OBIEE Migrating Users and Security

So you have built your repository in development, tested how users interact with the data in the presentation layer, and now is the time to promote your work to the live environment.

If you have done your homework, you'll have put some effort into security while building the repository in development (it's always more difficult to bolt on security than it is to pause and design in security from the start).

So here you are in development, you've created your roles and some representative users. You could unpick the security behind the roles and users, or you could export them (users and roles) from your development environment and import them up the line into a pre-production environment. (Probably best to test that it all works before you do it for real.)

So, how does this all work; the security model is maintained in the weblogic console side of OBIEE, and the whole process of importing settings is additive only. By this I mean, that existing settings remain untouched, if a user is in one group prior to the new security import, and the import has that user in another group, the user will end up in two groups - test it for yourself - probably the best way to learn.

Exporting Weblogic OBIEE Users and Groups

So to export:
Login to your console and in the left hand side click on "Security Realms", then, when the screen refreshes, click on "myrealm" in the right panel. Select the Migration tab.

The process is the same for both export and import. For export select the export sub-tab. Designate a directory ON THE SERVER, not your machine, the server. This directory must exist. Click the button and within a second or two the job's done.

Weblogic Security Files

If you navigate to the server directory you designated you'll see 5 files.

Importing Weblogic OBIEE Users and Groups

Move the directory and files to the server where they are to be imported and open the console for that server, and navigate to the Migration tab, just as you did when exporting the security realm.

This time select the "Import" sub-tab, fill in the directory details and click "save". You should then be presented with a screen like below.

Now, the actual testing of permissions I'll leave to you but you will immediately be able to see the new users and groups by select from the tabs on the screen.

OBIEE backups

There will come a time when you drop that important report / dashboard or make that configuration change or edit joins in the repository and regret it as soon as you hit save.

A partial solution is to backup some of those important files and directories.

Backing up OBIEE.

So what would you need to recreate your OBI install.

1. Repository obviously
2. A catalog of dashboards and reports
3. The instanceconfig.xml file
4. The NQSConfig.ini file

This should be enough to get you back up and running. I have excluded settings like map server settings and usage tracking (now a bean setting in 11.1.1.6), though some of the settings are visible in the configuration files.

The following script assumes the following

• Your middleware home is D:\OBIMW
• Your backup destination is E:\BIbackups

The script creates a directory dynamically in the format YYYYMMDD and saves the backup to that location.

echo off
for /F "tokens=1-4 delims=/ " %%i in ('date /t') do (
set Day=%%i
set Month=%%j
set Year=%%k
)

echo making directory E:\BIbackups\%Year%%Month%%Day%
mkdir E:\BIbackups\%Year%%Month%%Day%
cd E:\BIbackups\%Year%%Month%%Day%
echo copying catalog.....
xcopy /e/y/h/c/k/q/i "D:\OBIMW\instances\instance1\bifoundation\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obips1\catalog" E:\BIbackups\%Year%%Month%%Day%
echo copying repository....
mkdir E:\BIbackups\%Year%%Month%%Day%\repository
xcopy /e/y/h/c/k/q/i "D:\OBIMW\instances\instance1\bifoundation\OracleBIServerComponent\coreapplication_obis1\repository" E:\BIbackups\%Year%%Month%%Day%\repository
echo copying presentation services config....
mkdir E:\BIbackups\%Year%%Month%%Day%\presentationservicesconfig
xcopy /y/h/c/k/q/i "D:\OBIMW\instances\instance1\config\OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent\coreapplication_obips1" E:\BIbackups\%Year%%Month%%Day%\presentationservicesconfig
echo copying server config....
mkdir E:\BIbackups\%Year%%Month%%Day%\serverconfig
xcopy /y/h/c/k/q/i "D:\OBIMW\instances\instance1\config\OracleBIServerComponent\coreapplication_obis1" E:\BIbackups\%Year%%Month%%Day%\serverconfig
echo on

I'll leave the housekeeping and archival and removal of expired backups to you.