The Shell Tool
The Shell Tool was introduced in XperienCentral version 10.12.0 and removed in version R43.
This topic explains how to use the Shell Tool which provides command line access to the Apache framework in which XperienCentral runs. This makes it possible to manage plugins, users and website settings from outside the XperienCentral GUI. The Shell Tool works for both local installations of XperienCentral as well as cloud installations. It is an extension of the Apache Felix GoGo shell. This topic only covers the XperienCentral-specific commands that you can execute from the Shell Tool. Documentation for the Apache Felix GoGo shell itself can be found at http://felix.apache.org/documentation/subprojects/apache-felix-framework/apache-felix-framework-usage-documentation.html.
In This Topic
Setting up the Shell Tool
Installing the Felix GoGo Extensions Plugin
The Felix Shell commands extension plugin is not installed by default — You have to install it manually. You can find the plugin in the XperienCentral SDK archive in the maven2-repository/nl/gx/webmanager/tools/webmanager-felix-shellcommands/<xperiencentral-version>
directory. Add it by either copying the webmanager-felix-shellcommands-<xperiencentral version>.jar
file to the <xperiencentral-root>/work/deploy
directory or add it using the Plugins Management Console.
Configuring SSH
The Shell Tool requires SSH in order to allow access to the XperienCentral settings. To enable SSH, keys should be generated (version 2 RSA or DSA) and added to the XperienCentral SSH server configuration. You then have two options for pointing to the location of the keys:
- Create the following folder and copy the keys to this location:
<xperiencentral-root>/work/config/ssh/
(the name of the file should beauthorized_keys2
). - Create a directory, copy the keys into it and point to it using the Java property
webmanager.config.directory=<dir>
.
For security reasons, SSH is enabled by default only on the internal network and can only be accessed by localhost on the default port 7009. To change this port, the system property osgi.console.ssh
should be added to the Java system properties (-Dosgi.console.ssh=localhost:<port>
or -Dosgi.console.ssh=127.0.0.1:<port>
). To enable access from another host, set this to -Dosgi.console.ssh=<port>.
Generating Keys
There are different ways to generate the keys. Creating the keys according to the steps below will enable access from Linux systems (using SSH) as well as from Windows systems using PuTTY.
Generate Key Pair
Linux machine
- Generate a key using
ssh-keygen -t rsa
on a Linux machine.
Windows machine
Putty KeyGen
Generate a key with the tool. The private key can be used by saving the key to file, The public key (for the authorized_keys2 file) must be copied/pasted from the PuTTY Keygen tool.
Do not use the "Save as Public Key" option when pasting the content of the file to the
authorized_keys
file.
Configure the Server
- Copy the public key to
<xperiencentral-root>/work\config\ssh\authorized_keys2
on the installation - Start Tomcat with the extra environment variable:
CATALINA_OPTS="-Dosgi.console.ssh=<port number>"
Connect from the Linux Machine
ssh -i my_key_file -p <port number> thehostname
Connect from Windows using PuTTY
- When the private key is generated via linux: Open the private key in PuTTYgen and save it as a PuTTY key. This conversion is needed because PuTTY does not accept OpenSSH keys.
- Add this PuTTY private key to the putty session configuration by loading it (if the entry is not new), adding the key to
Connection > SSH > Auth > "Private key for authentication"
...and saving the configuration. - Open the connection (to
<hostname>:<port number>
, (using the PuTTY private key) and log in. If a username is requested, simply press [Enter] enter since the value will be ignored. Use the password chosen as pass phrase when the key pair was generated.
If you use PUTTYgen to generate the private/public keys, they might not work in the Linux environment with SSH.
Managing Plugins from the Shell Tool
In addition to the functionality available for managing plugins from the XperienCentral Plugins Management Console, there are equivalent commands available in the Shell Tool that you can invoke directly from the command line. To use the commands on a plugin in the Shell Tool, you must first determine the ID of a plugin by issuing the lb
command in the Tomcat window. After you issue the lb
command, you will see a list of the plugins and their IDs. For example:
(click image to enlarge)
The following commands can be used on plugins running in XperienCentral from the Shell Tool:
Command | Description |
---|---|
wmstart | Registers services that each component within the bundle exposes if all required service dependencies are available. For each component, at the very least a component service is registered. Usage:
where |
wmstop | Stops all services registered by the component. Usage
where |
wmupdate | Updates the plugin to a newer version. If a problem is encountered during the update, the plugin is automatically rolled back to the existing version. The following describes a typical plugin update scenario:
|
wmpurge | Removes all content that was created during and after the installation of the plugin. Usage:
where
|
wmuninstall | Removes all content that was created during the installation of the plugin. Usage:
where Notes:
|
Managing Website Settings from the Shell Tool
From the Shell Tool, you can modify website settings. The settings are the same ones that you can configure/modify using the XperienCentral Setup Tool. The commands below are available for doing so. The following parameters can be used in the commands:
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
<defname> | The name of the category when there is only one website (application_settings , for example). |
<entryname> | The entry within the configuration set (password_banned_words , for example). |
<entryvalue> | The value to be assigned to the specified entry. |
<hostname> | The name of the host running the XperienCentral instance to retrieve/update/modify. |
<index> | When a configuration entry can have multiple values, this is a pointer to the value (<index=3> for example). The index count begins at 0, so to remove the first of multiple entries you would use <index=0> ,<index=1> for the second value and so forth. |
<setname> | The name of the configuration set when multiple websites are defined. Each set has a unique name, for example, application_settings (website1) , application_settings (website2) and so forth. |
Website Commands
Command | Description |
---|---|
wmaddconfigvalue | Adds a configuration value to an entry. Syntax |
wmaddwebsitesettingvalue | Adds a value to the specified website setting. Syntax |
wmfindconfigvalue | Some of the parameters described for this command are only available in XperienCentral versions 10.18.0 and higher. Returns the value(s) of the specified configuration setting. Syntax
Exampleswmfindconfigvalue <config set definition> <configset (wildcard)> <entryname (wildcard)> returns entryname from configsetdefinition for all webinitiatives wmfindconfigvalue website_settings * backend_hostname wmfindconfigvalue <configset (wildcard)> <entryname (wildcard)> returns entryname from given configset
|
wmfindwebsitesettingvalue | Retrieves the value of the specified website setting. Syntax |
wmremoveconfigvalue | Removes the specified value from the specified configuration setting. Syntax |
wmupdateconfigvalue | Updates the specified configuration setting with the specified value(s). Syntax If |
wmupdatewebsitesettingvalue | Updates the specified website setting with the specified value. Syntax If the website setting is a checkbox, use |
Managing User Passwords from the Shell Tool
From the Shell Tool you can change user passwords. The following commands are available for doing so:
Command | Description | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
wmfinduser | Finds an XperienCentral user or users. This method takes the following parameters:
Examples
| ||||||||
wmsetpassword | Assigns the specified password to the specified user.
Example
This command will return an error message if the password is not strong enough. See User Authorization for information on how XperienCentral enforces password strength. | ||||||||
wmlockunlockuser | This command is only available in XperienCentral versions 10.18.0 and higher. Sets a user to an active/inactive state.
Example
This command sets the user "JohnS" to an inactive state. |
General Commands
Parameter | Description |
---|---|
lb | This is a standard Felix command used to find all installed bundles matching the specified substring. |
wmcall | Calls the specified service (must be registered as an OSGi bundle). The possible parameters are:
Example |
wmloglevel | Sets the java.util.logging level. |
wmretrieveversion | Returns the version of XperienCentral that is running. |
wmtruncatetables | Truncates the specified list of XperienCentral tables. This is sometimes necessary when you copy a database from one environment to another and want to start with a clean version of it. The tables that can be truncated are:
To truncate all the tables above, use |