Forcing Shadow Folders Refresh

thomas62j5 · Post by **thomas62j5** » Tue Jul 25, 2006 7:54 pm

We currently have Vault installed on one server, and are in the process of setting it up on a second server that will be replacing our current server in the near future. We just upgraded both machines to Vault 3.5.

Until we are ready to switch over to the secondary server permanently, I plan on keeping both servers in sync by temporarily stopping vault on the primary, and starting it on the secondary once a day. The idea is to let vault's shadow folders refresh all shadow folders on the secondary, then turn it back off, and restart it on the primary server.

First, does this seem like it would cause any problems? They would both be connecting to the same database, but only one would be on at a time.

Second, is there a way to force a shadow folder refresh for all folders across all repositories? If not, can this feature be added to the admin tool? As I understand it now, I need to login to each repository and perform a checkin, commit, etc to spur a repository-wide shadow refresh, but this will be very tedious. If there is no real fix for this now, is there a good workaround, maybe a scripting solution that performs a meaningless commit to each repository? Or maybe a SQL query I can run to spur shadow folder service? (What does it monitor for updates, exactly?)

Third, how do you control where the VaultShadowFolderService.txt logfile is created? I modified the LogFilePath entry in Vault.config, but that seems to have no effect on the location of the shadow folder debug log. I need to have it created on our D: drive, not our C: drive where it exists now.

Beth · Post by **Beth** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 9:21 am

First, does this seem like it would cause any problems? They would both be connecting to the same database, but only one would be on at a time.

Can you give a little more detail on the set-up? Is one server only running a shadow folder, or how is that working?

Second, is there a way to force a shadow folder refresh for all folders across all repositories?

If you reset the shadow folder in the admin tool, it will force a refresh.

Third, how do you control where the VaultShadowFolderService.txt logfile is created?

Can you give me more details on the set-up of your shadow folder? It could possibly be a permissions problem. There is more information regarding that at this KB: http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=188

thomas62j5 · Post by **thomas62j5** » Wed Jul 26, 2006 11:46 am

Beth wrote:Can you give a little more detail on the set-up? Is one server only running a shadow folder, or how is that working?

They both have shadow folders setup. The directory structure on both servers is exactly the same, so the shadow configurations are identical.

Beth wrote:If you reset the shadow folder in the admin tool, it will force a refresh.

The problem is we have about a dozen shadow folders, so this is definitely not a shortcut for us.

Beth wrote:Can you give me more details on the set-up of your shadow folder? It could possibly be a permissions problem. There is more information regarding that at this KB: http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=188

I don't think it's permissions since the sgvault.log file is created in that folder OK. Is it possible that the vault shadow service log is being created in the Working Directory by default?

I did read that URL previously, but it is quite a bear going through all that. Specifically, the account I would use to impersonate would be an account with limited logon privileges, for security reasons. Since this server is remotely hosted, I am coming in through remote desktop, and it's impossible for me to login as the impersonation account.

I may experiment with mapped drives anyway though to arrange it so it is shadowing to both servers at once rather than having to turn it on separately on the other server and spur a refresh in each repos.

Beth · Post by **Beth** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:46 am

They both have shadow folders setup. The directory structure on both servers is exactly the same, so the shadow configurations are identical.

You say you will work on one server for a while and then switch to the other server for a while. If you make changes to files on one server, those changes won't be reflected in the other server. The shadow folders should only see their own repositories. How are you planning for the changes to get from one server to another? I haven't seen anyone try this yet.

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thomas62j5 · Post by **thomas62j5** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 8:52 am

"Until we are ready to switch over to the secondary server permanently, I plan on keeping both servers in sync by temporarily stopping vault on the primary, and starting it on the secondary once a day. The idea is to let vault's shadow folders refresh all shadow folders on the secondary, then turn it back off, and restart it on the primary server."

But I couldn't find any non-annoying way to refresh all repositories, so what I did instead was get impersonation working, and we are now running on the new server only, with shadow folders set up for both servers.

Beth · Post by **Beth** » Mon Jul 31, 2006 1:00 pm

Back on the log fiile, the important part is to make sure that the VaultShadowFolder ASP.Net process has correct file permissions on the folder you set up.

The way you have two servers set up is not really a standard set-up for Vault to deal with, and we've never tested this to show that it would work that way.