]] about limited parallel execution.
 +
* Start the <code>open-xchange</code> services on the middleware nodes.
 +
* Perform some crosschecks like
 +
** all middleware nodes joined the Hazelcast cluster
 +
** all OSGI bundles (which are expected to be running) are running
 +
** WebUI login is possible
 +
** Some central functionality tests like sending mails, accessing drive, etc
 +
* Restore service: allow HTTP sessions, remove the maintenance page.
  
Parameters:
+
=== Rolling Upgrade without breaking Hazelcast upgrade ===
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
 
* <code>root</code> - The ID of the referenced root folder on the server.
 
* <code>path</code> - The path to the synchronized folder, relative to the root folder.
 
* <code>name</code> - The name of the file in the synchronized folder given in <code>path</code>-parameter. Optional
 
* <code>method</code> - [[#Methods | Methods]]
 
* <code>authId</code> - Identifier for tracing every single login request passed between different systems in a cluster. The value should be some token that is unique for every login request. This parameter must be given as URL parameter and not inside the body of the POST request.
 
* <code>clientToken</code> - Client side identifier for accessing the session later. The value should be some token that is unique for every login request.
 
  
Methods:<br />
+
Remember: as stated above, this is viable only if the release notes for the new version do not state that there are breaking Hazelcast changes. For example, with v7.8.4 there were breaking Hazelcast changes and in the Release Notes it was stated as follows.
* <code>edit</code>: Open the file in appsuite editor or in text/spreadsheet (if available).
 
* <code>permissions</code>: Open the file's/folder's change-permission dialog.
 
* <code>version_history</code>: Open the file's version history summary.
 
* <code>preview</code>: Open the file's/folder's preview.
 
  
Response:<br />
+
https://software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/doc/Release_Notes_for_Release_7.8.4_2017-05-23.pdf
A JSON array containing the direct link to the file/folder including a server token for token based login.
+
<blockquote>
 +
Important - Please Note
  
Example:
+
There is a major Hazelcast library update to OX App Suite v7.8.4. This means that when updating from an earlier backend version, due to the upgraded library, it is not possible to form a cluster of nodes that run previous version of Hazelcast (i.e. exiting volatile data in the cluster will be lost during the update). A consistent Hazelcast cluster is needed for cluster-wide cache invalidation. To circumvent problems with database update tasks that need to perform cache invalidation, please follow the steps described here: http://oxpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=AppSuite:Running_a_cluster#Upgrades_of_the_Hazelcast_library. Please also note that session migration is not possible between versions. This usually affects all user sessions that are stored in a distributed map, and will require the users to re-login after the update. Running incompatible versions of Hazelcast within a cluster will result in logentries showing the conflicting node and version information.
==> POST http://localhost/ajax/drive?action=jump&session=48a289898ad949faaa46c04e7fb422f5&root=9547&path=/path/to/file&name=file_to_edit.txt&method=edit&authId=41763584-8460-11e4-b116-123b93f75dba
+
</blockquote>
  > Content: clientToken=47d74b1c-81df-11e4-b116-123b93f75cba
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK
 
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data": {
 
        "redirectUrl": "http://localhost/appsuite#app=io.ox/editor&folder=273264&id=273264/307438&serverToken=7b90972628e34e89bb9a3946d1372c68"
 
      }
 
    }
 
  
== Use direct link and token with token-based login ==
+
If you find you are upgrading to a version with breaking Hazelcast changes, please consult the next section [[#Rolling_Upgrade_with_breaking_Hazelcast_upgrade]].
  
Login to appsuite UI with token-based login via the link created with [[#Get a direct link for a folder/a file into appsuite | Get a direct link for a folder/a file into appsuite]].
+
==== Description of the upgrade process ====
  
GET <code>[direct link]</code>
+
The procedure consists of a '''pre-update''' where one update node will be taken out of the HTTP traffic, to execute database update tasks from that node, and a '''real update''', where all of the cluster nodes will get updated to the new version of the software.
  
Parameters:
+
The pre-update will not make the new version of the software available to the users. It will run as kind of "background task", mostly invisible for the users (but see below for a description of the impact of the update tasks on user experience).
* <code>clientToken</code> – Client side identifier for accessing the session. The value must be the same as in [[#Get a direct link for a folder/a file into appsuite | Get a direct link for a folder/a file into appsuite]].
 
  
Example:
+
==== Pre-update ====
==> GET http://localhost/appsuite#app=io.ox/editor&folder=273264&id=273264/307438&serverToken=7b90972628e34e89bb9a3946d1372c68&clientToken=47d74b1c-81df-11e4-b116-123b93f75cba
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK
 
  
== Get synchronizable Folders ==
+
The following steps all refer to one special middleware node, the so-called ''upgrade node''. The other cluster nodes are not affected by this step.
  
Available since API version 4. <br />
+
* Take one middleware node (the upgrade node) out of the HTTP traffic by adjusting the apache mod_proxy tables. We propose a combination of the balancer_manager to do this during runtime without restart, but also update the config files to prevent service restarts of apache to accidentally route sessions to the upgrade node.
 +
* Make sure there are no user sessions left on the upgrade node, and that no new sessions will be routed to that node
 +
* Update packages on the upgrade node and restart the middleware service there. See [[AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages]] for details on how to do that.
 +
* Execute update tasks from that node. See [[UpdateTasks]] for an explanation how to do that.
 +
** Note that executing update tasks on database schemas will result in users from the given database schema to be logged out and locked out during the update tasks.
 +
** You might want to keep the load low on the DBs, to affect production operations as low as possible, and because with this decoupled update tasks approach there is no immediate time pressure. If you want to follow the [[UpdateTasks#How_to_see_all_schemas.3F|limited parallel]] approach, use a small, mild parallelity factor (e.g. 2 or maybe 4 if you know this by far does not saturate your DB platform).
  
Allows getting a list of folders that are available on the server for synchronization. This request should be used to build up a folder tree and let the user select the root synchronization folder(s).
+
==== Real Update ====
  
GET <code>/ajax/drive?action=subfolders</code>
+
The following steps refer to all cluster nodes (but the upgrade node, which had been updated before).
  
Parameters:
+
* For one middleware cluster node after each nother:
* <code>session</code> - A session ID previously obtained from the login module.
+
** Update packages on that middleware node and restart the middleware service there. See [[AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages]] for details on how to do that.
* <code>parent</code> - The ID of the parent folder to get the subfolders for as read from a previously fetched directory metadata object. Optional; if not set, the root available root folders are returned.
+
** Verify the node starts its bundles, joins the Hazelcast cluster, log files are clean, the node handles sessions
 +
* For one frontend node after each other (if you've got separate frontend nodes):
 +
** Update packages on that frontend node. See [[AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages]] for details on how to do that.
 +
* Finally, if required ("If you update only UI plugins without simultaneously upgrading the core UI packages to a new version"), execute <code>touch-appsuite</code> with a <code>--timestamp</code> argument as described on the page [[AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages]]
 +
* Perform final crosschecks like
 +
** all middleware nodes joined the Hazelcast cluster
 +
** all OSGI bundles (which are expected to be running) are running
 +
** WebUI login is possible
 +
** Some central functionality tests like sending mails, accessing drive, etc
  
Response:<br />
+
=== Rolling Upgrade with breaking Hazelcast upgrade ===
A JSON array holding metadata information for all subfolders as defined in [[#Directory Metadata | Directory Metadata]], with the <code>files</code> array being left out.
 
  
Example:
+
Cf [[#Upgrades_of_the_Hazelcast_library]] below.
==> GET http://192.168.32.191/ajax/drive?action=subfolders&session=35cb8c2d1423480692f0d5053d14ba52
 
 
 
<== HTTP 200 OK (241.0252 ms elapsed, 966 bytes received)
 
<  Content:
 
    {
 
      "data": [{
 
        "id": "com.openexchange.file.storage.googledrive://1/",
 
        "name": "Google Drive",
 
        "path": "/Google Drive",
 
        "has_subfolders": true,
 
        "own_rights": 403710016,
 
        "permissions": [{
 
          "bits": 403710016,
 
          "group": false,
 
          "entity": 182,
 
          "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
          "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
          "guest": false
 
        }],
 
        "jump": ["permissions"]
 
      },
 
      {
 
        "id": "10",
 
        "name": "Freigegebene Dateien",
 
        "path": "/Freigegebene Dateien",
 
        "created": 1224493261628,
 
        "modified": 1417164170136,
 
        "has_subfolders": true,
 
        "own_rights": 1,
 
        "permissions": [{
 
          "bits": 1,
 
          "group": true,
 
          "entity": 0,
 
          "display_name": "All users",
 
          "guest": false
 
        },
 
        {
 
          "bits": 1,
 
          "group": true,
 
          "entity": 2147483647,
 
          "display_name": "Guests",
 
          "guest": false
 
        }],
 
        "jump": ["permissions"],
 
        "shared": true
 
      },
 
      {
 
        "id": "15",
 
        "name": "Öffentliche Dateien",
 
        "path": "/Öffentliche Dateien",
 
        "created": 1224493261628,
 
        "modified": 1418383637250,
 
        "has_subfolders": true,
 
        "own_rights": 403709956,
 
        "permissions": [{
 
          "bits": 403709956,
 
          "group": true,
 
          "entity": 0,
 
          "display_name": "All users",
 
          "guest": false
 
        },
 
        {
 
          "bits": 1,
 
          "group": true,
 
          "entity": 2147483647,
 
          "display_name": "Guests",
 
          "guest": false
 
        }],
 
        "jump": ["permissions"],
 
        "shared": true
 
      },
 
      {
 
        "id": "com.openexchange.file.storage.dropbox://1/",
 
        "name": "Dropbox",
 
        "path": "/Dropbox",
 
        "has_subfolders": true,
 
        "own_rights": 403710016,
 
        "permissions": [{
 
          "bits": 403710016,
 
          "group": false,
 
          "entity": 182,
 
          "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
          "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
          "guest": false
 
        }],
 
        "jump": ["permissions"]
 
      },
 
      {
 
        "id": "9542",
 
        "name": "Meine Dateien",
 
        "path": "/Meine Dateien",
 
        "created": 1320230546147,
 
        "modified": 1426764458823,
 
        "default_folder": true,
 
        "has_subfolders": true,
 
        "own_rights": 403710016,
 
        "permissions": [{
 
          "bits": 403710016,
 
          "group": false,
 
          "entity": 182,
 
          "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
          "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
          "guest": false
 
        }],
 
        "jump": ["permissions"]
 
      }]
 
    }
 
  
= File- and Directory Name Restrictions =
+
In principle the steps given in the previous section apply. However the upgrade needs to get the special Hazelcast Upgrade Package installed (e.g. one from <code>open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-76x</code>, <code>open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-780-782</code>, <code>open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-783</code>, <code>open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-784</code>, ...) during execution of the update tasks.
  
Regarding the case sensitivity of file and directory names, OX Drive works in a case-insensitive, but case-preserving way. That means that there cannot be two files with an equal name ignoring case in the same directory, but it's still possible to synchronize the names in a case-sensitive manner, as well as it's possible to change only the case of file- and directory names.
+
So the pre-update steps look like:
  
The same applies to equally named files and directories on the same level in the folder hierarchy, i.e. it's not possible to create a new file in a directory where an equally (ignoring case) named subdirectory already exists and vice versa.
+
* Take one middleware node (the upgrade node) out of the HTTP traffic by adjusting the apache mod_proxy tables. We propose a combination of the balancer_manager to do this during runtime without restart, but also update the config files to prevent service restarts of apache to accidentally route sessions to the upgrade node.
 +
* Make sure there are no user sessions left on the upgrade node, and that no new sessions will be routed to that node
 +
* Update packages on the upgrade node and restart the middleware service there. See [[AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages]] for details on how to do that.
 +
* Install the special Hazelcast Upgrade Package on the upgrade node (e.g. one from <code>open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-76x</code>, <code>open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-780-782</code>, <code>open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-783</code>, <code>open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-784</code>, ...). Restart the service again.
 +
* Execute update tasks from that node. See [[UpdateTasks]] for an explanation how to do that. You might want to keep the load low on the DBs, to affect production operations as low as possible, and because with this decoupled update tasks approach there is no immediate time pressure. If you want to follow the [[UpdateTasks#How_to_see_all_schemas.3F|limited parallel]] approach, use a small, mild parallelity factor (e.g. 2 or maybe 4 if you know this by far does not saturate your DB platform).
  
There is a similar restriction regarding file and directory names in the same directory having different unicode normalization forms, yet the same textual representation. OX Drive requires uniqueness regarding this textual representaion of potentially different encoded unicode strings. So, in case the client tries to synchronize two textually equal files or directories, he is instructed to put one of them into quarantine. Internally the server performs an equals-check of the "NFC" normalization forms of the strings, i.e. an unicode string is normalized using full canonical decomposition, followed by the replacement of sequences with their primary composites, if possible. Details regarding unicode normalization can be found at http://www.unicode.org/reports/tr15/tr15-23.html .
+
Note: don't worry if you don't see the upgrade node joining the legacy cluster: the upgrade node will not join the legacy cluster / not be visisble there since the upgrade node will be a so-called "native client" to the legacy cluster, and it will be created on the fly (and subsequently disposed again) for propagating an event. So also on <code>netstat</code> level the upgrade node will not have visible connections to the legacy cluster (unless for the very short timeframe when an actual even is sent). You can verify the functionality of that package by log lines like
  
== Invalid and ignored Filenames ==
+
<nowiki> Successfully initialzed Hazelcast client: <client-id>
 
+
Successfully got reference to cache event topic: cacheEvents-3
There are some filenames that are invalid or ignored and therefore not synchronized. This means that files with these names should not be taken into account when sending the directory contents to the server, or when calculating the directory checksum (see below). The following list describes when a filename is considered invalid:
+
Publishing legacy cache event: <cache-event>
* If it contains one or of the following reserved characters:
+
** <code><</code> (less than),
+
Successfully published legacy cache event, shutting down client after 546ms...</nowiki>
** <code>></code> (greater than)
 
** <code>:</code> (colon)
 
** <code>"</code> (double quote)
 
** <code>/</code> (forward slash)
 
** <code>\</code> (backslash)
 
** <code>|</code> (vertical bar or pipe)
 
** <code>?</code> (question mark)
 
** <code>*</code> (asterisk)
 
** Characters whose integer representations are in the range from 0 through 31
 
* The last character is a <code>.</code> (dot) or <code>' '</code> (space)
 
* It's case-invariant name without an optional extension matches one of the reserved names <code>CON</code>, <code>PRN</code>, <code>AUX</code>, <code>NUL</code>, <code>COM1</code>, <code>COM2</code>, <code>COM3</code>, <code>COM4</code>, <code>COM5</code>, <code>COM6</code>, <code>COM7</code>, <code>COM8</code>, <code>COM9</code>, <code>LPT1</code>, <code>LPT2</code>, <code>LPT3</code>, <code>LPT4</code>, <code>LPT5</code>, <code>LPT6</code>, <code>LPT7</code>, <code>LPT8</code>, or <code>LPT9</code>
 
* It consists solely of whitespace characters
 
 
 
The following list gives an overview about the ignored filenames:
 
* <code>desktop.ini</code>
 
* <code>Thumbs.db</code>
 
* <code>.DS_Store</code>
 
* <code>icon\r</code>
 
* Any filename ending with <code>.drivepart</code>
 
* Any filename starting with <code>.msngr_hstr_data_</code> and ending with <code>.log</code>
 
 
 
Nevertheless, if the client still insists to send a file version with an invalid or ignored filename, the file creation on the server is refused with a corresponding <code>error</code> action (see below).  
 
 
 
== Invalid and ignored Directory Names ==
 
 
 
There are also similar restrictions regarding invalid directory names. Any try to include them in the list of directory versions will be responded with a corresponding error action for the directory version. The following list describes when a path is considered invalid:
 
* If it contains one or of the following reserved characters:
 
** <code><</code> (less than),
 
** <code>></code> (greater than)
 
** <code>:</code> (colon)
 
** <code>"</code> (double quote)
 
** <code>\</code> (backslash)
 
** <code>|</code> (vertical bar or pipe)
 
** <code>?</code> (question mark)
 
** <code>*</code> (asterisk)
 
** Characters whose integer representations are in the range from 0 through 31
 
* The last character of any subpath (i.e. the last part of the whole path or the part preceding the spearator character <code>/</code>) is a <code>.</code> (dot) or <code>' '</code> (space)
 
* It consists solely of whitespace characters
 
* It not equals the root path <code>/</code>, but ends with a <code>/</code> (forward slash) character
 
* It contains two or more consecutive <code>/</code> (forward slash) characters
 
  
The following list gives an overview about the ignored directory names:
+
For the overly prudent it might be an idea to prepare a special test context with a test user living in its dedicated (test) schema, so you can test the functionality of this mechanis during upgrade first.
* <code>/.drive</code>
 
* Any directory whose path ends with <code>/.msngr_hstr_data</code>
 
  
== Length Restrictions ==
+
After the DB update tasks you can remove the special upgrade package again from the upgrade node.
  
The maximum allowed length for path segments, i.e. the parts between forawrd slashes (</code>/</code>) in directory and filenames, is restricted to 255 characters. Synchronizing a file or directory version that contains path segments longer than this limit leads to those versions being put into quarantine.
+
The "Real Upgrade" procedure then looks like [[#Rolling_Upgrade_without_breaking_Hazelcast_upgrade|above]].
  
= Client side filtering =
+
== Reference Documentation ==
  
Client-side filtering is available since API version 2. <br />
+
=== Limitations ===
  
OX Drive clients may define a user- and/or application-defined list of file- and directory name exclusions. Those exclusion filters are then taken into account during synchronization, i.e. files and directories matching a defined exclusion pattern are ignored when comparing the list of server-, client- and original versions. Also, the file exclusion lists are considered for the calculation of aggergated directory checksums.
+
While in most cases a seamless, rolling upgrade of all nodes in the cluster is possible, there may be situations where nodes running a newer version of the Open-Xchange Server are not able to communicate with older nodes in the cluster, i.e. can't access distributed data or consume incompatible event notifications - especially, when the underlying Hazelcast library is part of the update, which does not support this scenario at the moment. In such cases, the release notes will contain corresponding information, so please have a look there before applying an update.
  
The exclusion filters may be set, changed or unset at any time during synchronization, there are no additional requests needed to set them up. Instead, the list of excluded files and directories is simply sent along with each <code>syncFolders</code>, <code>syncFiles</code> and <code>download</code> request. The following tables show the JSON representation of file- and directory patterns that are used to build up the exlcusion lists:
+
Additionally, there may always be some kind of race conditions during an update, i.e. client requests that can't be completed successfully or internal events not being deliverd to all nodes in the cluster. That's why the following information should only serve as a best-practices guide to minimize the impact of upgrades to the user experience.
  
== Directory pattern ==
+
=== Upgrading a single Node ===
  
A directory pattern is defined by a pattern string and further attributes.
+
Upgrading all nodes in the cluster should usually be done sequentially, i.o.w. one node after the other. This means that during the upgrade of one node, the node is temporarily disconnected from the other nodes in the cluster, and will join the cluster again after the update is completed. From the backend perspective, this is as easy as stopping the open-xchange service. other nodes in the cluster will recognize the disconnected node and start to repartition the shared cluster data automatically. But wait a minute - doing so would potentially lead to the webserver not registering the node being stopped immediately, resulting in temporary errors for currently logged in users until they are routed to another machine in the cluster. That's why it's good practice to tell the webserver's load balancer that the node should no longer fulfill incoming requests. The Apache Balancer Manager is an excellent tool for this ([http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/mod_status.html module ''mod_status'']). Look at the screen shot. Every node can be put into a disabled mode. Further requests will the redirected to other nodes in the cluster:
  
{| id="DirectoryPattern" cellspacing="0" border="1"
 
|+ align="bottom" | Directory Pattern
 
! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| type || String || The pattern type, currently one of <code>exact</code> or <code>glob</code>.
 
|-
 
| path || String || The path pattern, in a format depending on the pattern type.
 
|-
 
| caseSensitive || Boolean | Optional flag to enable case-sensitive matching, defaults to <code>false</code>
 
|}
 
  
== File pattern ==
+
[[Image:balancer_manager.jpg]]
  
A file pattern is defined by pattern strings for the filename and path, as well as further attributes.
 
  
{| id="FilePattern" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
Afterwards, the open-xchange service on the disabled node can be stopped by executing:
|+ align="bottom" | File Pattern
 
! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| type || String || The pattern type, currently one of <code>exact</code> or <code>glob</code>.
 
|-
 
| path || String || The path pattern, in a format depending on the pattern type.
 
|-
 
| name || String || The filename pattern, in a format depending on the pattern type.
 
|-
 
| caseSensitive || Boolean | Optional flag to enable case-sensitive matching, defaults to <code>false</code>
 
|}
 
  
== Pattern types ==
+
$ /etc/init.d/open-xchange stop
  
A pattern currently may be defined in two formats: <code>exact</code> or <code>glob</code>.
+
or  
  
* <code>exact</code> <br /> An exact pattern, matching the file- or directory version literally. For example, to exclude the file <code>Backup.pst</code> in the subfolder <code>Mail</code> below the root synchronization folder, an <code>exact</code> file pattern would look like: <code>{"path":"/Mail","name":"Backup.pst","type":"exact"}</code>, or, an <code>exact</code> directory pattern for the directory <code>/Archive</code> would be represented as <code>{"path":"/Archive","type":"exact"}</code>.
+
$ service open-xchange stop
* <code>glob</code> <br /> A simple pattern allowing to use the common wildcards <code>*</code> and <code>?</code> to match file- and directory versions. For example, to exclude all files ending with <code>.tmp</code> across all directories, the <code>glob</code> file pattern could be defined as <code>{"path":"*","name":"*.tmp","type":"glob"}</code>, or, to exclude the directory <code>/Project/.git</code> and all its subdirectories recursively, this would be expressed using a combination of the following two directory patterns: <code>[{"path":"/Project/.git","type":"exact"},{"path":"/Project/.git*","type":"glob"}]</code>.
 
  
== Further considerations ==
+
Now, the node is effectively in maintenance mode and any updates can take place. One could now verify the changed cluster infrastructure by accessing the Hazelcast MBeans either via JMX or the ''showruntimestats -c'' commandline tool (see above for details). There, the shut down node should no longer appear in the 'Member' section (com.hazelcast:type=Member).
  
* It's possible to exclude a (parent) directory with an appropriate pattern, while still subfolders below that directory being synchronized. This usually results in the excluded directory being created ob both client- and server side, but no file contents within the excluded directory being exchanged. If subfolders should be excluded, too, a wildcard should be used in the pattern to match any subdirectories.
+
When all upgrades are processed, the node open-xchange service can be started again by executing:
* If the client tries to synchronize a file- or directory version that is ignored, i.e. a version that would match any of the provided exclusion filters, the server behaves similarly to the handling of invalid and ignored file- and directory names (see above), i.e. the client would be instructed to put those versions into quarantine.
 
* For the calculation of directory checksums, it's important that the server and client perform exactly the same matching for ignored filenames: A <code>*</code> character matches zero or more characters, a <code>?</code> character matches exactly one character. All other characters are matched literally. Advanced glob flavors like braces to define subpattern alternatives or square brackets for character sets are not used.
 
* Client-side filtering is available with API version 2. The API version that is supported by the server is included in the response of the [[#Get Settings | Settings]] request.
 
* Whenever there are active exclusion filters, the <code>syncFolders</code> request should contain all of both directory and file exclusion filter lists. For the <code>syncFiles</code> request, it's sufficient to include the list of file exclusions.
 
  
 +
$ /etc/init.d/open-xchange start
  
= Metadata Synchronization =
+
or
  
The synchronization of metadata is available since API version 3. <br />
+
$ service open-xchange start
  
== Introduction ==
+
As stated above, depending on the chosen cluster discovery mechanism, it might take some time until the node joins the cluster again. When using static cluster discovery, it will join the existing cluster usually directly during serivce startup, i.o.w. before other depending OSGi services are started. Otherwise, there might also be situations where the node cannot join the cluster directly, for example when there were no mDNS advertisments for other nodes in the cluster received yet. Then, it can take some additional time until the node finally joins the cluster. During startup of the node, you can observe the JMX console or the output of ''showruntimestats -c'' (com.hazelcast:type=Member) of another node in the cluster to verify when the node has joined.
  
Previously, only the "raw" folders and files were synchronized between server and clients. While this is sufficient for basic synchronization, there are cases where the clients could benefit from additional data - "metadata" - that is already available on the server. For example, clients could display directories that have been shared or published to other people in a different way. Or, clients could consider folder permissions directly in case the user is performing a local change that would be rejected by the server in the next synchronization cycle anyway.
+
After the node has joined, distributed data is re-partioned automatically, and the node is ready to server incoming requests again - so now the node can finally be enabled again in the load balancer configuration of the webserver. Afterwards, the next node in the cluster can be upgraded using the same procedure, until all nodes were processed.
  
To supply the clients with those additional information without any influence on the existing synchronization protocol (!), <code>.drive-meta</code> files are introduced for each synchronized directory. Regarding synchronization, such files are treated like any other ordinary file. Especially, those files are taken into account when it comes to directory checksum calculation. Doing so, metadata updates result in a changed <code>.drive-meta</code> file, which in turn causes the parent directory checksum to change, hence synchronization is triggered.
+
=== Upgrades of the Hazelcast library ===
  
However, some special handling applies for those files:
+
In case an upgrade includes a major update of the Hazelcast library, a newly upgraded node will usually not be able to connect to the nodes running the previous version. In this case, volatile cluster data is lost after all nodes in the cluster have been updated, including sessions held in the distributed session storage. As outlined above, the release notes will contain a corresponding warning in such cases.
  
* Clients are not allowed to change metadata, so modifications of metadata files or the deletion of them is rejected. Recovery is done via the protocol here, i.e. the client is instructed to re-download the file.
+
Besides upgraded nodes not being able to access distributed data of the legacy cluster, this also affects new data not being available in the legacy cluster, which may cause troubles if the updated backend version needs to perform database update tasks. Database update tasks usually operate in a "blocking" way and all contexts associated with the schema being upgraded are disabled temporarily. Since context data itself is being held in caches on potentially each node in the cluster, the affected cache entries are invalidated during the database update. And, since cluster-wide cache invalidations again utilize Hazelcast functionality ([[#Remote Cache Invalidation]]), such invalidations normally won't be propagated to nodes running a previous version of the Hazelcast library.
* <code>.drive-meta</code> files are actually not stored physically on the file storage backend, but created on the fly based on the actual metadata of the directory.
 
* Client applications may either store such files on the client file system, or evaluate and store the contained metadata information in a local database for later retrieval. If the file is not saved physically on the client (which is actually recommended), the client is responsible to consider the metadata file in a virtual way and include it's checksum for the directory checksum calculation - similar to the server's internal handling.
 
  
== Metadata format ==
+
To work around this specific scenario where an incompatible upgrade of the Hazelcast library needs to be performed along with blocking database update tasks, starting with v7.8.0, a supplementary package is available that explicitly enables the context cache invalidation of nodes running the previous Hazelcast library. This package follows the naming scheme ''open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-XXX'' (where XXX representing the version of the legacy version of the Open-Xchange server), and is available in the repositories for the updated server packages. This package should only be installed on the first node of the cluster that is going to be upgraded to the new version, and can be deactivated once the database upgrade tasks were executed successfully.
  
The metadata in <code>.drive-meta</code> files is serialized in JSON format to allow easy processing at the clients. The following shows an example of the contents:
+
Once installed, a legacy cluster is discovered based on the available information in the ''hazelcast.properties'' configuration file in case cluster discovery is set to ''static''. If ''multicast'' is used, there's an alternative option to configure at least one of the addresses of the legacy cluster via ''com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.client.nodes''.
{
 
  "path": "/",
 
  "created": 1418024049629,
 
  "modified": 1418024189166,
 
  "own_rights": 403710016,
 
  "permissions": [{
 
    "bits": 403710016,
 
    "group": false,
 
    "entity": 182,
 
    "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
    "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
    "guest": false
 
  }],
 
  "jump": ["permissions"],
 
  "files": [{
 
    "name": "Koala.jpg",
 
    "created": 1418024190565,
 
    "modified": 1418026995663,
 
    "created_by": {
 
      "group": false,
 
      "entity": 182,
 
      "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
      "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
      "guest": false
 
    },
 
    "modified_by": {
 
      "group": false,
 
      "entity": 182,
 
      "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
      "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
      "guest": false
 
    },
 
    "preview": "http://192.168.32.191/ajax/files?action=document&folder=268931&id=268931/297620&version=1&delivery=download&scaleType=contain&width=800&height=800&rotate=true",
 
    "thumbnail": "http://192.168.32.191/ajax/files?action=document&folder=268931&id=268931/297620&version=1&delivery=download&scaleType=contain&width=100&height=100&rotate=true",
 
    "object_permissions": [{
 
      "bits": 1,
 
      "group": false,
 
      "entity": 10,
 
      "display_name": "Jan Ot/to Finsel",
 
      "email_address": "jan.finsel@premium",
 
      "guest": false
 
    },
 
    {
 
      "bits": 1,
 
      "group": false,
 
      "entity": 8338,
 
      "email_address": "horst@example.com",
 
      "guest": true
 
    }],
 
    "shared": true,
 
    "number_of_versions": 1,
 
    "version": "1",
 
    "jump": ["preview",
 
    "permissions",
 
    "version_history"]
 
  },
 
  {
 
    "name": "test.txt",
 
    "created": 1418024198520,
 
    "modified": 1418027394897,
 
    "created_by": {
 
      "group": false,
 
      "entity": 182,
 
      "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
      "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
      "guest": false
 
    },
 
    "modified_by": {
 
      "group": false,
 
      "entity": 182,
 
      "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
      "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
      "guest": false
 
    },
 
    "preview": "http://192.168.32.191/ajax/files?action=document&format=preview_image&folder=268931&id=268931/297621&version=6&delivery=download&scaleType=contain&width=800&height=800",
 
    "thumbnail": "http://192.168.32.191/ajax/files?action=document&format=preview_image&folder=268931&id=268931/297621&version=6&delivery=download&scaleType=contain&width=100&height=100",
 
    "locked": true,
 
    "number_of_versions": 4,
 
    "version": "6",
 
    "version_comment": "Uploaded with OX Drive (TestDrive)",
 
    "versions": [{
 
      "name": "test.txt",
 
      "file_size": 23,
 
      "created": 1418024198520,
 
      "modified": 1418024202878,
 
      "created_by": {
 
        "group": false,
 
        "entity": 182,
 
        "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
        "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
        "guest": false
 
      },
 
      "modified_by": {
 
        "group": false,
 
        "entity": 182,
 
        "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
        "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
        "guest": false
 
      },
 
      "version": "1",
 
      "version_comment": "Uploaded with OX Drive (TestDrive)"
 
    },
 
    {
 
      "name": "test.txt",
 
      "file_size": 54,
 
      "created": 1418024234782,
 
      "modified": 1418024231522,
 
      "created_by": {
 
        "group": false,
 
        "entity": 182,
 
        "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
        "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
        "guest": false
 
      },
 
      "modified_by": {
 
        "group": false,
 
        "entity": 182,
 
        "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
        "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
        "guest": false
 
      },
 
      "version": "2",
 
      "version_comment": "Uploaded with OX Drive (TestDrive)"
 
    },
 
    {
 
      "name": "test.txt",
 
      "file_size": 120,
 
      "created": 1418027349026,
 
      "modified": 1418027355957,
 
      "created_by": {
 
        "group": false,
 
        "entity": 182,
 
        "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
        "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
        "guest": false
 
      },
 
      "modified_by": {
 
        "group": false,
 
        "entity": 182,
 
        "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
        "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
        "guest": false
 
      },
 
      "version": "5"
 
    },
 
    {
 
      "name": "test.txt",
 
      "file_size": 127,
 
      "created": 1418027370051,
 
      "modified": 1418027366945,
 
      "created_by": {
 
        "group": false,
 
        "entity": 182,
 
        "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
        "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
        "guest": false
 
      },
 
      "modified_by": {
 
        "group": false,
 
        "entity": 182,
 
        "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
        "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
        "guest": false
 
      },
 
      "version": "6",
 
      "version_comment": "Uploaded with OX Drive (TestDrive)"
 
    }],
 
    "jump": ["preview",
 
    "edit",
 
    "permissions",
 
    "version_history"]
 
  },
 
  {
 
    "name": "Kalimba.mp3",
 
    "created": 1418026529047,
 
    "modified": 1247549551659,
 
    "created_by": {
 
      "group": false,
 
      "entity": 182,
 
      "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
      "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
      "guest": false
 
    },
 
    "modified_by": {
 
      "group": false,
 
      "entity": 182,
 
      "display_name": "Mander, Jens",
 
      "email_address": "jens.mander@example.com",
 
      "guest": false
 
    },
 
    "preview": "http://192.168.32.191/ajax/image/file/mp3Cover?folder=268931&id=268931/297623&version=1&delivery=download&scaleType=contain&width=800&height=800",
 
    "thumbnail": "http://192.168.32.191/ajax/image/file/mp3Cover?folder=268931&id=268931/297623&version=1&delivery=download&scaleType=contain&width=100&height=100",
 
    "number_of_versions": 1,
 
    "version": "1",
 
    "version_comment": "Uploaded with OX Drive (TestDrive)",
 
    "jump": ["preview",
 
    "permissions",
 
    "version_history"]
 
  }]
 
}
 
  
The following objects describe the JSON structure of the metadata for a directory:
+
As an example, along with the server v7.8.0, a new package named ''open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-76x'' can be installed that aids in invalidating cluster server nodes running v7.6.x (which includes the Hazelcast library in version 3.2.4). Using this package, the recommended steps to update an OX cluster from version 7.6.x to version 7.8.0 would be:
 +
# Pick a node from your cluster that you want to use for executing the database update tasks shipped with the new release
 +
# Disable this node for incoming HTTP requests in your webserver configuration as described at [[#Upgrading a single Node]]
 +
# Update the OX packages on this node, additionally install the package ''open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-76x''
 +
# Restart the open-xchange services on this node
 +
# Trigger the update task executions using the ''runUpdate'' commandline utitlty as described at [[UpdateTasks]]
 +
# Once they are finished, uninstall the package ''open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-76x'' again
 +
# Restart the open-xchange services on this node
 +
# Re-enable the node for incoming HTTP requests in your webserver configuration as described at [[#Upgrading a single Node]]
 +
# Upgrade all other nodes in the cluster as described at [[#Upgrading a single Node]]
  
{| id="DirectoryMetadata" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
Same steps apply to upgrading from v7.8.0 through v7.8.2 (incl.) to v7.8.3 using the package named ''open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-780-782'', since v7.8.0 through v7.8.2 (incl.) utilize Hazelcast v3.5.x, while v7.8.3 uses Hazelcast v3.6.4
|+ align="bottom" | Directory Metadata
 
! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| id || String || The server-side unique identifier of the directory.
 
|-
 
| name || String || The display name of the directory.
 
|-
 
| path || String || The path of the directory the metadata belongs to.
 
|-
 
| created || Timestamp || The folder's last modification time (always UTC, not translated into user time).
 
|-
 
| modified || Timestamp || The folder's last modification time (always UTC, not translated into user time).
 
|-
 
| own_rights || Number|| Folder permissions which apply to the current user, as described in [[http://oxpedia.org/index.php?title=HTTP_API#PermissionFlags | permission flags]].
 
|-
 
| permissions || Array || All folder permissions, each element is an object as described in [[#Folder Permission | Folder Permission]].  
 
|-
 
| default_folder || Boolean || <code>true</code> if the folder is a default folder, <code>false</code> or not set, otherwise.  
 
|-
 
| has_subfolders || Boolean || <code>true</code> if the folder (potentially) has subfolders, <code>false</code> or not set, otherwise.  
 
|-
 
| shared || Boolean || <code>true</code> if the folder is shared, <code>false</code> or not set, otherwise.  
 
|-
 
| type || Number || The special folder type, or not set, if not available.  
 
|-
 
| jump || Array || An array containing the names of possible <code>jump</code> methods to use for the folder.  
 
|-
 
| files || Array || Metadata for the contained files, each element is an object as described in [[#File Metadata | File Metadata]].  
 
|}
 
  
 +
Same steps apply to upgrading from v7.8.3 to v7.8.4 using the package named ''open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-783'', since v7.8.3 utilizes Hazelcast v3.7.1
  
{| id="FileMetadata" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
Same steps apply to upgrading from v7.8.4 to v7.10.0 using the package named ''open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-784'', since v7.8.4 utilizes Hazelcast v3.8.1
|+ align="bottom" | File Metadata
 
! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| name || String || The name of the file the metadata belongs to.  
 
|-
 
| created || Timestamp || The file's last modification time (always UTC, not translated into user time).  
 
|-
 
| modified || Timestamp || The file's last modification time (always UTC, not translated into user time).  
 
|-
 
| created_by || Object || Information about the file's creator as described in  [[#Entity Information | Entity Information]].
 
|-
 
| modified_by || Object || Information about the file's last editor as described in  [[#Entity Information | Entity information]].
 
|-
 
| preview || String || A URL to a preview image for the file.
 
|-
 
| thumbnail || String || A URL to a thumbnail image for the file.
 
|-
 
| object_permissions || Array | All file permissions, each element is an object as described in [[#Object Permission | Object Permission]].
 
|-
 
| shared || Boolean || <code>true</code> if the file is shared, <code>false</code> or not set, otherwise.
 
|-
 
| locked || Boolean || <code>true</code> if the file is locked, <code>false</code> or not set, otherwise.
 
|-
 
| jump || Array || An array containing the names of possible <code>jump</code> methods to use for the file.  
 
|-
 
| number_of_versions || Number | The number of all versions of the file.  
 
|-
 
| version || String || The current version identifier (usually, but not necessarily a numerical value) of the file.  
 
|-
 
| version_comment || String | An additional comment for the file version.  
 
|-
 
| versions || Array || Metadata for all versions of the file, each element is an object as described in [[#File Version | File Version]].
 
|}
 
  
{| id="EntityInformation" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
'''Operations Note:''' The upgraded node will be added as so-called [http://docs.hazelcast.org/docs/2.3/manual/html/ch15.html Native Client] to the legacy Hazelcast Cluster.
|+ align="bottom" | Entity Information
 
! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| entity || Number || The unique identifier of the entity.
 
|-
 
| group || Boolean || <code>true</code> if the entity is a group, <code>false</code> or not set, if it is a single user or guest.  
 
|-
 
| display_name || String || A display name for the entity if available.
 
|-
 
| email_address || String || An e-mail address for the entity if available.
 
|-
 
| group || Boolean || <code>true</code> if the entity is an external guest, <code>false</code> or not set, otherwise.
 
|}
 
  
{| id="FolderPermission" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
<blockquote>
|+ align="bottom" | Folder Permission
+
Native Client enables you to do all Hazelcast operations without being a member of the cluster.
! Name !! Type !! Value
+
[...]
|-
 
| entity || Number || The unique identifier of the entity.
 
|-
 
| group || Boolean || <code>true</code> if the entity is a group, <code>false</code> or not set, if it is a single user or guest.
 
|-
 
| display_name || String || A display name for the entity if available.  
 
|-
 
| email_address || String || An e-mail address for the entity if available.
 
|-
 
| group || Boolean || <code>true</code> if the entity is an external guest, <code>false</code> or not set, otherwise.  
 
|-
 
| bits || Number|| Permission level, as described in [[http://oxpedia.org/index.php?title=HTTP_API#PermissionFlags | permission flags]].
 
|}
 
  
{| id="ObjectPermission" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
However Native client is not member and relies on one of the cluster members.
|+ align="bottom" | Object Permission
+
</blockquote>
! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| entity || Number || The unique identifier of the entity.
 
|-
 
| group || Boolean || <code>true</code> if the entity is a group, <code>false</code> or not set, if it is a single user or guest.
 
|-
 
| display_name || String || A display name for the entity if available.
 
|-
 
| email_address || String || An e-mail address for the entity if available.  
 
|-
 
| group || Boolean || <code>true</code> if the entity is an external guest, <code>false</code> or not set, otherwise.
 
|-
 
| bits || Number|| Object permission level, as described in [[http://oxpedia.org/index.php?title=HTTP_API#ObjectPermissionFlags | permission flags]].
 
|}
 
  
{| id="FileVersion" cellspacing="0" border="1"
+
This means, the upgraded node will not be visible in the members list of the legacy Hazelcast cluster (<code>showruntimestats -c</code>). Furthermore, the native client will created and destructed on single context events, with the effect that connections will only be visible in the very moment of such an event. This means effectively that verification of the invalidation mechanis is only possible by actually executing the <code>runupdate</code> CLT. This should produce log lines like
|+ align="bottom" | File Version
 
! Name !! Type !! Value
 
|-
 
| name || String || The name of the file version.
 
|-
 
| file_size || Number || The file size of the version in bytes.
 
|-
 
| created || Timestamp || The file version's last modification time (always UTC, not translated into user time).  
 
|-
 
| modified || Timestamp || The file version's last modification time (always UTC, not translated into user time).
 
|-
 
| created_by || Object || Information about the file version's creator as described in [[#Entity Information | Entity Information]].
 
|-
 
| modified_by || Object || Information about the file version's last editor as described in  [[#Entity Information | Entity information]].  
 
|-
 
| version || String || The version identifier (usually, but not necessarily a numerical value) of the file version.
 
|-
 
| version_comment || String || An additional comment for the file version.  
 
|}
 
  
== Client-side implementation ==
+
Successfully initialzed Hazelcast client: <client-id>
 +
Successfully got reference to cache event topic: cacheEvents-3
 +
Publishing legacy cache event: <cache-event>
 +
Successfully published legacy cache event, shutting down client after 546ms...
  
In order to make use of the metadata, clients should roughly implement the following:
+
Most importantly, you should be able to observe correct functionality (users of affected contexts being logged out). It may be handy to prepare a dedicated schema with just test contexts inside. (How to create this is out of scope here, but hint: use <code>createschema</code> and <code>createcontext --schema-name</code>.)
* Include the <code>apiVersion</code> parameter in each request, and set it to at least <code>3</code> in order to include <code>.drive-meta</code> during synchronization
 
* Evaluate <code>.drive-meta</code> files and store the information, as well as the file's checksums in a local database
 
* Include this file in the calculation of the parent directory checksum, just like an ordinary file in that directory
 
* Do something useful with the metadata information.
 
  
== Additional notes ==
+
=== Other Considerations ===
  
* The metadata synchronization via <code>.drive-meta</code> files embedded into the synchronization protocol obsoletes the previously used methods to receive metadata information ([[#Get file metadata]] and <code>columns</code> parameter in [[#Synchronize files in a folder]].
+
* It's always recommended to only upgrade one node after the other, always ensuring that the cluster has formed correctly between each shutdown/startup of a node.
* Depending on the underlying file storage backend, the included metadata may vary, so each information should be treatened as optional.
+
* Do not stop a node while running the runUpdate script or the associated update task.
 +
* During the time of such a rolling upgrade of all nodes, we have effectively heterogeneous software versions in the cluster, which potentially might lead to temporary inconsistencies. Therefore, all nodes in the cluster should be updated in one cycle (but still one after the other).
 +
* Following the above guideline, it's also possible to add or remove nodes dynamically to the cluster, not only when disconnecting a node temporary for updates.
 +
* In case of trouble, i.e. a node refuses to join the cluster again after restart, consult the logfiles first for any hints about what is causing the problem - both on the disconnected node, and also on other nodes in the network
 +
* If there are general incompatibilities between two revisions of the Open-Xchange Server that prevent an operation in a cluster (release notes), it's recommended to choose another name for the cluster in ''cluster.properties'' for the nodes with the new version. This will temporary lead to two separate clusters during the rolling upgrade, and finally the old cluster being shut down completely after the last node was updated to the new version. While distributed data can't be migrated from one server version to another in this scenario due to incompatibilities, the uptime of the system itself is not affected, since the nodes in the new cluster are able to serve new incoming requests directly.
 +
* When updating only UI plugins without also updating to a new version of the core UI, you also need to perform the additional step from [[AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages#Updating_UI_plugins|Updating UI plugins]].
  
== Possible use cases ==
+
[[Category: AppSuite]] [[Category: Administration]] [[Category: Cluster]]
* For files where the <code>locked</code> property is <code>true</code>, display some kind of "lock" icon (-overlay) in the file list / explorer view
 
* For files or folders where the <code>shared</code> property is <code>true</code>, display some kind of "cloud" icon (-overlay) in the file list / explorer view
 
* For files or folders where the user is not allowed to perform an action with, don't offer such actions (e.g. if a file cannot be deleted or renamed by the user due to insufficient permissions, disable the corresponding options)
 
* Use the URLs in <code>preview</code> and <code>thumbnail</code> to get a preview image for the files
 
* Display the server creation / last modification timestamps of files and folders
 
* Embed a version history for files with multiple versions
 
* Show to which users a file or folder is currently shared
 
* Offer appropriate "jump" actions to the groupware web interface for more advanced options (e.g. to directly edit an .xlsx file in the spreadsheet application of the web interface, or to manage a folder's permission
 

Revision as of 13:09, 16 May 2019

Running a cluster

Concepts

For inter-OX-communication over the network, multiple Open-Xchange servers can form a cluster. This brings different advantages regarding distribution and caching of volatile data, load balancing, scalability, fail-safety and robustness. Additionally, it provides the infrastructure for upcoming features of the Open-Xchange server. The clustering capabilities of the Open-Xchange server are mainly built up on Hazelcast, an open source clustering and highly scalable data distribution platform for Java. The following article provides an overview about the current featureset and configuration options.

Requirements

Synchronized system clock times

It is crucial that all involved members in a cluster do have their system clock times in sync with each other; e.g. by using an NTP service.

HTTP routing

An OX cluster is always part of a larger picture. Usually there is front level loadbalancer as central HTTPS entry point to the platform. This loadbalancer optionally performs HTTPS termination and forwards HTTP(S) requests to webservers (the usual and only supported choice as of now is Apache). These webservers are performing HTTPS termination (if this is not happening on the loadbalancer) and serve static content, and (which is what is relevant for our discussion here) they forward dynamic requests to the OX backends.

A central requirement for the interaction of these components (loadbalancer, webservers, OX nodes) is that we have session stability based on the JSESSIONID cookie / jsessionid path component suffix. This means that our application sets a cookie named JSESSIONID which has a value like <large decimal number>.<route identifier>, e.g. "5661584529655240315.OX1". The route identifier here ("OX1" in this example) is taken by the OX node from a configuration setting from a config file and is specific to one OX node. HTTP routing must happen such that HTTP requests with a cookie with such a suffix always end up the corresponding OX node. There are furthermore specific cirumstances when passing this information via cookie is not possible. Then the JSESSIONID is transferred in a path component as "jsessionid=..." in the HTTP request. The routing mechanism needs to take that into account also.

There are mainly two options to implement this. If the Apache processes are running co-located on the same machines running the OX groupware processes, it is often desired to have the front level loadbalancer perform HTTP routing to the correct machines. If dedicated Apache nodes are employed, is is usually sufficient to have the front-level loadbalancer do HTTP routing to the Apache nodes in a round-robin fashion and perform routing to the correct OX nodes in the Apache nodes.

We provide sample configuration files to configure Apache (with mod_proxy_http) to perform HTTP routing correctly in our guides on OXpedia, e.g. AppSuite:Main_Page_AppSuite#quickinstall. Central elements are the directives "ProxySet stickysession=JSESSIONID|jsessionid scolonpathdelim=On" in conjunction with the "route=OX1" parameters to the BalancerMember lines in the Proxy definition. This is valid for Apache 2.2 as of Sep-2014.

How to configure a front level loadbalancer to perform HTTP equivalent HTTP routing is dependent on the specific loadbalancer implementation. If Apache is used as front level loadbalancer, the same configuration as discussed in the previous section can be employed. As of time of writing this text (Sep 2014), the alternative choices are thin. F5 BigIP is reported to be able to implement "jsessionid based persistence using iRules". nginx has the functionality in their commercial "nginx plus" product. (Both of these options have not been tested by OX.) Other loadbalancers with this functionality are not known to us.

If the front level loadbalancer is not capable of performing correct HTTP routing, is is required to configure correct HTTP routing on Apache level, even if Apache runs co-located on the OX nodes and thus cross-routing happens.

There are several reasons why we require session stability in exactly this way. We require session stability for horizontal scale-out; while we support transparent resuming / migration of user sessions in the OX cluster without need for users to re-authenticate, sessions wandering around randomly will consume a fixed amount resources corresponding to a running session on each OX node in the cluster, while a session sticky to one OX node will consume this fixed amount of resources only on one OX node. Furthermore there are mechanisms in OX like TokenLogin which work only of all requests belonging to one sequence get routed to the same OX node even if they stem from different machines with different IPs. Only the JSESSIONID (which in this case is transferred as jsessionid path component, as cookies do not work during a 302 redirect, which is part of this sequence) carries the required information where the request must be routed to.

Usual "routing based on cookie hash" is not sufficient here since it disregards the information which machine originally issued the cookie. It only ensures that the session will be sticky to any target, which statistically will not be the same machine that issued the cookie. OX will then set a new JSESSIONID cookie, assuming the session had been migrated. The loadbalancer will then route the session to a different target, as the hash of the cookie will differ. This procedure then happens iteratively until by chance the routing based on cookie hash will route the session to the correct target. By then, a lot of resources will have been wasted, by creating full (short-term) sessions on all OX nodes. Furthermore, processes like TokenLogin will not work this way.

Same Packages

All middleware nodes participating in the Hazelcast cluster need to have the same open-xchange-* packages installed, so that all dynamically injected class definitions are available during (de-)erialization on all nodes. So for example, even if a node does not serve requests from the web client, it still requires the realtime packages for collaborative document editing or the packages for the distributed session storage being installed.

Configuration

All settings regarding cluster setup are located in the configuration file hazelcast.properties. The former used additional files cluster.properties, mdns.properties and static-cluster-discovery.properties are no longer needed. The following gives an overview about the most important settings - please refer to the inline documentation of the configuration file for more advanced options.

Note: The configuration guide targets v7.4.0 of the OX server (and above). For older versions, please consult the history of this page. A full list of Hazelcast-related properties is available at https://documentation.open-xchange.com/components/middleware/config/7.8.4/#mode=features&feature=Hazelcast .

General

To restrict access to the cluster and to separate the cluster from others in the local network, a name and password needs to be defined. Only backend nodes having the same values for those properties are able to join and form a cluster.

# Configures the name of the cluster. Only nodes using the same group name 
# will join each other and form the cluster. Required if 
# "com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join" is not "empty" (see below).
com.openexchange.hazelcast.group.name=

# The password used when joining the cluster. Defaults to "wtV6$VQk8#+3ds!a". 
# Please change this value, and ensure it's equal on all nodes in the cluster.
com.openexchange.hazelcast.group.password=wtV6$VQk8#+3ds!a

Network

It's required to define the network interface that is used for cluster communication via com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.interfaces. By default, the interface is restricted to the local loopback address only. To allow the same configuration amongst all nodes in the cluster, it's recommended to define the value using a wildcard matching the IP addresses of all nodes participating in the cluster, e.g. 192.168.0.*

# Comma-separated list of interface addresses hazelcast should use. Wildcards 
# (*) and ranges (-) can be used. Leave blank to listen on all interfaces
# Especially in server environments with multiple network interfaces, it's 
# recommended to specify the IP-address of the network interface to bind to 
# explicitly. Defaults to "127.0.0.1" (local loopback only), needs to be 
# adjusted when building a cluster of multiple backend nodes.
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.interfaces=127.0.0.1

To form a cluster of multiple OX server nodes, different discovery mechanisms can be used. The discovery mechanism is specified via the property com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join:

# Specifies which mechanism is used to discover other backend nodes in the 
# cluster. Possible values are "empty" (no discovery for single-node setups),
# "static" (fixed set of cluster member nodes) or "multicast" (automatic 
# discovery of other nodes via multicast). Defaults to "empty". Depending on 
# the specified value, further configuration might be needed, see "Networking"
# section below. 
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join=empty

Generally, it's advised to use the same network join mechanism for all nodes in the cluster, and, in most cases, it's strongly recommended to use a static network join configuration. This will allow the nodes to join the cluster directly upon startup. With a multicast based setup, nodes will merge to an existing cluster possibly at some later time, thus not being able to access the distributed data until they've joined.

Depending on the network join setting, further configuration may be necessary, as decribed in the following paragraphs.

empty

When using the default value empty, no other nodes are discovered in the cluster. This value is suitable for single-node installations. Note that other nodes that are configured to use other network join mechanisms may be still able to still to connect to this node, e.g. using a static network join, having the IP address of this host in the list of potential cluster members (see below).

static

The most common setting for com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join is static. A static cluster discovery uses a fixed list of IP addresses of the nodes in the cluster. During startup and after a specific interval, the underlying Hazelcast library probes for not yet joined nodes from this list and adds them to the cluster automatically. The address list is configured via com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.static.nodes:

# Configures a comma-separated list of IP addresses / hostnames of possible 
# nodes in the cluster, e.g. "10.20.30.12, 10.20.30.13:5701, 192.178.168.110".
# Only used if "com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join" is set to "static". 
# It doesn't hurt if the address of the local host appears in the list, so 
# that it's still possible to use the same list throughout all nodes in the 
# cluster.
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.static.nodes=

For a fixed set of backend nodes, it's recommended to simply include the IP addresses of all nodes in the list, and use the same configuration for each node. However, it's only required to add the address of at least one other node in the cluster to allow the node to join the cluster. Also, when adding a new node to the cluster and this list is extended accordingly, existing nodes don't need to be shut down to recognize the new node, as long as the new node's address list contains at least one of the already running nodes.

multicast

For highly dynamic setups where nodes are added and removed from the cluster quite often and/or the host's IP addresses are not fixed, it's also possible to configure the network join via multicast. During startup and after a specific interval, the backend nodes initiate the multicast join process automatically, and discovered nodes form or join the cluster afterwards. The multicast group and port can be configured as follows:

# Configures the multicast address used to discover other nodes in the cluster
# dynamically. Only used if "com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join" is set 
# to "multicast". If the nodes reside in different subnets, please ensure that 
# multicast is enabled between the subnets. Defaults to "224.2.2.3". 
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.multicast.group=224.2.2.3

# Configures the multicast port used to discover other nodes in the cluster
# dynamically. Only used if "com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join" is set 
# to "multicast". Defaults to "54327". 
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.multicast.port=54327

Example

The following example shows how a simple cluster named MyCluster consisting of 4 backend nodes can be configured using static cluster discovery. The node's IP addresses are 10.0.0.15, 10.0.0.16, 10.0.0.17 and 10.0.0.18. Note that the same hazelcast.properties is used by all nodes.

com.openexchange.hazelcast.group.name=MyCluster
com.openexchange.hazelcast.group.password=secret
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join=static
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.static.nodes=10.0.0.15,10.0.0.16,10.0.0.17,10.0.0.18
com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.interfaces=10.0.0.*


Advanced Configuration

Lite Members (available since v7.8.4)

Lite members in a Hazelcast cluster are members that do not hold any data partitions, i.e. all read- and write operations to distributed maps are delegated to non-lite ("full") members. Apart from not having data partitions, lite members participate in the same way as other members: they can register listeners for distributed topics (e.g. cache invalidation events) or can be addressed for task execution (e.g. during realtime communication).

Similar to using a custom partitioning scheme, separating the nodes of a large cluster into few "full" members and many "lite" members helps to minimize the impact of JVM activities from a single node (mainly the garbage collector) on the whole cluster communication. Additionally, when starting or stopping lite members, no repartitioning of the distributed cluster data needs to be performed, which significantly decreases the node's startup- and shutdown time and reduces the necessary network communication to a minimum.

In medium or larger sized clusters, it is sufficient to have roughly 10 to 20 percent of the nodes configured as "full" members, while all other ones can be started as "lite" member nodes. Additionally, please note that the configured backup count in the map configurations should always be smaller than the total number of "full" members, otherwise, there may be problems if one of those data nodes is shut down temporarily for maintenance. So, the minimum number of "full" members is implicitly bound to the sum of a map's backupCount and asyncBackupCount properties, plus 1 for the original data partition.

The configured "full" members should preferrably not be used to serve client requests (by not adding them as endpoint in the loadbalancer), to ensure they are always responsive. Also, shutdown and startups of those "full" members should be reduced to a minimum to avoid repartitioning operations.

More general information regarding lite members is available at http://docs.hazelcast.org/docs/latest/manual/html-single/index.html#enabling-lite-members .

To configure a node as "lite" member, the following configuration should be applied in the node's hazelcast.properties file:

com.openexchange.hazelcast.liteMember=true

It's also recommended to use a "static" cluster discovery for the network join, and list all "full" member nodes here, so that join requests are handled by those nodes, too (and not the other nodes that are potentially prone to garbage collection delays.

Custom Partitioning

Note: Starting with v7.8.4, "Lite Members" should be used in favor of applying a custom partitioning scheme.

While originally being designed to separate the nodes holding distributed data into different risk groups for increased fail safety, a custom partitioning strategy may also be used to distinguish between nodes holding distributed data from those who should not.

This approach of custom partitioning may be used in a OX cluster, where usually different backend nodes serve different purposes. A common scenario is that there are nodes handling requests from the web interfaces, and others being responsible for USM/EAS traffic. Due to their nature of processing large chunks of synchronization data in memory, the USM/EAS nodes may encounter small delays when the Java garbage collector kicks in and suspends the Java Virtual Machine. Since those delays may also have an influence on hazelcast-based communication in the cluster, the idea is to instruct hazelcast to not store distributed data on that nodes. This is where a custom partitioning scheme comes into play.

To setup a custom partitioning scheme in the cluster, an additional hazelcast.xml configuration file is used, which should be placed into the hazelcast subdirectory of the OX configuration folder, usually at /opt/openexchange/etc/hazelcast. Please note that it's vital that each node in the cluster is configured equally here, so the same hazelcast.xml file should be copied to each server. The configuration read from there is used as basis for all further settings that are taken from the ordinary hazelcast.properties config file.

To setup a custom partitioning scheme, the partition groups must be defined in the hazelcast.xml file. See the following file for an example configuration, where the three nodes 10.10.10.60, 10.10.10.61 and 10.10.10.62 are defined to form an own partitioning group each. Doing so, all distributed data will be stored at one of those nodes physically, while the corresponding backup data (if configured) at one of the other two nodes. All other nodes in the cluster will not be used to store distributed data, but will still be "full" hazelcast members, which is necessary for other cluster-wide operations the OX backends use.

Please note that the configured backup count in the map configurations should be smaller than the number of nodes here, otherwise, there may be problems if one of those data nodes is shut down temporarily for maintenance. So, the minimum number of nodes to define in the partition group sections is implicitly bound to the sum of a map's backupCount and asyncBackupCount properties, plus 1 for the original data partition.


<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<hazelcast xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/config hazelcast-config-3.1.xsd"
           xmlns="http://www.hazelcast.com/schema/config"
           xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
    <partition-group enabled="true" group-type="CUSTOM">
        <member-group>
            <interface>10.10.10.60</interface>
        </member-group>
        <member-group>
            <interface>10.10.10.61</interface>
        </member-group>
        <member-group>
            <interface>10.10.10.62</interface>
        </member-group>
    </partition-group>
</hazelcast>

More general information regarding custom partioning is available at http://hazelcast.org/docs/latest/manual/html/partitiongroupconfig.html .

It's also recommended to use a "static" cluster discovery for the network join, and list same the nodes that are also configured in the parition groups here, so that join requests are handled by those nodes, too (and not the other nodes that are potentially prone to garbage collection delays.

After configuring a custom partitioning scheme, the data distribution may be verified, e.g. by inspecting the MBeans of the distributed maps via JMX.

Features

The following list gives an overview about different features that were implemented using the new cluster capabilities.

Distributed Session Storage

Previously, when an Open-Xchange server was shutdown for maintenance, all user sessions that were bound to that machine were lost, i.e. the users needed to login again. With the distributed session storage, all sessions are backed by a distributed map in the cluster, so that they are no longer bound to a specific node in the cluster. When a node is shut down, the session data is still available in the cluster and can be accessed from the remaining nodes. The load-balancing techniques of the webserver then seamlessly routes the user session to another node, with no session expired errors. The distributed session storage comes with the package open-xchange-sessionstorage-hazelcast. It's recommended to install this optional package in all clustered environments with multiple groupware server nodes.

Notes:

  • While there's some kind of built-in session distribution among the nodes in the cluster, this should not be seen as a replacement for session-stickiness between the loadbalancer and groupware nodes, i.e. one should still configure the webserver to use sticky sessions for performance reasons.
  • The distributed session storage is still an in-memory storage. While the session data is distributed and backed up on multiple nodes in the cluster, shutting down multiple or all nodes at the same time will lead to loss of the the distributed data. To avoid such data loss when shutting down a node, please follow the guidelines at Updating_a_Cluster .

Depending on the cluster infrastructure, different backup-count configuration options might be set for the distributed session storage in the map configuration file sessions.properties in the hazelcast subdirectory:

  com.openexchange.hazelcast.configuration.map.backupCount=1

The backupcount property configures the number of nodes with synchronized backups. Synchronized backups block operations until backups are successfully copied and acknowledgements are received. If 1 is set as the backup-count for example, then all entries of the map will be copied to another JVM for fail-safety. 0 means no backup. Any integer between 0 and 6. Default is 1, setting bigger than 6 has no effect.

  com.openexchange.hazelcast.configuration.map.asyncBackupCount=0

The asyncbackup property configures the number of nodes with async backups. Async backups do not block operations and do not require acknowledgements. 0 means no backup. Any integer between 0 and 6. Default is 0, setting bigger than 6 has no effect.

Since session data is backed up by default continuously by multiple nodes in the cluster, the steps described in Session_Migration to trigger session migration to other nodes explicitly is obsolete and no longer needed with the distributed session storage.

Normally, sessions in the distributed storages are not evicted automatically, but are only removed when they're also removed from the session handler, either due to a logout operation or when exceeding the long-term session lifetime as configured by com.openexchange.sessiond.sessionLongLifeTime in sessiond.properties. Under certain circumstances, i.e. the session is no longer accessed by the client and the OX node hosting the session in it's long-life container being shutdown, the remove operation from the distributed storage might not be triggered. Therefore, additionaly a maximum idle time of map-entries can be configured for the distributed sessions map via

com.openexchange.hazelcast.configuration.map.maxIdleSeconds=640000

To avoid unnecessary eviction, the value should be higher than the configured com.openexchange.sessiond.sessionLongLifeTime in sessiond.properties.

Remote Cache Invalidation

For faster access, groupware data is held in different caches by the server. Formerly, the caches utilized the TCP Lateral Auxiliary Cache plug in (LTCP) for the underlying JCS caches to broadcast updates and removals to caches on other OX nodes in the cluster. This could potentially lead to problems when remote invalidation was not working reliably due to network discovery problems. As an alternative, remote cache invalidation can also be performed using reliable publish/subscribe events built up on Hazelcast topics. This can be configured in the cache.properties configuration file, where the 'eventInvalidation' property can either be set to 'false' for the legacy behavior or 'true' for the new mechanism:

com.openexchange.caching.jcs.eventInvalidation=true

All nodes participating in the cluster should be configured equally.

Internally, if com.openexchange.caching.jcs.eventInvalidation is set to true, LTCP is disabled in JCS caches. Instead, an internal mechanism based on distributed Hazelcast event topics is used to invalidate data throughout all nodes in the cluster after local update- and remove-operations. Put-operations aren't propagated (and haven't been with LTCP either), since all data put into caches can be locally loaded/evaluated at each node from the persistent storage layer.

Using Hazelcast-based cache invalidation also makes further configuration of the JCS auxiliaries obsolete in the cache.ccf configuration file. In that case, all jcs.auxiliary.LTCP.* configuration settings are virtually ignored. However, it's still required to mark caches that require cluster-wide invalidation via jcs.region.<cache_name>=LTCP, just as before. So basically, when using the new default setting com.openexchange.caching.jcs.eventInvalidation=true, it's recommended to just use the stock cache.ccf file, since no further LTCP configuration is required.


Adminstration / Troubleshooting

Hazelcast Configuration

The underlying Hazelcast library can be configured using the file hazelcast.properties.

Important:
By default property com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.interfaces is set to 127.0.0.1; meaning Hazelcast listens only to loop-back device. To build a cluster among remote nodes the appropriate network interface needs to be configured there. Leaving that property empty lets Hazelcast listen to all available network interfaces.

The Hazelcast JMX MBean can be enabled or disabled with the property com.openexchange.hazelcast.jmx. The properties com.openexchange.hazelcast.mergeFirstRunDelay and com.openexchange.hazelcast.mergeRunDelay control the run intervals of the so-called Split Brain Handler of Hazelcast that initiates the cluster join process when a new node is started. More details can be found at http://www.hazelcast.com/docs/2.5/manual/single_html/#NetworkPartitioning.

The port ranges used by Hazelcast for incoming and outgoing connections can be controlled via the configuration parameters com.openexchange.hazelcast.networkConfig.port, com.openexchange.hazelcast.networkConfig.portAutoIncrement and com.openexchange.hazelcast.networkConfig.outboundPortDefinitions.

Commandline Tool

To print out statistics about the cluster and the distributed data, the showruntimestats commandline tool can be executed witht the clusterstats ('c') argument. This provides an overview about the runtime cluster configuration of the node, other members in the cluster and distributed data structures.

JMX

In the Open-Xchange server Java process, the MBean com.hazelcast can be used to monitor and manage different aspects of the underlying Hazelcast cluster. The com.hazelcast MBean provides detailed information about the cluster configuration and distributed data structures.

Hazelcast Errors

When experiencing hazelcast related errors in the logfiles, most likely different versions of the packages are installed, leading to different message formats that can't be understood by nodes using another version. Examples for such errors are exceptions in hazelcast components regarding (de)serialization or other message processing. This may happen when performing a consecutive update of all nodes in the cluster, where temporarily nodes with a heterogeneous setup try to communicate with each other. If the errors don't disappear after all nodes in the cluster have been update to the same package versions, it might be necessary to shutdown the cluster completely, so that all distributed data is cleared.

Cluster Discovery Errors

  • If the started OX nodes don't form a cluster, please double-check your configuration in hazelcast.properties
  • It's important to have the same cluster name defined in hazelcast.properties throughout all nodes in the cluster
  • Especially when using multicast cluster discovery, it might take some time until the cluster is formed
  • When using static cluster discovery, at least one other node in the cluster has to be configured in com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join.static.nodes to allow joining, however, it's recommended to list all nodes in the cluster here

Disable Cluster Features

The Hazelcast based clustering features can be disabled with the following property changes:

  • Disable cluster discovery by setting com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.join to empty in hazelcast.properties
  • Disable Hazelcast by setting com.openexchange.hazelcast.enabled to false in hazelcast.properties
  • Disable message based cache event invalidation by setting com.openexchange.caching.jcs.eventInvalidation to false in cache.properties

Update from 6.22.1 to version 6.22.2 and above

As hazelcast will be used by default for the distribution of sessions starting 6.22.2 you have to adjust hazelcast according to our old cache configuration. First of all it's important that you install the open-xchange-sessionstorage-hazelcast package. This package will add the binding between hazelcast and the internal session management. Next you have to set a cluster name to the cluster.properties file (see #Cluster Discovery Errors). Furthermore you will have to add one of the two discovery modes mentioned in #Cluster Discovery.


Updating a Cluster

Running a cluster means built-in failover on the one hand, but might require some attention when it comes to the point of upgrading the services on all nodes in the cluster. This chapter gives an overview about general concepts and hints for silent updates of the cluster.

The Big Picture

Updating an OX App Suite cluster is possible in several ways. The involved steps always include

  • Update the software by updating the packages through the distro's repository / software update tool
  • Update the database schemas (so-called update tasks)

There are some precautions required, though.

Update Tasks Management

It is a feature of the OX App Suite middleware to automatically start update tasks on a database schema when a user tries to login whose context lives on that schema. For installations beyond a certain size, if you just update the OX App Suite software without special handling of the update tasks, user logins will trigger an uncontrolled storm of update tasks on the databases, potentially leading to resource contention, unnecessary long update tasks runtimes, excessive load on the database server, maybe even service outages.

So one key element of every update strategy is to avoid user logins on nodes which have already been updated to the new software version, while the database schemas are still on the old version. There are two fundamentally different approaches to this goal: use either a full downtime, or use a rolling update strategy.

We describe the update strategy in more detail in the next section. Note that these are still high-level outlines of the actual procedure, which requires additional details with regards to Hazelcast, given further down below.

Full downtime approach

The full downtime approach is quite straightforward and involves

  • shutdown of all OX middleware nodes
  • update the software on all OX App Suite (middleware and frontend) nodes
  • execute the update tasks in a controlled way from one OX node
  • restore the service

This is the most general approach and always available, even if the rolling approach is not available due to Hazelcast constraints.

Rolling strategy

It is possible to execute the update tasks decoupled from the real update of the rest from the cluster, days or even weeks ahead of time, with the following approach:

  • If the load situation allows for it, take one node out of the loadbalancer (we call it the upgrade node). Otherwise, add a dedicated upgrade node to your cluster, identically configured to the other middleware nodes.
  • Make sure there are no user sessions left on the upgrade node, and that no new sessions will be routed to that node
  • update the software on the upgrade node
  • execute all update tasks from the update node.

In the last step, users from affected schemas will be logged out and denied service while the update tasks are running on their database schema. This is typically a short unavailability (some minutes) for a small part (1000...7000 depending on the installation) of the user base. This unavailability is of much lower impact than the unavailability of a full downtime, but you still might want to do this in the off-business hours.

This way you end up with the production cluster running on the old version of OX App Suite, with the database already being upgraded to the next version. This is explicitly a valid and supported configuration. This approach offers the advantage that update tasks can be executed in advance, instead of doing them while the whole system is in a full maintenance downtime. Since update tasks can take some time, this is a considerable advantage.

For the actual upgrade of the production cluster, the remaining steps are:

  • Upgrade and restart the OX App Suite software on one middleware node after another, one by one
  • Upgrade the software on the OX App Suite frontend nodes (if these are separate nodes from the middleware nodes)

Hazelcast will ensure that sessions from nodes which you restart are taken over by other nodes in the cluster, so ideally this step works without losing user sessions.

For the rolling strategy to work as described, it is required that the old and new version of OX App Suite use compatible versions of the Hazelcast library. This is the case for most upgrades. However some upgrades must handle the situation that the new version of OX App Suite ships with a new version of Hazelcast incompatible to the version of Hazelcast shipped with the old version of OX App Suite. It will be stated in the release notes if this is the case for a given release. If so, then some additional steps are required during a rolling update to ensure session handling / invalidating during update tasks works properly. See below.

HOWTO / step-by-step instructions

  • Take backups of as much as possible (databases, OX config files, etc).
  • Announce the maintenance to the users. The communication depends on which approach you chose: the full downtime approach will come with a full downtime for all users, while the rolling upgrade approach will result in some users will have a short loss of service while their schema upgrades.

Full downtime approach

  • Initiate maintenance: Block HTTP sessions to the service. Put a reasonable maintenance page in place, probably some HTTP error 503 with a reasonable Retry-After header.
  • Shutdown the service on all middleware nodes. Upgrade the software on all middleware and frontend nodes using the disto's package manager. See AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages for details on how to do that. Don't forget the touch-appsuite step if required ("If you update only UI plugins without simultaneously upgrading the core UI packages to a new version").
  • Start the open-xchange service on one node
  • Execute update tasks from that node. See UpdateTasks for an explanation how to do that, in particular the section about limited parallel execution.
  • Start the open-xchange services on the middleware nodes.
  • Perform some crosschecks like
    • all middleware nodes joined the Hazelcast cluster
    • all OSGI bundles (which are expected to be running) are running
    • WebUI login is possible
    • Some central functionality tests like sending mails, accessing drive, etc
  • Restore service: allow HTTP sessions, remove the maintenance page.

Rolling Upgrade without breaking Hazelcast upgrade

Remember: as stated above, this is viable only if the release notes for the new version do not state that there are breaking Hazelcast changes. For example, with v7.8.4 there were breaking Hazelcast changes and in the Release Notes it was stated as follows.

https://software.open-xchange.com/products/appsuite/doc/Release_Notes_for_Release_7.8.4_2017-05-23.pdf

Important - Please Note

There is a major Hazelcast library update to OX App Suite v7.8.4. This means that when updating from an earlier backend version, due to the upgraded library, it is not possible to form a cluster of nodes that run previous version of Hazelcast (i.e. exiting volatile data in the cluster will be lost during the update). A consistent Hazelcast cluster is needed for cluster-wide cache invalidation. To circumvent problems with database update tasks that need to perform cache invalidation, please follow the steps described here: http://oxpedia.org/wiki/index.php?title=AppSuite:Running_a_cluster#Upgrades_of_the_Hazelcast_library. Please also note that session migration is not possible between versions. This usually affects all user sessions that are stored in a distributed map, and will require the users to re-login after the update. Running incompatible versions of Hazelcast within a cluster will result in logentries showing the conflicting node and version information.

If you find you are upgrading to a version with breaking Hazelcast changes, please consult the next section #Rolling_Upgrade_with_breaking_Hazelcast_upgrade.

Description of the upgrade process

The procedure consists of a pre-update where one update node will be taken out of the HTTP traffic, to execute database update tasks from that node, and a real update, where all of the cluster nodes will get updated to the new version of the software.

The pre-update will not make the new version of the software available to the users. It will run as kind of "background task", mostly invisible for the users (but see below for a description of the impact of the update tasks on user experience).

Pre-update

The following steps all refer to one special middleware node, the so-called upgrade node. The other cluster nodes are not affected by this step.

  • Take one middleware node (the upgrade node) out of the HTTP traffic by adjusting the apache mod_proxy tables. We propose a combination of the balancer_manager to do this during runtime without restart, but also update the config files to prevent service restarts of apache to accidentally route sessions to the upgrade node.
  • Make sure there are no user sessions left on the upgrade node, and that no new sessions will be routed to that node
  • Update packages on the upgrade node and restart the middleware service there. See AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages for details on how to do that.
  • Execute update tasks from that node. See UpdateTasks for an explanation how to do that.
    • Note that executing update tasks on database schemas will result in users from the given database schema to be logged out and locked out during the update tasks.
    • You might want to keep the load low on the DBs, to affect production operations as low as possible, and because with this decoupled update tasks approach there is no immediate time pressure. If you want to follow the limited parallel approach, use a small, mild parallelity factor (e.g. 2 or maybe 4 if you know this by far does not saturate your DB platform).

Real Update

The following steps refer to all cluster nodes (but the upgrade node, which had been updated before).

  • For one middleware cluster node after each nother:
    • Update packages on that middleware node and restart the middleware service there. See AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages for details on how to do that.
    • Verify the node starts its bundles, joins the Hazelcast cluster, log files are clean, the node handles sessions
  • For one frontend node after each other (if you've got separate frontend nodes):
  • Finally, if required ("If you update only UI plugins without simultaneously upgrading the core UI packages to a new version"), execute touch-appsuite with a --timestamp argument as described on the page AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages
  • Perform final crosschecks like
    • all middleware nodes joined the Hazelcast cluster
    • all OSGI bundles (which are expected to be running) are running
    • WebUI login is possible
    • Some central functionality tests like sending mails, accessing drive, etc

Rolling Upgrade with breaking Hazelcast upgrade

Cf #Upgrades_of_the_Hazelcast_library below.

In principle the steps given in the previous section apply. However the upgrade needs to get the special Hazelcast Upgrade Package installed (e.g. one from open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-76x, open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-780-782, open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-783, open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-784, ...) during execution of the update tasks.

So the pre-update steps look like:

  • Take one middleware node (the upgrade node) out of the HTTP traffic by adjusting the apache mod_proxy tables. We propose a combination of the balancer_manager to do this during runtime without restart, but also update the config files to prevent service restarts of apache to accidentally route sessions to the upgrade node.
  • Make sure there are no user sessions left on the upgrade node, and that no new sessions will be routed to that node
  • Update packages on the upgrade node and restart the middleware service there. See AppSuite:UpdatingOXPackages for details on how to do that.
  • Install the special Hazelcast Upgrade Package on the upgrade node (e.g. one from open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-76x, open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-780-782, open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-783, open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-784, ...). Restart the service again.
  • Execute update tasks from that node. See UpdateTasks for an explanation how to do that. You might want to keep the load low on the DBs, to affect production operations as low as possible, and because with this decoupled update tasks approach there is no immediate time pressure. If you want to follow the limited parallel approach, use a small, mild parallelity factor (e.g. 2 or maybe 4 if you know this by far does not saturate your DB platform).

Note: don't worry if you don't see the upgrade node joining the legacy cluster: the upgrade node will not join the legacy cluster / not be visisble there since the upgrade node will be a so-called "native client" to the legacy cluster, and it will be created on the fly (and subsequently disposed again) for propagating an event. So also on netstat level the upgrade node will not have visible connections to the legacy cluster (unless for the very short timeframe when an actual even is sent). You can verify the functionality of that package by log lines like

 Successfully initialzed Hazelcast client: <client-id>
 Successfully got reference to cache event topic: cacheEvents-3
 Publishing legacy cache event: <cache-event>
 
 Successfully published legacy cache event, shutting down client after 546ms...

For the overly prudent it might be an idea to prepare a special test context with a test user living in its dedicated (test) schema, so you can test the functionality of this mechanis during upgrade first.

After the DB update tasks you can remove the special upgrade package again from the upgrade node.

The "Real Upgrade" procedure then looks like above.

Reference Documentation

Limitations

While in most cases a seamless, rolling upgrade of all nodes in the cluster is possible, there may be situations where nodes running a newer version of the Open-Xchange Server are not able to communicate with older nodes in the cluster, i.e. can't access distributed data or consume incompatible event notifications - especially, when the underlying Hazelcast library is part of the update, which does not support this scenario at the moment. In such cases, the release notes will contain corresponding information, so please have a look there before applying an update.

Additionally, there may always be some kind of race conditions during an update, i.e. client requests that can't be completed successfully or internal events not being deliverd to all nodes in the cluster. That's why the following information should only serve as a best-practices guide to minimize the impact of upgrades to the user experience.

Upgrading a single Node

Upgrading all nodes in the cluster should usually be done sequentially, i.o.w. one node after the other. This means that during the upgrade of one node, the node is temporarily disconnected from the other nodes in the cluster, and will join the cluster again after the update is completed. From the backend perspective, this is as easy as stopping the open-xchange service. other nodes in the cluster will recognize the disconnected node and start to repartition the shared cluster data automatically. But wait a minute - doing so would potentially lead to the webserver not registering the node being stopped immediately, resulting in temporary errors for currently logged in users until they are routed to another machine in the cluster. That's why it's good practice to tell the webserver's load balancer that the node should no longer fulfill incoming requests. The Apache Balancer Manager is an excellent tool for this (module mod_status). Look at the screen shot. Every node can be put into a disabled mode. Further requests will the redirected to other nodes in the cluster:


Balancer manager.jpg


Afterwards, the open-xchange service on the disabled node can be stopped by executing:

$ /etc/init.d/open-xchange stop

or

$ service open-xchange stop

Now, the node is effectively in maintenance mode and any updates can take place. One could now verify the changed cluster infrastructure by accessing the Hazelcast MBeans either via JMX or the showruntimestats -c commandline tool (see above for details). There, the shut down node should no longer appear in the 'Member' section (com.hazelcast:type=Member).

When all upgrades are processed, the node open-xchange service can be started again by executing:

$ /etc/init.d/open-xchange start

or

$ service open-xchange start

As stated above, depending on the chosen cluster discovery mechanism, it might take some time until the node joins the cluster again. When using static cluster discovery, it will join the existing cluster usually directly during serivce startup, i.o.w. before other depending OSGi services are started. Otherwise, there might also be situations where the node cannot join the cluster directly, for example when there were no mDNS advertisments for other nodes in the cluster received yet. Then, it can take some additional time until the node finally joins the cluster. During startup of the node, you can observe the JMX console or the output of showruntimestats -c (com.hazelcast:type=Member) of another node in the cluster to verify when the node has joined.

After the node has joined, distributed data is re-partioned automatically, and the node is ready to server incoming requests again - so now the node can finally be enabled again in the load balancer configuration of the webserver. Afterwards, the next node in the cluster can be upgraded using the same procedure, until all nodes were processed.

Upgrades of the Hazelcast library

In case an upgrade includes a major update of the Hazelcast library, a newly upgraded node will usually not be able to connect to the nodes running the previous version. In this case, volatile cluster data is lost after all nodes in the cluster have been updated, including sessions held in the distributed session storage. As outlined above, the release notes will contain a corresponding warning in such cases.

Besides upgraded nodes not being able to access distributed data of the legacy cluster, this also affects new data not being available in the legacy cluster, which may cause troubles if the updated backend version needs to perform database update tasks. Database update tasks usually operate in a "blocking" way and all contexts associated with the schema being upgraded are disabled temporarily. Since context data itself is being held in caches on potentially each node in the cluster, the affected cache entries are invalidated during the database update. And, since cluster-wide cache invalidations again utilize Hazelcast functionality (#Remote Cache Invalidation), such invalidations normally won't be propagated to nodes running a previous version of the Hazelcast library.

To work around this specific scenario where an incompatible upgrade of the Hazelcast library needs to be performed along with blocking database update tasks, starting with v7.8.0, a supplementary package is available that explicitly enables the context cache invalidation of nodes running the previous Hazelcast library. This package follows the naming scheme open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-XXX (where XXX representing the version of the legacy version of the Open-Xchange server), and is available in the repositories for the updated server packages. This package should only be installed on the first node of the cluster that is going to be upgraded to the new version, and can be deactivated once the database upgrade tasks were executed successfully.

Once installed, a legacy cluster is discovered based on the available information in the hazelcast.properties configuration file in case cluster discovery is set to static. If multicast is used, there's an alternative option to configure at least one of the addresses of the legacy cluster via com.openexchange.hazelcast.network.client.nodes.

As an example, along with the server v7.8.0, a new package named open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-76x can be installed that aids in invalidating cluster server nodes running v7.6.x (which includes the Hazelcast library in version 3.2.4). Using this package, the recommended steps to update an OX cluster from version 7.6.x to version 7.8.0 would be:

  1. Pick a node from your cluster that you want to use for executing the database update tasks shipped with the new release
  2. Disable this node for incoming HTTP requests in your webserver configuration as described at #Upgrading a single Node
  3. Update the OX packages on this node, additionally install the package open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-76x
  4. Restart the open-xchange services on this node
  5. Trigger the update task executions using the runUpdate commandline utitlty as described at UpdateTasks
  6. Once they are finished, uninstall the package open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-76x again
  7. Restart the open-xchange services on this node
  8. Re-enable the node for incoming HTTP requests in your webserver configuration as described at #Upgrading a single Node
  9. Upgrade all other nodes in the cluster as described at #Upgrading a single Node

Same steps apply to upgrading from v7.8.0 through v7.8.2 (incl.) to v7.8.3 using the package named open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-780-782, since v7.8.0 through v7.8.2 (incl.) utilize Hazelcast v3.5.x, while v7.8.3 uses Hazelcast v3.6.4

Same steps apply to upgrading from v7.8.3 to v7.8.4 using the package named open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-783, since v7.8.3 utilizes Hazelcast v3.7.1

Same steps apply to upgrading from v7.8.4 to v7.10.0 using the package named open-xchange-cluster-upgrade-from-784, since v7.8.4 utilizes Hazelcast v3.8.1

Operations Note: The upgraded node will be added as so-called Native Client to the legacy Hazelcast Cluster.

Native Client enables you to do all Hazelcast operations without being a member of the cluster. [...]

However Native client is not member and relies on one of the cluster members.

This means, the upgraded node will not be visible in the members list of the legacy Hazelcast cluster (showruntimestats -c). Furthermore, the native client will created and destructed on single context events, with the effect that connections will only be visible in the very moment of such an event. This means effectively that verification of the invalidation mechanis is only possible by actually executing the runupdate CLT. This should produce log lines like

Successfully initialzed Hazelcast client: <client-id>
Successfully got reference to cache event topic: cacheEvents-3
Publishing legacy cache event: <cache-event>
Successfully published legacy cache event, shutting down client after 546ms...

Most importantly, you should be able to observe correct functionality (users of affected contexts being logged out). It may be handy to prepare a dedicated schema with just test contexts inside. (How to create this is out of scope here, but hint: use createschema and createcontext --schema-name.)

Other Considerations

  • It's always recommended to only upgrade one node after the other, always ensuring that the cluster has formed correctly between each shutdown/startup of a node.
  • Do not stop a node while running the runUpdate script or the associated update task.
  • During the time of such a rolling upgrade of all nodes, we have effectively heterogeneous software versions in the cluster, which potentially might lead to temporary inconsistencies. Therefore, all nodes in the cluster should be updated in one cycle (but still one after the other).
  • Following the above guideline, it's also possible to add or remove nodes dynamically to the cluster, not only when disconnecting a node temporary for updates.
  • In case of trouble, i.e. a node refuses to join the cluster again after restart, consult the logfiles first for any hints about what is causing the problem - both on the disconnected node, and also on other nodes in the network
  • If there are general incompatibilities between two revisions of the Open-Xchange Server that prevent an operation in a cluster (release notes), it's recommended to choose another name for the cluster in cluster.properties for the nodes with the new version. This will temporary lead to two separate clusters during the rolling upgrade, and finally the old cluster being shut down completely after the last node was updated to the new version. While distributed data can't be migrated from one server version to another in this scenario due to incompatibilities, the uptime of the system itself is not affected, since the nodes in the new cluster are able to serve new incoming requests directly.
  • When updating only UI plugins without also updating to a new version of the core UI, you also need to perform the additional step from Updating UI plugins.