Question & Answer
Question
Can an IBM® Rational® ClearCase® Remote Client (CCRC) server support multiple regions on a single host while users are mapped to different regions, depending on their username and primary group setting, on the client side?
Answer
As of CCRC 7.0.1 support for multiple Rational ClearCase regions is available on a single server.
Refer to the IBM Rational ClearCase 7.0.1 Release Notes which states the following:
Security enhancements
- Support for multiple regions on servers
In previous releases, a Rational ClearCase Remote Client server could be set to support only a single Rational ClearCase region.
In this release, servers can support multiple Rational ClearCase regions on a single server and users can be mapped to different regions depending on their username (as defined by the CCRC server login mechanism), primary group preference (as passed by the eclipse client) or default primary group on the CCRC server.
Refer to the ClearCase Remote Client on-line documentation on the topic of Configuring ClearCase Remote Client preferences for information about configuring the option "Use this primary group on the server" on a CCRC client.
Review the Rational ClearCase Administrator's Guide under the following topics for more details about this feature.
- Creating a user region map
- For ClearCase 7.0.1 the location of the user region map file is specified in the ccweb.conf file.
- For ClearCase 7.1 and later the location of the user region map file is specified as an MBean attribute for CMServer.
Refer to the Modifying configuration details section for further details about modifying the MBean attributes.
- User region map syntax
Note: Due to different operating system standards alternate measures will need to be taken into consideration since Windows is not case-sensitive and UNIX or Linux Platforms are case-sensitive. If the operating system on the RWP or CCRC does not differentiate on character case (not case-sensitive), then Multiple Regions with CCRC will not function as expected and alternatively groups should then be implemented instead of single user names in the region mapfile to ensure valid and correct user access. This issue has been identified as a product defect under APAR PK76794.
Users can be mapped to different regions depending on their username and primary group setting on the client side.
A Rational ClearCase administrator can specify or modify a mapping file (from a username of a specific user or a set of users by their primary group name to be directed to a specific region) on the server.
Note: For Windows servers, if a group mapping is used, keep in mind that DOMAIN\ccusergroup(domain group) and ccusergroup(local group) could be evaluated differently, so map files need to be correct in usage of a local or domain group.
Note: In previous releases, a Rational ClearCase Remote Client server could be set to support only a single Rational ClearCase region.
Below is an illustration of how the multiple region mapping feature in CCRC 7.0.1 can be leveraged
Note: The namespace for the server has to be the union of the namespaces for the clients. In other words, the server's own default region (the region you see when using the hostinfo command on the server), must contain the union of all of the VOB tags in all CCRC regions. The mapped regions must give each client access to some subset of the VOB tags that the server's region knows about.
Known Issues
- Default Region for CCRC Must be Specified
- When a CCRC user does not have a valid mapping, and the Rational Web Platform (RWP) server does not have a default mapping, the CCRC user will receive the following error:
Unable to create a view at "C:\ccweb\user1\user1_view_a": error detected by ClearCase subsystem
ccweb: Error: Attempt to get host's network region failed: error detected by ClearCase subsystem.
(screenshot)
This error is an indication that the region is not set in the region map file as defined by the -user_region_mapfile specified by the RWP servers ccweb.conf file.
Example:
<cc-region-tag> = { %DEFAULT% }
Note: Review technote 1125332 for more information about the ccweb.conf file.
- Defect APAR PK60359 - CCRC region mapping doesn't work with group names that contain spaces
Scenario:
- Set up CCRC multiregion support with a groupname containing spaces used in your user_region_map file.
For example: winregion = { group:Domain Users }
Refer to the Creating a user region map section of the ClearCase Administrators Guide for details.
- Start and Stop the Rational Web Platform
- From the CCRC client, log out, then back in as a user who is a member of the above group.
The following error will occur:
unable to find view tag for view <uuid>
Attempt to get host's network region failed: error detected by Clearcase subsystem
Note: The error message received is the same as if a region map cannot be resolved
Defect APAR PK60359 has been investigated and the decision was made not to resolve this defect.
WORKAROUND:
To avoid the error, use a group name that does not contain spaces.
Also note that when setting up the ccweb.conf file, if the -user_region_map file has a pathname that contains a space, the location cannot be resolved.
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Document Information
Modified date:
16 June 2018
UID
swg21264782