Export and import runbooks

Export and import runbooks by sending requests to the HTTP API. You can use existing tools to send requests, for example cURL, Postman for Chrome, or RESTClient for Firefox.

Before you can send requests, you need to create an API key for authentication. See API Keys for instructions how to create an API key.

In addition, determine the fully qualified domain name and the port where the runbook service is running (which might be different from the location where the Netcool/OMNIbus DASH UI server is running). The base URL for sending API requests has the format https://<fullyQualifiedDomainName>:<rba-rbs-port>, for example, https://myhost.mycompany.com:3005.

Export Runbooks

The following two calls create output, which can be imported again.

Use the following API to export all runbooks:

GET api/v1/rba/runbooks?exportFormat=true

When enabling the option exportFormat via the query parameter, the usual output of the command is replaced by an array of JSON objects. These JSON objects can be used to create the runbooks by using the import API endpoint. The following call is an example:

curl -u <APIKeyUsername>:<APIKeyPassword> https://myhost.mycompany.com:3005/api/v1/rba/runbooks?exportFormat=true

Replace <APIKeyUsername> with your username and <APIKeyPassword> with your password.

Use the following API to export a single runbook:

GET api/v1/rba/runbooks/<RunbookId>?exportFormat=true

Replace <RunbookId> with the ID of the runbook. You can retrieve this ID, for example, from the Edit Runbook window. The following call is an example:

curl -u <APIKeyUsername>:<APIKeyPassword> https://myhost.mycompany.com:3005/api/v1/rba/runbooks/<RunbookId>?exportFormat=true > exportedRunbook.json

Replace <APIKeyUsername> with your username and <APIKeyPassword> with your password. Replace <RunbookId> with the ID of the runbook.

Import Runbooks

Use the following API to import runbooks:

POST api/v1/rba/runbooks/import

The following call is an example:

curl -H "Expect:" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -u <APIKeyUsername>:<APIKeyPassword> -d@./exportedRunbooks.json https://myhost.mycompany.com:3005/api/v1/rba/runbooks/import

Replace <APIKeyUsername> with your username and <APIKeyPassword> with your password. Note: ./exportedRunbooks.json is the output file that is created from the previous example.

Note: If you previously exported a lot of runbooks (or some very large runbooks), you might face the 10 MB upload limit of the Runbook API when trying to import them again. The runbook file must be split into multiple JSON files, and each of these chunks must be imported separately. The following examples assume that you have the jq tool installed.

Example: Split by maximum file size
If your runbooks do not reference any automation actions, or if your automation actions are not shared between multiple runbooks, you can use the following command to split the file into chunks of a maximum of 10 MB each, named exportedRunbooks.json.aa, exportedRunbooks.json.ab, etc.:
```
cat exportedRunbooks.json | jq .[] -c | split -C 10485760 --filter='jq . -cs > $FILE' - exportedRunbooks.json.
```
Example: Split by automation actions
If exportedRunbooks.json is larger than 10 MB and if it contains multiple runbooks that reference the same automation action, then try to group all these runbooks into a single chunk file. This avoids creating multiple copies of the same automation action during the import. You can use the following command to split the original file into multiple JSON chunk files, named exportedRunbooks.json.aa, exportedRunbooks.json.ab, etc. Each of these files contains all the runbooks that reference the same set of automation actions:
```
cat exportedRunbooks.json | jq 'group_by(.automations)'[] -c | split -l 1 - exportedRunbooks.json.
```

General Notes on export and import

Exporting runbooks returns the data of referenced automations inline. These automations are created new when the runbook is imported.
Import actions do not overwrite existing runbooks, automations, or both.
Exporting multiple runbooks at once will consolidate automations that are referenced by more than one runbook and only create the minimum necessary number of new automations.
Imported runbooks are in draft state and do not retain any kind of version or execution. The user performing the import action is visible as the runbook creator.
When exporting multiple runbooks, ones with invalid nested runbook references and invalid automation action references will not be exported. The export will include all other runbooks, and all errors are logged in the runbook service.

For more information about creating an API key, see API Keys.

For more information about the API, see https://rba.us-south.cloudeventmanagement.cloud.ibm.com/apidocs-v1.