Changing the hostname of the Data Protector cell manager

HP DataProtector is very sensitive to changes in the name of the cell manager. There are several reasons for this:

• Integration clients need to connect to the cell manager to get their credentials.
• Clients will refuse to be upgraded from a computer that isn't their cell manager.

So if you need to change the cell manager's hostname (even if the domain name changes), there are several things you need to do.

Update the internal database

This is the easiest step of all:

  omnidbutil -change_cell_name

If you are on Windows, remember to run this in a terminal running as Administrator.

Update the cell server web service certificate (DP 8.x and later)

There will be existing certificates in /etc/opt/omni/config/server/certificates (on Linux/HP-UX) and in C:\programData\OmniBack\Config\Server\certificates on Windows. There are actually several levels of folders under this. I removed all the files I found there, leaving a skeleton of empty directories.

I don't know if this is necessary, but getting rid of the old certificates seemed like a good idea.

The new certificate will get used by the hpdp-as service which will decrypt the private key with a password. We might as well re-use the previous password to save on reconfiguring things.

The password is in /etc/opt/omni/client/components/webservice.properties on Linux/HP-UX and C:\ProgramData\OmniBack\client\components\webservice.properties on Windows (unless you chose a different data directory at install time). Yes, client, even though we're changing a server property.

Anyway, the file will look like this:

# global property file for all components
jce-serviceregistry.URL = https://hostname:7116/jce-serviceregistry/restws
keystorePath=/etc/opt/omni/server/certificates/client/client.keystore
truststorePath=/etc/opt/omni/server/certificates/client/client.truststore
keystorePassword=zys124ax52353
truststorePassword=zys124ax52353

Now we need to generate a new certificate:

omnigencert.pl -server_id the-new-cell-hostname -store_password xyz124ax52353 -user_id hpdp

On Windows, the .pl ending might not be associated with the right Perl interpreter (or even any interpreter at all). If so, give the full pathname for Perl and omnigencert.pl like this:
  "C:\Program Files\OmniBack\bin\perl.exe" "C:\Program Files\OmniBack\bin\omnigencert.pl"


Clients

Each client will now have the wrong cell server name. On Unix or Linux boxes, there's a file /etc/opt/omni/client/cell_server which is a text file just listing the name of the cell manager. Use whatever technique you normally push config files out with (puppet? cfengine? scp?) to update this.

Windows boxes keep the cell server in a registry key. Update this:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Hewlett-Packard\OpenView\OmniBackII\Site\CellServer

Server cell info

The server itself is a client, and presumably the information in the cell_info file (/etc/opt/omni/server/cell/cell_info or C:\ProgramData\Omniback\config\server\cell\cell_info) will need to be updated.

If there were any devices attached to the cell manager, then they will need to be updated. You can do this with omnidownload / omniupload, or just by going into each device in the GUI and applying the relevant changes.

Advanced scheduling webservices (DP 8.1 and later)

Under /etc/opt/omni/client/components (C:\ProgramData\Omniback\config\client\components), there are several webservice.properties files scattered through the filesystem. They register web service components.

For example,  here is dp-jobexecution-backup/webservice.properties:

# dp-jobexecutionengine-backup property file
dp-jobexecutionengine-backup.URL = https://hostname:7116/dp-jobexecutionengine-backup/restws
jce-serviceregistry.URL = https://hostname:7116/jce-serviceregistry/restws

These all have to be updated:

• webservice.properties
• dp-jobexecutionengine-backup/webservice.properties
• dp-jobexecutionengine-consolidation/webservice.properties
• dp-jobexecutionengine-copy/webservice.properties
• dp-jobexecutionengine-verification/webservice.properties
• dp-loginprovider/webservice.properties
• dp-scheduler-gui/webservice.properties
• dp-webservice-server/webservice.properties
• jce-dispatcher/webservice.properties
• jce-serviceregistry/webservice.properties

Then restart DataProtector (omnisv stop ; omnisv start)

Licenses

Data Protector licenses are tied to the hostname and IP address of the cell manager. So you will need to visit http://webware.hp.com/ to get a new set of license keys for your cell manager.

Incidentally, if you are moving or renaming a cell manager, you might find it helpful to read this book: Migrating and Cloning Data Protector cell managers


Greg Baker is an independent consultant who happens to do a lot of work on HP DataProtector. He is the author of the only published books on HP Data Protector (http://www.ifost.org.au/books/#dp). He works with HP and HP partner companies to solve the hardest big-data problems (especially around backup). See more at IFOST's DataProtector pages at http://www.ifost.org.au/dataprotector, or visit the online store for Data Protector products, licenses and renewals at http://store.data-protector.net/