Extracting policy and access group definitions

The extraction process reads the access control policy and access group information in the database and generates files that capture the information in XML format. The extraction utility uses an input filter XML file to specify which data to extract from the database. We can extract all access group and policy data, all access group data, or all access group and policy data that is owned by a particular organization.

Task info

Maintain consistency between the XML files and the access control information in the database. By maintaining this consistency:

• When creating an instance of WebSphere Commerce, the policy and access group definitions are loaded from the XML files.

• The XML files offer a convenient way to directly view and edit your policies and their component parts so keeping the files up-to-date is essential.

When you finalize and test your policy changes, update the XML files to keep them in sync with policy information in the databases. For a description of the different XML files related to access control policies and access groups, see Defining access control policy elements using XML. Explanations on how to extract policy changes from the databases into the XML files and how to load the policy information from the XML files into the databases are also included.

To extract data, use the appropriate filter file:

Procedure

1. If we are extracting access group and policy data for a particular organization, edit the OrganizationPoliciesFilter.xml filter file to specify the organization ID. The OrganizationPoliciesFilter.xml is in the following directory:

   • WCDE_installdir/xml/policies/xml

   Search for all instances of "member_id" and modify the associated value to the organizational ID for which we want to extract the policies.

2. To run the utility:

   We must log in as a user that has the following permissions:

   • Read/write/execute authority to the directories, subdirectories, and files of utilities_root/xml/policies and utilities_root/logs.

   • Read/execute authority to the utilities_root/bin directory and its files.

     If the user does not have the required authority, we must grant this authority with the chmod command.

3. From the utilities_root/bin directory, type the following command.

   • acpextract.sh database_name database_user database_user_password filter_file schema_name

   where:

   database_name

   (Mandatory). Name of the database in which to load the policy.

   database_user

   (Mandatory). Name of the database user who can connect to the database.

   database_user_password

   (Mandatory). The associated password for the database user.

   filter_file

   (Mandatory).

   ACPoliciesfilter.xml

   Extracts all access group and policy data.

   ACUserGroupsFilter.xml

   Extract all access group data.

   OrganizationPoliciesFilter.xml

   Extract all access group and policy data for a particular organization. Before you use this file, ensure that it is edited to specify the organization ID. The policy data that is owned by this organization ID is extracted.

   schema_name

   The name of target database schema. This name is normally the same as database_user. If you have a single schema, this parameter is optional. If you have multiple schemas, such as a base and workspace schema, this parameter is mandatory. Run the access control policy extraction utility from the base schema.

   For example:

   • ./acpextract.sh mall dbuser dbusrpwd ACPoliciesfilter.xml

4. Check for errors in the log files. Errors might not display on the command line.

   • Check the acpextract.log and messages.txt files in the following directory: utilities_root/logs

   • Any error files that are generated in utilities_root/xml/policies/xml directory.

   The following files are created utilities_root/xml/policies/xml directory.

   ExtractedACPolicies.xml

   Contains data that is extracted by the acpextract utility for the filter criteria.

   ExtractedACPolicies.dtd

   The DTD for the ExtractedACPolicies.xml file.

   AccessControlUserGroups.xml

   The file containing the access group definitions.

   AccessControlPolicies.xml

   The file containing the language-independent access control policy information.

   AccessControlPolicies_ locale.xml

   The language-dependent access control policies file containing the display names and descriptions.