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About the XML configuration interface

The XML configuration interface provides a batch processing interface for portal configuration updates. It allows you to export an entire portal configuration or parts of a configuration, for example specific pages, to an XML file. You can then re-create the exported configuration from such a file on another portal.

How do I access the XML configuration interface?

You access the XML configuration interface using a command line tool. This command line client is a small separate program that connects to the server using an HTTP connection or a secure HTTPS connection with SSL. It is therefore possible to configure the portal remotely.

Tasks that you can perform with the XML configuration interface

These are typical tasks for which you use the XML configuration interface:

  • Copy parts of a configuration, such as specific pages, from one portal to another. This usage scenario includes the case where you try out a new portal configuration on a test portal for evaluation, and then transfer it to a production portal in a separate step using the portal configuration interface.
  • Install additional resources on a portal.
  • Perform recurring administration tasks in an automated and reproducible manner.

Use of the XML configuration interface for backing up or restoring complete portal configurations is restricted by the following limitations:

  1. A complete XML export of a portal configuration is not sufficient to re-create the portal. You also need the WAR files for your portlets and possibly additional file resources, such as theme files if they are not part of the standard portal installation.
  2. The XML configuration interface is not designed to deal efficiently with large volumes of data. For a backup and restore solution on a production server, you should rely on low-level database and file system backups.

Access and security considerations

To be able to use the XML configuration interface, you need to have the manager role on the virtual resource XML_ACCESS and the security administrator role on the virtual resource PORTAL. This implies that you must be a super administrator of the portal, who can perform any action. Consequently, there are no further access control checks that could restrict your actions when you use the XML configuration interface; you may view all resources in the portal and you may update and delete all resources.

When you run the XML command line tool, you must authenticate yourself by specifying your portal user ID and password. When you use an HTTP connection, the user and password are sent to the server unencrypted, therefore you should only connect to the XML configuration interface from inside a protected intranet where you can be sure that the HTTP connection is not compromised. In all other networks configure SSL and use a secure HTTPS connection to connect to the XML configuration interface.

Overall structure of the XML input and output

There are two main types of requests that can be sent to the XML configuration interface:

  • Export requests

    An export request triggers the export of complete or partial portal configurations into XML. It does not modify the configuration of the portal. It results in a response file.

  • Update requests

    An update request modifies the configuration of the portal according to the values found in the XML script.

A third request type is available for preparing the deletion of orphaned data:

  • Export-orphaned-data requests

    An export-orphaned-data request exports the complete portal configuration into XML, including orphaned data. It results in a response file.

Requests to and responses from the XML configuration interface use the same XML format. An export request generates an XML response that contains all the configuration data required to re-create the exported configuration part. This means that you can export a portal configuration, save the XML output file and, without modification, send it to another portal to re-create the same configuration there.

Use the XML schema for the XML format that HCL Digital Experience provides for reference. You will find it in the JAR file wp.xml.jar in the HCL Portal installation directory:

  • UNIX™ and Linux™: PortalServer_root/base/wp.xml/shared/app
  • Windows™: PortalServer_root\base\wp.xml\shared\app`

Unpack the JAR file and you will find the file with the XML schema under the path com/ibm/wps/command/xml/PortalConfig_8.5.0.xsd. An XML request contains the following:

  • A mandatory portal section; it describes the parts of the portal configuration that should be exported or updated
  • An optional status section. In an XML response it indicates the success or failure of the requested operation. During the import of configuration data the XML processing ignores this section of the XML input file.

Representation of a portal configuration in XML

The XML hierarchy that is found under the portal section in the XML request file represents the structure of a portal as an XML tree. This tree contains resources in the portal, such as portlets or pages, and their configuration data. The XML hierarchy of all supported portal resources is shown in the following table:

XML element Description
portal Main element of every XML request
global-settings Global portal settings
services-settings Global portal settings for portal services
language Languages that are defined in portal
task Tasks that can be used to schedule programs
action Actions that can be used to create action sets
action-set Action sets that can be used to create roles. They are also known as Role Types.
virtual-resource Virtual resources that have associated access control settings
resource-type Resource types that you can use to create custom resources.
protected-resource A resource instance that is protected by Portal Access Control (PAC).
user Users defined in the portal user management system
group Groups defined in the portal user management system
markup Markups that can be supported by portal pages
client Client devices (browsers) that the portal knows about
device-class Device class information
skin Visual appearance settings that can be applied to user interface elements
theme General visual settings that can be applied to the user interface
wsrp-producer Producer of web services as defined in the consumer portal
wsdl-url The URL to the Producer's WSDL document
porttype The URL to the service description, markup, registration, or portlet management of the Producer
web-app Web modules containing portlets
url The WAR file that contains the web application
context-root The context root that is assigned to the web application of the portlet application in the predeployed EAR file (reference: application.xml)
display-name The name that is assigned to the application in the predeployed EAR file (reference: application.xml)
servlet Servlets that are defined in the web module
portlet-app Portlet applications that are defined in the web module
portlet Portlets that are defined in the portlet application
federation-server The federation server definition. This server is used to retrieve content nodes.
content-node Elements of the portal content tree (pages or labels)
supported-markup The markups that are supported by this content node
allowed-portlet The portlets that are allowed on this page
component Layout components of pages
component Subcomponents in the structure of the page
portletinstance Occurrences of a portlet on a page with customized settings
cross-page-wire Property broker wiring between two portlet instances. Note: The wire tag has been deprecated with HCL Portal Version 7, as it supports property broker wiring between two portlets on the same page only. Use the cross-page-wire tag as it supports property broker wiring between portlets on the same page and on different pages.
credential-segment Segments for storing credentials in the credential vault
credential-slot Slots in a credential segment that hold a credential
url-mapping-context User defined URLs that map to pages in the portal
user-resource Allows exporting and deletion of a specific user resources.
policy-node Policies that are defined in the portal
application-role A named set of authorization roles that can be assigned to users or groups.
wsrp-customized-portletinstance A customized occurrence of a portlet provided by WSRP on a Producer portal
custom-resource A custom resource that can be tagged or rated by users
category-instance A category assigned to a custom resource
tag A tag applied to a resource by a user
rating A rating applied to a resource by a user
filter-instance A filter for preprocessing data before the data is finally stored.

Depending on the content of an XML request, these resources can be created, modified, deleted or exported. An XML request can contain any number of such resource definitions. It can therefore create hundreds of new resources in one step or modify only a single configuration setting of one existing resource.

Request Types

With XMLAccess, you can specify special processing parameters as part of the request tag. For example:

<request
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="PortalConfig_8.0.0.xsd"
    type="update"
    create-oids="true">

For information on the XML elements, refer to the following table:

XML element Description
create-oids If true, this turns on ID generating mode where object IDs from the input XML are not stored to the database, but new object IDs are generated instead. By default, this is set to false.
require-defined-oids If true, resources must have defined object IDs. In contrast to create-oids, IDs are not created dynamically. By default, this is set to false.
export-users If true, a full export of the portal also includes the complete user repository. By default, this is set to false. The members of a group can be suppressed if you specify no-member.
export-release If true, a full export of the portal only includes public resources. The resulting xml file is intended to be processed by the ReleaseBuilder tool. By default, this is set to false.
cleanup-users If invalid, deleted users from an external directory are exported and then deleted in a next step. If obsolete, external users that have no application role assignment are exported and then deleted in a next step. By default, this is set to none.
dam-collections If true, DAM Collections access control is exported.
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