Transfer All CDRouter Data to a New NTA

Introduction

If you have recently upgraded your CDRouter system hardware to a new NTA platform, this article will help you transfer all existing CDRouter data from the old NTA to the new NTA.

The details within this article will be useful whether you received new hardware due to an RMA process or from the hardware upgrade program.

For more information on the NTA3000 hardware upgrade program, please contact sales@qacafe.com

Background

The CDRouter database and all test data, including configuration files, packages, devices, and test results are stored in a central location on the system. This is where CDRouter stores all the test data generated.

The test ‘data’ resides in the /usr/cdrouter-data directory and its subdirectories, which is mounted on the system’s dedicated ‘data’ hard drive. By following the tools and process outlined below, you can efficiently copy all this data to your new system.

data-clone tool

QA Cafe provides a command line tool that will do the data transfer for you. It is run from the new (destination) NTA and will pull data from the old (source) NTA. It’s OK if one system is an NTA1000 and one is an NTA3000; they don’t have to be the same hardware. You’ll need to install the latest version of the data-clone tool on the new (destination) NTA. You can do this via a terminal window as the root user.

For NTA3000:

dnf makecache
dnf --enablerepo=nta-base install nta-data-clone

For NTA1000:

dnf makecache
dnf --enablerepo=nta1000-base install nta1000-data-clone

Things to Remember

  • It’s important to know that this tool will replace any CDRouter data on the new (destination) NTA. It will not merge CDRouter data from the two systems. If you currently have CDRouter data on the new (destination) NTA that you want to keep, you should export that data to another system first, perform the clone, then import. Please see this article on how to import and export CDRouter data.

  • This tool will automatically shut down CDRouter on both systems (if running) in order to do the clone. It’s important that CDRouter is not running so that the database will be in a stable state. Please don’t manually start CDRouter on either system while this clone process is taking place. Once the tool finishes the clone, it will restart CDRouter on both systems (if CDRouter was running).

  • Depending on how much CDRouter data is on the old (source) NTA, this process could take a while. If for some reason the process is interrupted, it’s fine to restart it. It will simply continue from where it left off. It uses rsync under the hood.

  • The data-clone tool will NOT overwrite the following directories on the new (destination) NTA in order to preserve the license, settings, logs, etc.

    • /usr/cdrouter-data/etc
    • /usr/cdrouter-data/logs
    • /usr/cdrouter-data/temp

Run the tool

Running the data-clone tool is simple. Remember, it should be run from the new (destination) NTA, and it will pull CDRouter data from the old (source) NTA. Once again, in a terminal window as the root user, simply run the command specifying the old (source) NTA. It will ask for the root password of the old (source) NTA and provide information and confirmation before starting the clone.

For NTA3000:

/usr/share/nta/bin/data-clone.py <source NTA name or IP address>

For NTA1000:

/usr/share/nta1000/bin/data-clone.py <source NTA name or IP address>

Configuration Migration

This step only applies if you have transferred data from the NTA1000 platform to the NTA3000 platform.

Many of the test interface names are different on the NTA3000. This means that CDRouter configuration files that are transferred from an NTA1000 platform will need to be modified.

To help with this task, the CDRouter development team created the cdrouter-migrate utility to help change the interface names within your configuration files to the new interface names.

After you have transferred your data, please use the cdrouter-migrate tool, located on the NTA3000 system to convert/migrate your configuration files.

Cleanup

Once the data-clone tool finishes and CDRouter is running on the new (destination) NTA, you may validate the successful clone by using the CDRouter web interface on the new (destination) NTA. The contents should appear identical to what is on the old (source) NTA.

If you used the cdrouter-migrate tool to convert your CDRouter configuration files, please consult the interface mapping table to see how the interfaces names were changed.

Also note that any custom testpaths configured in the CDRouter database will produce warnings until you have manually copied the custom test modules from the old system to the new NTA. Go to the Preferences page in the CDRouter web interface if you need to update or delete any custom testpaths.

If you encounter any problems while using any of the utility programs, please contact support@qacafe.com for assistance.