jCustomer logs, backups & background jobs

Logging

Some logging is configured in the centralized configuration file <cxs-install-dir>/etc/unomi.custom.system.properties with the properties starting with org.apache.unomi.logs.*. If you need more fine-grained configuration changes you can do them in the <cxs-install-dir>/etc/org.ops4j.pax.logging.cfg file, so that by default the logging it routed into the <cxs-install-dir>/data/log/karaf.log file. More details on how to tune logging settings and also on the log-related console commands is given here: https://karaf.apache.org/manual/latest/#_log. One of the most useful console commands (especially in development) is:

log:tail

which continuously displays the log entries in the console.

How to backup jCustomer?

Backing up your system is useful in many cases as it minimizes the risk of losing all your data and a backup is a mandatory step in case of an upgrade or migration process. jCustomer by default is configured to write its runtime data directly into the Elasticsearch server, which itself writes information in its <elasticsearch-install-dir>/data directory. There are several backup types, which serve different purposes:

• Elasticsearch snapshots
  Elasticsearch also offers a built-in backup mechanism known as snapshots. You can find more information about this here: https://www.elastic.co/guide/en/elasticsearch/reference/current/modules-snapshots.html.
• Full jCustomer and Elasticsearch file system backup
  Is done by archiving the whole <cxs-install-dir>/ and <elasticsearch-install-dir> folders, with jCustomer and Elasticsearch processes stopped.
• Configuration backup
  Is done by archiving the <cxs-install-dir>/etc and <elasticsearch-install-dir>/conf folders. Also, if you have modified any bin/setenv files, also backup those. This type of backup is usually done, before/after planned configuration updates.
• Runtime data file system backup
  Is performed by archiving the <elasticsearch-install-dir>/data folder. Useful for incremental (nightly) backups and allows rolling back to a previous stable/consistent state in case of data corruption/loss. This procedure however is not recommended because transient data will not be consistent, and ElasticSearch snapshots should be preferred instead.

The recommended way of backing up jCustomer is therefore the following:

1. Setup and execute Elasticsearch snapshots. This is the only way to properly backup an Elasticsearch cluster with full data integrity guaranteed. A recommended solution is to automate the snapshot process, as this can be achieved for example by using cron jobs that execute curl requests to request Elasticsearch snapshot generations.
2. Make a full configuration backup for both jCustomer and Elasticsearch.
3. Backup any customized changes you did (such as installed plugins) to jCustomer and Elasticsearch.
4. (Optional) Full file system backup of jCustomer and Elasticsearch. This step is optional because if you have properly performed steps 1, 2 and 3 you should be able to reinstall everything you need to reinstall from the backups. However to be on the safe side a full file system backup is a good idea and doesn't require much work.
5. Make sure you test your backup procedure to make sure that everything does backup properly and can effectively be restored. Remember that not testing your backup procedure is the same as having no backup procedure.

Note that this backup procedure will also work to copy environment to new clusters, even migrated to smaller cluster sizes (for example from 3 to 1 ES node for staging / development purposes). This is why snapshots are used, they make this type of migration easier. Another way of doing this would be to temporarily set the replicas to the same amount as nodes, but this method only works for small data sets and is not recommended for large ones.

Background jobs

This section contains a list of the background jobs that may be executed either by the jExperience Jahia modules or jCustomer .

jExperience jobs

jCustomer jobs