How to Setup Basic Codebeamer Cluster

Developer's Guide > Developer's Guide > Codebeamer Architecture > Cluster Architecture > How to Setup Basic Codebeamer Cluster

This topic guides about setting up basic Codebeamer cluster.

It is possible to run Codebeamer in clustered mode on on-premises servers, however it is strongly recommended running clusters on more advanced AWS and/or ECS/Kubernetes environments.

All the below code examples are taken from Linux but the configurations are similar on Windows.

Introduction

If users prefer using a non-dockerized version of the application, Codebeamer and all required dependencies need to be installed. This page collects all wiki pages helping to set up a Codebeamer instance, and configure it as a clustered version.

References

• Cluster component

• Cluster architecture

• Software requirements

• Hardware requirements

• Network requirements

• Database requirements

• License requirements:

◦ Codebeamer Licensing

◦ Managing Licenses

• Supported browsers

Installation and Configuration

Installation overview: Installation Guide

Database

All the cluster nodes must be connected to the same database instance and database using the same parameters:

• Connection url (host:port) to the database instance.

• Username

• Password

• Database

Example environment settings on all nodes:

CB_database_JDBC_Username=cbadmin

CB_database_JDBC_Password=cbpasswd123

CB_database_JDBC_Driver=mysql

CB_database_JDBC_ConnectionURL=jdbc:mysql://dbhost:3306/codebeamer?autoReconnect=true&zeroDateTimeBehavior=convertToNull&emulateLocators=true&characterEncoding=UTF-8&useSSL=false

For more information about supported databases and installation, see: Database Installation and Configuration

Shared Data (NFSv4) server

To set up a Network File System (NFS) protocol on servers, follow the applicable instructions provided:

• On Windows: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/storage/nfs/deploy-nfs

• On Linux: https://access.redhat.com/documentation/en-us/red_hat_enterprise_linux/8/html/deploying_different_types_of_servers/exporting-nfs-shares_deploying-different-types-of-servers

Shared Folders

For a complete list of the folders to share in a Codebeamer clustered installation, refer to the Volumes and Shared Folders for Codebeamer section.

All cluster nodes must share the <CODEBEAMER_HOME>/repository/reqif folder, as this location temporarily stores ReqIF files or archives scheduled for import, and exported ReqIF archives.

LoadBalancer

User requests should be distributed among running Codebeamer, both hardware or software loadbalancer could work. "Non-sticky session" settings are recommended.

Basic Apache-2.4 LoadBalancer config example:

ServerName codeBeamer

Listen 0.0.0.0:8080

<VirtualHost *:8080>

ProxyHCExpr ok234 {%{REQUEST_STATUS} =~ /^[234]/}

<Proxy balancer://codebeamercluster>

BalancerMember http://codebeamer-app-server1:8080 hcmethod=GET hcuri=/hc/cluster/ping.spr hcexpr=ok234 hcinterval=10 hcpasses=2 hcfails=2

BalancerMember http://codebeamer-app-server2:8080 hcmethod=GET hcuri=/hc/cluster/ping.spr hcexpr=ok234 hcinterval=10 hcpasses=2 hcfails=2

ProxySet lbmethod=byrequests

</Proxy>

<Location /balancer-manager>

SetHandler balancer-manager

Order allow,deny

allow from all

</Location>

ProxyPass /balancer-manager !

ProxyPass / balancer://codebeamercluster/

ProxyPassReverse / balancer://codebeamercluster/

#WebSocket loadbalancer

<Proxy balancer://wsBalancer>

BalancerMember ws://codebeamer-app-server1:8080

BalancerMember ws://codebeamer-app-server2:8080

ProxySet lbmethod=byrequests stickysession=JSESSIONID

</Proxy>

<LocationMatch "/ws/notification/.*/.*/websocket">

ProxyPass "balancer://wsBalancer/" stickysession=JSESSIONID

</LocationMatch>

</VirtualHost>

There are two options for loadbalancing:

SSL Passthrough

In this case the LoadBalancer does not have TLS, but all the cluster nodes have and serve the requests on their TLS ports. For this the following is needed:

• Wildcard certificate on all of the nodes.

• Configuring nodes to use TLS, see: How to set up SSL for Codebeamer.

• Setting the ports in the loadbalancer config to 8090.

• If needed, change the web socket protocol to secure websocket protocol (WSS).

SSL Offload

In this case LoadBalancer has the certificate and passing the traffic non-encrypted to the backend servers. For this cluster nodes need to be configured without TLS. This setting is suggested.

Increase LoadBalancer timeout configuration to 1 hour.

Codebeamer Cluster

All Codebeamer servers must be installed on all the cluster nodes first: Installing Codebeamer

Environment must be specified for all the cluster nodes in the similar way. The easiest way to achieve this is to use the systemd service file that is provided here: Adding Codebeamer service (auto startup)

To set up the cluster with different environments (like with containers), create a similar environment file:

#XMX setting

CB_MAXHEAPSIZE=1500

#Configure timezone properly

TZ=Europe/Berlin

## Cluster

CB_CLUSTER_ENABLED=true

CB_ping_testingEnabled=true

## CACHE settings

# the fqdn of the current node

CB_RMI_CACHE_HOSTNAME=<the-local-node-fqdn>

# the list of cluster nodes

CB_RMI_CACHE_INSTANCES=<the-local-node-fqdn>,<other-cluster-node-fqdn>,...

CB_RMI_REPLICATION_CACHE_PORT=4001

CB_RMI_INVALIDATION_CACHE_PORT=4002

CB_RMI_CACHE_SOCKET_TIMEOUT_MILLIS=12000

CB_RMI_CACHE_REMOTE_OBJECT_PORT=9000

## JGROUP settings

CB_JGROUPS_CHANNEL_TCP_PING_ADDRESSES=<the-local-node-fqdn>,<other-cluster-node-fqdn>,...

CB_JGROUPS_CHANNEL_TCP_PING_PORT=9998

CB_JGROUPS_TEST_CHANNEL_TCP_PING_PORT=8998

## Scheduler settings

CB_SCHEDULER_FACTORY_THREAD_COUNT_INSTANCE=3

CB_SCHEDULER_FACTORY_THREAD_COUNT_CONCURRENT=3

CB_SCHEDULER_FACTORY_THREAD_COUNT_REPORT=3

CB_SCHEDULER_FACTORY_THREAD_COUNT_REMOTE_JIRA_SYNC=3

CB_SCHEDULER_FACTORY_THREAD_COUNT_REMOTE_DOORS_SYNC=3

## TLS for in case of SSL Passthrough

#TOMCAT_CONNECTOR_KEYSTORE_FILE=<keystore-file-location>

#TOMCAT_CONNECTOR_KEYSTORE_PASS=<keystore-password>

#JVM_OPTIONS= -Djdk.tls.ephemeralDHKeySize=2048

## Database access settings

CB_database_JDBC_Username=<database-user>

CB_database_JDBC_Password=<database-password>

CB_database_JDBC_Driver=<jdbc-driver-class>

CB_database_JDBC_ConnectionURL=jdbc:<db-type>://<database-hot-and-port>/<database>?autoReconnect=true&zeroDateTimeBehavior=convertToNull&emulateLocators=true&characterEncoding=UTF-8&useSSL=false

After creating the environment file at an optional location, create a systemd service override.

1. Create directory /etc/systemd/system/codebeamer.service.d.

2. Add override.conf into that directory with the following content:

[Service]

EnvironmentFile=<location-of-the-environment-file>

After executing these steps, all Codebeamer instances - on all nodes - can be started using the following command:

systemctl start codebeamer.service

Dedicating Servers Exclusively for API Calls

This function is available since Codebeamer release 22.04.

With the development of this function, it is possible to dedicate one or more nodes of a cluster solely for API calls, preventing the related nodes from being overloaded by blocking the execution of other background processes that might cause performance issues.

To dedicate a node as an API server, the following environment parameter needs to be set:

CB_CLUSTER_API_SERVER=true

The CB_CLUSTER_API_SERVER=true environment parameter should not be set for all nodes of a cluster.

API Mode

Nodes in Codebeamer can be started as API servers. When a node is running in API mode, only System Admins are allowed to log in. Normal users cannot log in, however, they can still send API requests. With this, the load is moved from the end-user servers to a dedicated API server.

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