Flexible Registration Management

Occasionally, we may receive a request to modify objects related to Banner Flexible Registration. Here is what you may need to know.

Text

Flexible Registration allows various text items to be customized. We have created a Git repository to manage these changes. It is the FlexReg_managed repository, located in the BannerDBA project.

Changing text items

To make a change, clone the repository to your desktop, and check out the test branch. Make the necessary changes, and commit. After your changes have been tested and approved, you may cherry pick or merge them into the prod branch.

Deploying changes

To deploy your change(s):

  1. Login to the appropriate Self-Service Banner 8x server (banapp04.sys.oakland.edu for TEST, banapp05.sys.oakland.edu for PROD).
  2. Use sudo or xsu to become the oracle user.
  3. Navigate to /home/oracle/flexreg/flexregLocalResources_prod/FlexReg_managed.
  4. Confirm that you are on the appropriate branch (test or prod).
  5. Perform a git pull to get your changes from the repository.
  6. Confirm that the change you made took effect.
  7. You may or may not need to restart the Flexible Registration services, depending on the change you made.
  8. Logout when you are done.

Custom code

We have made modifications to the login code to allow dual authentication (NetID/password or GrizzlyID/PIN). It is the Flexreg_sql repository, located in the BannerDBA project. The repository contains only those objects that we have modified from baseline; unmodified objects are not in the repository. Since Flexible Registration is a deprecated product, there should be no need to merge any of this code with new vendor modifications.

Changing custom code

The banner861 branch is the current production branch.

If you need to customize code that is not already in the repository, copy it into the banner861 branch and commit.

If you need to make any of your own changes, create your own branch off of the banner861 branch. Once your changes have been tested and approved, you can cherry pick or merge them into the banner861 branch.

Deploying custom code for testing

This is Banner code, and must therefore have a copy stored in the appropriate place in the Banner code tree. Code from the Flexreg_sql repository must be placed in $BANNER_HOME/oakmods/flexreg/dbprocs, and a link to that code placed in $BANNER_LINKS.

  1. Upload your code to the test Banner job server (banjobs6.dev.oakland.edu).
  2. Login to a terminal session on the Banner job server.
  3. Use sudo or xsu to become the banner user.
  4. Copy your code to the appropriate location and create the link.
  5. Run SQL*Plus as the BANINST1 user, and execute your code to create the package spec and/or body. Correct any errors found.
  6. Once all your code has been run without error, run gzraltr.shl to compile all invalid objects.
  7. Test your process.
  8. When you are done, logout from the job server.

DO NOT use this procedure to deploy code in PROD. Use the standard procedure for promoting Banner code changes from TEST to PROD.

System configuration

UTS has some access to Flexible Registration Admin Pages that has not been given to regular users, because changes on those pages could break Flexible Registration. Refer to Ellucian product documentation when accessing any Flexible Registration Admin Pages. Make all changes in TEST and verify them before making those changes in PROD.

Restarting Flexible Registration services

The easiest way to restart Flexible Registration services is to simply restart all WebLogic services on the server, as follows:

  1. Login to the appropriate Self-Service Banner 8x server (banapp04.sys.oakland.edu for TEST, banapp05.sys.oakland.edu for PROD).
  2. Use sudo or xsu to become the oracle user.
  3. Enter ./mwctl.sh restart
  4. Logout when you are done.

The individual Flexible Registration service (managed server) may be restarted from the WebLogic console, as follows:

  1. Start an X server on your desktop.
  2. Login to the appropriate Self-Service Banner 8x server, using an SSH client with port 7001 on the server forwarded to an unused local port on your desktop computer.

  3. In a web browser, navigate to http://localhost:<your local port>/console.

  4. Sign in as weblogic.
  5. Click on Servers (in the Environment section).
  6. Click the Control tab.
  7. Click the check box for the Flexible Registration server, and select Force Shutdown Now from the Shutdown button drop-down.
  8. Click the auto-refresh button above the list of servers to monitor the shutdown process, and wait until the service is shut down. Click the auto-refresh button again to stop monitoring.
  9. Click the check box for the Flexible Registration server, and select Start.
  10. Click the auto-refresh button above the list of servers to monitor the startup process, and wait until the service is running. Click the auto-refresh button again to stop monitoring.

  11. Log out from the WebLogic console.

  12. Log out from the SSH session.

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