Banner SSB9 Configuration File Updater v.0.1b (CAS)

One of the most annoying things we need to do after a Banner 9 SSB upgrade is to fix the configuration.groovy file.

After an ESM upgrade, we need to login to the jobsub server, find the deployment directory and then perform a ton of find-and-replaces for the various required parameters such as CAS Server location, PageBuilder directory root, etc.

It's not very difficult work, but it is tedious in the you need to do thie EVERYTIME there's an SSB9 upgrade. It would be MUCH better if ESM would store these values internally and then just generate the file for you automatically ... but oh well.

In an effort to simplify the lives for Banner Admins everywhere, I wrote a VERY BARE BONES script that will perform some find/replaces on a Banner SSB9 configuration file.

The script is called "fixssb.sh" and the current release is on github here:

This is a shell script that you will run in the SSBDeployment/current/instance/config directory where the _configuration.groovy file is located.

(e.g. banner_general_ssb_9.6/current/instance/config)

The script takes the following parameters:

Usage: fixssb.sh [groovy file] [CAS:PORT] [AppURL:PORT] [DB Instance NAME] [pbRoot] [(optional) path to UPDATED banner_configuration.groovy - to enable commmgr data source]
Example: fixssb.sh BannerGeneralSsb_configuration.groovy eis.myuniv.edu admtest.myuniv.edu:5552 PROD /u01/apps/SID/pbRoot /u01/app/PROD/shared_configuration/banner_configuration.groovy.commmgr

The script requires (5) parameters, which an optional sixth parameter: these are the following:

  • The script only works for tomcat at the moment.
  • Name of Banner Configuration Groovy file (e.g. BannerGeneralSsb_configuration.groovy, appllcationNavigator_configuration.groovy, etc)
  • URL and port for CAS server. The script currently only works for CAS. I will add SAML authentication later. Leave port blank if running on 443
  • URL and port for redirect after SSO authentication, this will usually be the server name or load balancer name which is running the SSB application. Leave port blank if running on 443.
  • DB SID Name
  • PageBuilder directory root
  • (optional) location of alternate banner_configuration.groovy file which will contain the commmgr data source. This will be needed if you want to enable AIP processing in Communication Management. If this parameter is set, then commmgr_data_source parameter will be set to true.

It will then go through the configuration file specified in the command line and perform the various find and replaces based on values you specified.

The is basically one long group of sed statements which perform the following find and replaces:

  • http:// -> https://
  • CAS_HOST:PORT -> value specified in argument 2
  • serverUrlPrefix -> https://[argument 2]/cas
  • BANNER9_HOST:PORT-> value specified in argument 3
  • APP_NAME -> filename of groovy file but stripping out the _configuration.groovy text
  • all references of targetServer="weblogic" -> targetServer="tomcat"
  • "active = false" -> "active = true" for CAS setting
  • pbRoot to the value defined in argument 5
  • APPLICATION_NAVIGATOR_HOST:PORT to value defined in argument 3
  • Ellucian DataBase and Ellucian University -> argument 4
  • if argument 6 is defined, set commmgrDataSourceEnabled and general.aip.enabled = true

It will also create a backup of the original file prior to any changes just in case something goes wrong.

 Be sure to check the file after running this. It's entirely possible it will do something wrong, hence the backup.

Finally, please note you are using this script at your own risk. We're not responsible for any problems this may cause!