Migrating your Developer Portal from Version 5 to Version 10

Guidance on how to migrate a Developer Portal site from IBM® API Connect Version 5, to IBM API Connect Version 10.

In IBM API Connect Version 10 the Developer Portal is based on the open source Drupal 9 content management software, which enables more advanced, flexible, and powerful customization capabilities. However, in IBM API Connect Version 5 the Developer Portal is based on Drupal 7. The migration tooling in Version 10 will create a new Developer Portal site, and migrate all of the associated APIs and Products, user information, and subscriptions over. However, customizations such as modules and themes cannot be automatically migrated, as the Drupal 9 baseline is very different to Drupal 7. For more information about upgrading from a Drupal 7 baseline to a Drupal 9 baseline, see Upgrading Drupal in the Drupal documentation.

The following sections take you through the migration process for the Developer Portal, and provide guidance on how to manually migrate any specific customizations to Drupal 9.

Migration process for the Developer Portal
Portal Delegated User Registries
Custom themes
Custom modules
Custom Rules
Custom content types and fields
Advanced theme development
Changing the page layout
Changing the front page
Features no longer available in the Developer Portal

Note: The ability to migrate is available only from IBM API Connect Version 5.0.8.7 onwards. If your deployment is at an earlier version, you must upgrade before migrating. See Upgrading your API Connect cloud for information about upgrading in Version 5. For more information about the supported versions for migration, see Migrating a Version 5 deployment.

Note: In Version 5, it was possible, though not recommended, to modify files on the Developer Portal server directly. For more information, see Developer Portal best practices for administrators. However, in Version 10, you should not make any system changes. Do not use the kubectl exec command to make changes inside the Developer Portal containers, and on OVA deployments do not make any modifications on the Developer Portal VM. Make any customizations on your Developer Portal by using the UI or CLI. Do not run a kubectl exec command on any Developer Portal containers unless asked to by IBM.

Migration process for the Developer Portal

The migration process for the Developer Portal migrates all of the following information to Version 10 for each site in your cluster:

User information (if Portal Delegated User Registry is enabled, the process is slightly different; see Portal Delegated User Registries).
Products and APIs.
Consumer organizations.
Applications.
Subscriptions.

For information about the main migration process, see Migrating a Version 5 deployment.

Portal Delegated User Registries

In IBM API Connect Version 5, if Portal Delegated User Registry (PDUR) was selected for a Catalog, the user management was delegated from the management server to the Developer Portal. The site administrator within the Portal then performed the configuration of user registries, and the management server recorded that the delegation had taken place, and stored a record of the users that existed in the Catalog. However, the management service maintained no information about the configuration of the specific registries or how users mapped to them. In IBM API Connect Version 10, all user registry configuration takes place in the management server, and PDUR is no longer needed. Therefore, to migrate the PDUR user registries and users from v5 to v10, configuration information must be gathered from both the management server and the Portal node.

If your IBM API Connect Version 5 Developer Portal uses Portal Delegated User Registry (PDUR), you must first export the user information that is stored in the Version 5 Developer Portal local database. This user information can then be fed into the migration tooling so that the correct user registries can be created in the newer version of API Connect.

For more information about how to export the PDUR information from v5, see Exporting Portal Delegated User Registry user information. For more information about the migration process in v10, see Migration steps with PDUR.

Custom themes

If your Version 5 Developer Portal is using a custom theme, you'll need to create the custom theme again for the Drupal 9 baseline. Start by creating a sub-theme of the new Version 10 Developer Portal site by using the theme generator, and then manually customize the sub-theme to your specifications for Drupal 9 by using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), or Sass CSS (SCSS). Note that using SCSS in your theme makes it far simpler to change colors. We've also added a color template theme generator, which means you can quickly generate a base color theme on which to build your customized site branding. For more information, see Creating a sub-theme.

Note, directly editing the API Connect theme is not permitted or supported, as edited versions of these files are overwritten when a fix pack or iFix is installed.

Other useful resources:

Tutorial: Creating a custom theme for the Developer Portal - takes you through how to use the theme generator, customize a theme, and install a custom theme.
Changing the site logo - how to change your site logo.
Changing the shortcut icon - how to change the shortcut icon (favicon).
Creating sub-themes - Drupal documentation about creating a sub-themes.
Theming differences between Drupal 6, 7 & 8 - Drupal documentation about theming differences.

Custom modules

If your Version 5 Developer Portal is using any custom modules, you will need to create these custom modules again for the Drupal 9 baseline. For more information on writing custom modules, see Extend.

Other useful resources:

Creating custom modules - Drupal documentation about creating custom modules.
Getting started creating custom modules - Drupal documentation giving background information and prerequisites needed for custom module development.
Understanding hooks - Drupal documentations about hooks.
Drupal API hooks - Drupal documentation about the hooks that are available.

Custom Rules

If your Version 5 Developer Portal is using any custom Rules, you will need to create them as custom modules for the Drupal 9 baseline. You cannot export the Drupal 7 Rules, and then import them into the Drupal 9 baseline, as the events and actions are implemented in a different way. For more information about custom modules, see the Custom modules section.

Custom content types and fields

If your Version 5 Developer Portal is using any custom content, you will need to create this content again for the Drupal 9 baseline.

For information about creating custom content types, see the following topics:

Advanced theme development

If your Version 5 Developer Portal is using modified content type templates, you must create these templates again for the Drupal 9 baseline. In Drupal 9 the templates are Twig files that define the actual HTML output for a particular piece of content. You can override a Twig template by copying the original template into the templates folder of your custom sub-theme, and then editing the template to your specification. The Developer Portal then uses your template in preference to the original one. For more information, see Applying a modified content type template, and Creating a sub-theme. You can also follow a guided example of how to create a new theme, see Tutorial: Creating a custom theme for the Developer Portal.

Note:

Modifying Twig templates allows very fine-grained control over the structure of pages. However, it also means you might miss new features and defect fixes that are made to the original templates, as your Developer Portal is using your overrides instead of the originals. So, if you override a template, it is your responsibility to check the templates in the latest API Connect Version 10 releases, and to ensure that any equivalent changes that are needed to your overrides to maintain functional equivalence are made.

Changing the page layout

If your Version 5 Developer Portal is using a different page layout, you will need to create this layout again for the Drupal 9 baseline. The page layout is defined by configuring which blocks appear in which regions. Blocks are controlled by using the Structure > Block layout options on the Developer Portal administrator dashboard.

For information about how to configure the page layout, see Adding and changing the blocks displayed on Developer Portal pages.

Changing the front page

If your Version 5 Developer Portal is using a different front page, you will need to create this front page again for the Drupal 9 baseline. The front page is configured from the Structure > Pages options on the Developer Portal administrator dashboard.

For information about how to configure the front page, see Configuring the front page, and Adding custom pages.

Further options that you might want to consider when designing your front page include:

Change the banner block content or image: Changing the front page banner block.
Display featured API Products by creating a featured content block: Changing the front page Featured Content block.
Create custom blocks with your own HTML content: Adding and changing the blocks displayed on Developer Portal pages.
Set up the social block to include your organization Twitter feed: Integrating X data into the social block.

Features no longer available in the Developer Portal

The following features that are available in IBM API Connect Version 5, are not available in IBM API Connect Version 10:

Security questions - these can now be created inside an OpenID Connect provider.
Two-factor authentication - this can now be performed inside an OpenID Connect provider.
Support tickets - no Drupal 9 equivalent module is currently available.