USER MANUALS

Importing Metadata into a Server

The content exported from a Virtual DataPort can be imported into another Virtual DataPort Server using:

Import dialog

Import dialog

The Import dialog of the menu File has the following options:

  • VQL file. Enter the path to the VQL file. This can be:

    1. A plain text file with the VQL statements to recreate the metadata.

    2. Or a zip file that contains the VQL file and the properties file.

    If you have a VQL file and a properties file (not within the same zip file), select the Use properties file check box and enter the path to the file with the .properties extension in the Properties File box.

  • Save output. Select this check box to save the output of the import process into a file. That file will contain the summary of the execution of each VQL command.

    If selected, enter the path to the output file in the Output file box.

  • Report only commands that were not executed successfully. If selected, the Tool will only list the errors occurred while executing the VQL statements of the “VQL file”. If cleared, this list will contain a list of all the executed statements.

  • Use custom password for sensitive data decryption. Select this check box if the VQL was generated using a custom password for sensitive data encryption. The correct password must be provided. Otherwise, the VQL sentences containing sensitive data will fail.

  • Import in current server. If selected, the VQL file will be executed on the current Server, on the database selected on the list Default database.

    For example, if the VQL file only contains the statement CREATE VIEW view1..., it is important that you select the right “Default database” because that is where “view1” will be created.

    If the VQL is a full export of the entire Server, it does not matter because the VQL file will contain the appropriate CONNECT DATABASE statements, which change the database over which the following statements will be executed.

  • Import in multiple servers. If selected, the VQL file will be imported to all the selected servers on the list below.

    Important

    The metadata will only be imported into the selected servers on this list. It will not be imported to the Server you are currently connected to, unless it is also in this list.

    You have two options to add servers to the table:

    1. Add the list of servers manually by clicking Add and entering the connection details.

    2. Import the list from a file. To do this, click Add from file and select the file. This file has to contain the URL of each server in a different line, with this syntax:

[//]host[:port]/database?user@password[&queryTimeout=value][&chunkTimeout=value][&chunkSize=value]

In this file, you can store the password of each server in plain text or encrypted. To encrypt a password, execute the statement ENCRYPT_PASSWORD from the VQL Shell. For example,

ENCRYPT_PASSWORD 'password'

This command will return the password encrypted. Then, you have to add it to the servers file prefixed with “encrypted:” For example,

Import dialog: sample servers file
//production_server_1:9999/admin?administrator_user@encrypted:Gr16MjvuXhRzPtPH/yTXHw==
//production_server_2:9999/admin?administrator_user@encrypted:Gr16MjvuXhRzPtPH/yTXHw==

After clicking Ok, the Server begins processing the VQL statements inside the file and the tool displays the progress dialog. In this dialog, the “Delayed” queries are the ones that failed but will be executed again later. The reason for executing again a query that failed is that it can fail because it tries to create an element that cannot be created yet since it depends on an element of a database that has not been created yet.

For example, let us say that the VQL you are importing does the following:

  1. It creates the database “customer”.

  2. It executes these statements

    CREATE VIEW v1 AS SELECT * FROM support.v3;
CREATE VIEW v2 AS SELECT * FROM support.v4;

  3. It creates the database “support” and the views v3 and v4.

When the Server processes this VQL, the statements that create the views v1 and v2 on the database customer fail because the views v3 and v2 of the support database do not exist yet. When a query fails, it is added to the list of “delayed queries”. Once the entire file is processed, the import process tries to execute the delayed queries in the appropriate database. In this case, it tries to create the views v1 and v2 and it will succeed. Once a statement is executed successfully is removed from the list of delayed queries.

Import VQL: progress dialog with a delayed statement

Import VQL: progress dialog with a delayed statement

The import process, after executing all the statements of the VQL file, keeps executing all the delayed queries until one of these conditions is met:

  1. The list of delayed queries is empty, which means the entire VQL file was imported successfully.

  2. Or, all the statements that fail belong to the same database.

  3. Or, after executing all the delayed statements and none of them were successfully executed.

When there are delayed statements, if you click “More details” after the import process finishes, you will see something like:

Command #500
Statement: CREATE VIEW v1 AS SELECT * FROM support.v3
QUERY DELAYED

This means that this statement initially failed and that it was executed again later, successfully.

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