the north shore community college web services...

NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE


WEB SERVICES

System Procedure Manual

(Version A 05221003)

The North Shore Community College Web Services Manual 1 (Version A 05221003)


Contents:

INTRODUCTION:..................................................................................................................................... 3

OVERVIEW:.............................................................................................................................................. 3 NSCC WEB SERVICES .............................................................................................................................. 3

CAMPUS PIPELINE SYSTEM PROCEDURES ................................................................................... 4 STARTUP. .................................................................................................................................................. 4 SHUTDOWN. .............................................................................................................................................. 4 BACKUP. ................................................................................................................................................... 4 CHECKING BANNER EVENT QUEUE........................................................................................................... 4 COUNTING ACTIVATED STUDENT ACCOUNTS. .......................................................................................... 6 CAMPUS PIPELINE MAINTENANCE FORM (GXICPMN)............................................................................. 7 SYNCHRONIZE COURSE DATA IN CAMPUS PIPELINE................................................................................ 10 NOTIFYING CAMPUS PIPELINE USERS...................................................................................................... 12

COMMON “WHAT IF’S” ...................................................................................................................... 13 WHAT IF BLACKBOARD IS NOT RESPONDING? ........................................................................................ 13 WHAT IF FACULTY CANNOT ACCESS CLASS LISTS?................................................................................. 13 WHAT IF THE “MY NORTH SHORE” TAB FAILS? ..................................................................................... 14 WHAT IF A USER IS HAVING TROUBLE WITH THE “SETUP YOUR ACCOUNT” WIZARD?............................. 14 WHAT IF EVENTS ARE NOT BEING PROCESSED? ....................................................................................... 14 WHAT IF A USER CAN LOGIN TO PIPELINE BUT CANNOT ACCESS SCHOOL SERVICES? .............................. 15

APPENDIX A: .......................................................................................................................................... 16 WEB SERVICES SYSTEM DEPENDENCY DIAGRAM. .................................................................................. 16

APPENDIX B: .......................................................................................................................................... 17 NSCC WEB SERVICES PASSWORDS......................................................................................................... 17


NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Introduction: This document is written to provide step-by-step instructions to describe the most common maintenance tasks required by the various web services offered by North Shore Community College. This manual covers routine system startup and shutdown, system backup and integration, and a discussion of common symptoms, problems and solutions. Overview: NSCC Web Services North Shore Community College offers a wide range of web services to the college community. The main servers that support the web services at NSCC are Campus Pipeline (Portal Service), Campus Pipeline E-Mail Server, RSWayne (Core SIS Database), Blackboard (LMS), SmartForce (CBT Service), Homepage (NSCC Intranet and Toolsets). The backbone for providing these services is the Campus Pipeline server. The Campus Pipeline portal serves to link together the various systems into a more coherent, integrated environment. For this reason, this manual will focus on Campus Pipeline maintenance as it relates to the other servers. This manual supports Campus Pipeline version 3.2 Patch 2.

For many of the procedures discussed in this document, the operator must have direct access to the Campus Pipeline server. This could either entail sitting at the server terminal in the NSCC server room (F-102A) or by connecting remotely to the server using the VNC software package (http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc). The Campus Pipeline server is accessible through VNC at all times from anywhere with Internet access. The Campus Pipeline service and its various supporting services are outlined in the table below.

Display Name Short Name Description Required

Campus Pipeline CPService Core Campus Pipeline System b

Campus Pipeline Executive External Event Service

CP-EXEC-EVENTS Campus Pipeline Event Handler b

iPlanet Calendar Admin Service 5.0 iPlanetCalendarAdminService5 iPlanet Calendaring Service Component b

iPlanet Calendar HTTP Service 5.0 iPlanetCalendarHTTPService5 iPlanet Calendaring Service Component b

iPlanet ENS Service 5.0 iPlanetENSService5 iPlanet Calendaring Service Component b

iPlanet Notification Service iPlanetNotificationService5 iPlanet Calendaring Service Component b

iWS (cp) https-cp iPlanet Web Server (port 80) b

iWS (cp-ssl) https-cp-ssl iPlanet Secure Web Server (port 443) b

MySql MySql MySQL Database used for CP Message Board b

Netscape Directory Server 4.1 (cp) slapd-cp LDAP directory for Campus Pipeline b

NSCC Event Provider NSCC Event Provider Processes Banner Events used to update and synchronize Campus Pipeline system with Banner. b

SCT Authenticator SCT Authenticator Provides seamless integration between Campus Pipeline and SCT Web products. b


http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc


Campus Pipeline System Procedures

Startup. One method you may use to start the Campus Pipeline system is to reboot the server. Of course, be sure that the Campus Pipeline service is not currently running before rebooting. When the NT server restarts Campus Pipeline will start as well. You may also use the following method to start the Campus Pipeline system.

1. Open a Cygwin window and type:

startcp

2. Wait until the startup command completes

Shutdown. Follow this simple procedure to shutdown the Campus Pipeline system.

1. Open a Cygwin window and type:

stopcp –a

2. Wait until the shutdown command completes.

Backup. The backup process is currently scheduled to run automatically at 5:30 a.m. every morning. However, there may be an occasion to run the backup process manually. The backup process invokes several service specific backup utilities and copies these backup files to the backup\data subdirectories under d:\nscc. The backup starts by shutting down the Campus Pipeline system. For this reason, run the process when you are sure it is ok to boot users off the system. When the backup is complete the server will reboot and the Campus Pipeline service will automatically restart with the NT server. The entire process takes about twenty minutes.

1. To start the backup process manually, open an MS-DOS window and type.

startBackup

Checking Banner Event Queue. You can check the Banner Event Queue from within Campus Pipeline. This is useful for monitoring Banner Event provider failures. To check the Event queue:

1. Logon to Campus Pipeline. 2. From within the “My Pipeline” tab, click on the “NSCC Pipeline Tools” link. 3. Then click on the “Event Listing” or “Event Summary” links:

(See Figure 1 for details.)



Figure 1


NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Counting Activated Student Accounts. You can check the number of activated student Campus Pipeline accounts from within Campus Pipeline. To do this:

1. Logon to Campus Pipeline. 2. From within the “My Pipeline” tab, click on the “NSCC Pipeline Tools” link. 3. Then click on the “Event Listing” or “Event Summary” links:


Figure 2


NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Campus Pipeline Maintenance Form (GXICPMN). The Campus Pipeline Maintenance form (GXICPMN) facilitates the management of Campus Pipeline accounts. The Banner form allows the operator to view pertinent Banner/Campus Pipeline account information such as birth date, social security number, Campus Pipeline username, and account status, as well as, change passwords, synchronize account information, and generate and delete accounts. The Campus Pipeline Maintenance form consists of two blocks. In the first block you must enter a Banner ID. (See Figure 6)

The North Shore C

Figure 6

ommunity College Web Services Manual 7 (Version A 05221003)

NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE To facilitate the lookup of Banner ID’s, a Campus Pipeline Person Search form has been added to Banner. This form, SXVIDEN, allows the user to search by and view Campus Pipeline usernames, in addition to the standard first name, last name, and SSN fields. (See Figure 7) Clicking on the flashlight icon button (to the right of the ID and name fields) of the GXICPMN key-block activates this new lookup form.

When you proceuser’s pertinentCampus Pipelinon this form. Aby changes in B

The North Shore Comm

Figure 7

ed to the next block (by using the “Next-block” command), you can view the Campus Pipeline information. (See Figure 8) To prevent the Banner and e systems from becoming “out of synch,” the user may not modify any value ll modifications must be executed with events that are automatically triggered anner, or by using the “Synchronize Account” button on this form.

Figure 8

unity College Web Services Manual 8 (Version A 05221003)

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NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE The user can change the Campus Pipeline password for any active Campus Pipeline account. To change the password, click on the “Change Password” button. A new dialog box will appear and the user will be prompted to enter the new password and confirmation password. (See Figure 9) When the user clicks on the “Ok” button the Campus Pipeline password is submitted to the Campus Pipeline server. It may take several seconds to a minute for the password change to take effect. The operator can also synchrwith the Campus Pipeline sysAccount” button. A messagethe account. When the user synchronized with Banner. Ittake effect.

The North Shore Community College Web Ser

Figure 9

onize the user’s Banner course enrollment/teaching assignments tem. To synchronize the account, click on the “Synchronize box will appear asking if you are sure that you want synchronize clicks on the “Ok” button the Campus Pipeline account is may take several seconds to a minute for this synchronization to

vices Manual 9 (Version A 05221003)

NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Synchronize Course Data in Campus Pipeline. Occasionally, an instructor may notice a discrepancy between their Banner course list and the students listed under their course in Campus Pipeline. To remedy this situation the “CP Course Sync Process” was developed. This Banner process (SWX0614) needs to be run from Banner Job Submission. This section outlines how to run this process.

1. In Banner, enter SWX0614 in the Direct Access field and hit the Enter key.

2. In the form that opens (GJAPCTL), enter Next-Block twice.



3. Enter the proper Term Code (for example, 200009) in the Term Code value field. 4. Enter the proper CRN (“Course Reference Number”) in the CRN value field.

5. Enter the Next-Block 6. Press the “F10” key or click on the Save icon on the menu bar. This will cause Banner

to run the report. 7. You will be notified that the SWX0614 process is complete with the following message:


NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Notifying Campus Pipeline Users. There are two main methods of sending alert messages to Campus Pipeline users. The first alert method only affects currently logged in users. The second method involves creating a pop-up message that appears whenever the user accesses the Campus Pipeline login page. This is particularly useful to prepare users for when you are planning to bring down the server later in the day.

Method 1: Notifying logged in users 1. Open a Cygwin window and type:

cptool send alert

where contains the message you would like to send to the users.

Method 2: Notifying via login screen pop-up

1. Logon to Campus Pipeline. 2. From within the “My Pipeline” tab, click on the “NSCC Pipeline Tools” link. 3. Then click on the “Set Login Alert” link.


Figure 10


NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Common “What if’s” These are the most common problems that we encounter with Campus Pipeline 3.2 and its integrated systems. What if Blackboard is Not Responding?

1) Confirm that only Blackboard is hung. Try connecting to other NSCC web sites (e.g. www.northshore.edu, mail.northshore.edu). If other sites are down, it is most likely a network or UIS problem.

2) Try to get to Blackboard directly by connecting to http://bb.nscc.mass.edu. If this also fails to load the login page then proceed to step 3.

3) Reboot the Blackboard server. 4) After the Blackboard server has finished rebooting. Login to

Campus Pipeline and try to connect to Blackboard server. If it fails then proceed to step 5. Otherwise, stop here.

5) Confirm that you can now connect to http://bb.nscc.mass.edu directly. If you cannot, something is wrong with the Blackboard server and is beyond the scope of this manual. If you can connect directly, then the Campus Pipeline CPIP connection must be restarted and you should proceed to step 6.

6) Here you have two options, you may either restart the entire Campus Pipeline server or you may simply restart the Campus Pipeline web server. Either should work. If you choose to restart the entire server, first shutdown Campus Pipeline using the “stopcp –a” command (the instructions were provided earlier in this document), then restart the entire NT server. If you choose to simply restart the Campus Pipeline web server, open the Windows NT Service applet in the Control Panel, and restart the “https-cp” service. (It will take about a minute to completely restart even after the service claims to have started.) When you can log back into Campus Pipeline, your connection to Blackboard should now work. If not something is wrong with the Blackboard server and is beyond the scope of this manual.

What if Faculty cannot access Class Lists?

1) This is can be caused by two factors; either the NSCC Intranet (i.e. Tomcat service) is down or the process, SQRJServer, on the RSWayne server is down.

2) First check to see if the NSCC Intranet is down. Test this by clicking on the “My North Shore” tab in Campus Pipeline. If this fails to load proceed to the next “What if” entitled, “What if the ‘My North Shore’ Tab Fails?”.

3) If the “My North Shore” tab works, then the problem is with the SQRJServer on RSWayne. Login to RSWayne as root and navigate to the “/usr/local/SQRJServer/bin” directory. In this directory, type:

sh startSQRJServerDaemon


http://www.northshore.edu/http://bb.nscc.mass.edu/http://bb.nscc.mass.edu/

NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE What if the “My North Shore” Tab Fails?

The “My North Shore” tab in Campus Pipeline is controlled by a process on NSCC Homepage server called Tomcat. If the “My North Shore” tab fails to load or you repeatedly receive the “NSCC Intranet Login” page, use the following steps to restart the process.

1) Login to the Homepage server as root 2) From the command prompt type:

/etc/init.d/tomcat restart

3) Logout by typing “exit” What if a user is having trouble with the “Setup Your Account” wizard?

There are many reasons why a user might have trouble with the “Setup Your Account” wizard on the Campus Pipeline login page. Most problems can be solved by using the Banner GXICPMN form. However, if the Campus Pipeline Event Service fails the “Setup Your Account” wizard will not work. Refer to the section above entitled, “Checking Banner Event Queue,” to determine if the Event Service has failed. If so, proceed to the following “What if” entitled, “What if Events are not being processed?”.

What if Events are not being processed?

Currently, the only fix for this seems to be to restart the entire Campus Pipeline server. You should first shutdown Campus Pipeline using the “stopcp –a” command (the instructions were provided earlier in this document), then restart the entire NT server. The Events should be processed as soon as the server restarts.

How do I control and run the BanImport process?

The BanImport process runs nightly on the Homepage server. This process updates the schedule, program of study and the online directory data which is accessible via the NSCC Homepage. The configuration file which controls the BanImport process can be found on the Homepage server in the directory, /home/banimport/banImport. The configuration file is named local.properties. You can edit this file with the vi editor. You can manually run the process from the above directory by typing: sh startBanImport


NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE What if a user can login to Pipeline but cannot access School Services?

On occasion, a Campus Pipeline user may be able to login to Campus Pipeline but may be unable to access Banner Web through the School Services tab of Pipeline. This may occur when the Banner/Oracle system is down for routine maintenance or backup. This situation may also occur when the user’s SCT Pin has been disabled. If this is the case, the user will receive the Campus Pipeline error message “You have no permission to access this service,” while attempting to connect to Banner Web through Pipeline. Use the following procedure to remedy this problem (See Figure 4):

1. Login to Banner and go to the form, GOATPAC. 2. Enter the Banner ID for the Campus Pipeline user who is

having trouble connecting to Banner Web. 3. Enter the “Next-Block” command. 4. From within the GOATPAC form, uncheck the box labeled

“PIN Disabled.” 5. Save your changes. 6. The Campus Pipeline user should now be able to connect

to Banner Web.

Figure 4


NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Appendix A: Web Services System Dependency Diagram.


NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COLLEGE Appendix B: NSCC Web Services passwords. Program/Service Username Password Access Information

Windows NT cpadmin

VNC VNC server address:

134.241.103.251

VeriSign Digital Certificate

Campus Pipeline Administrator cpadmin30

Blackboard Server Administrator

SmartForce Server Administrator

WebReg Server Administrator

Homepage Server root

ssh to 134.241.103.23


UsernamePassword

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