PingAccess

Promoting the replica administrative node

If the primary administrative node fails, promote the replica administrative node to the primary administrative node.

About this task

The replica administrative node is intended to be used for disaster recovery purposes. If you can recover the clustered console, then you should focus on recovery rather than failing over to the replica administrative node.

Only one primary administrative node should be running for the cluster at any given time.

Promote the replica administrative node manually by making file system changes, or, in DevOps environments, use the replica admin API to temporarily promote the replica administrative node.

  • Manual promotion

  • Temporary admin API promotion

Manually promoting the replica administrative node

About this task

To promote the replica admin manually:

Steps

  1. Open the <PA_HOME>/conf/run.properties file in a text editor.

  2. Locate the pa.operational.mode line and change the value from CLUSTERED_CONSOLE_REPLICA to CLUSTERED_CONSOLE.

    These properties are case-sensitive.

    Do not restart the replica node during the promotion process. PingAccess can detect and apply this change without a restart, and restarting the node during its promotion can cause file corruption or failure to promote correctly.

Next steps

Complete Reinstating a replica administrative node after failing over.

Using the admin API to temporarily promote the replica administrative node

About this task

In DevOps environments, use this method to promote the replica administrative node to a primary administrative node without requiring file system changes.

This change only lasts until you restart the promoted node. To make this change permanent, you must complete the Manually promoting the replica administrative node procedure after restarting the promoted node.

The temporary promotion method is only intended for DevOps environments.

You can use the POST /adminConfig/replicaAdmin/status endpoint to check the status of the replica admin. For example, you can review the node’s identifier and check the last time its configuration was modified.

Steps

  1. Sign on to the replica administrative PingAccess system and start a non-Internet Explorer (IE) browser.

  2. Go to the API doc page at https://<host>:<replica-admin-port>/pa-admin-api/v3/api-docs/ and sign on.

    Example:

    https://localhost:9005/pa-admin-api/v3/api-docs/

  3. Click and expand the /adminConfig section, then expand POST /adminConfig/replicaAdmin/promote.

    This endpoint is only available on the replica administrative server, and only if the primary server is unavailable.

  4. Fill out the configuration as necessary:

    Property Description

    editRunPropertyFile

    If set to true, the admin API changes the value of the pa.operational.mode property from CLUSTERED_CONSOLE_REPLICA to CLUSTERED_CONSOLE in the run.properties file.

    editPrimaryHostPort

    If set to true, the admin API updates the primary administrative node’s configuration with the promoted replica administrative node’s host:port value.

    editPrimaryHttpProxy

    If set to true, the admin API updates the primary administrative node’s configuration with the promoted replica administrative node’s HTTP Proxy value.

    editPrimaryHttpsProxy

    If set to true, the admin API updates the primary administrative node’s configuration with the promoted replica administrative node’s HTTPS Proxy value.

  5. Click Try it out.

Next steps

This change only lasts until you restart the promoted node.

If you want the promoted replica node to remain the primary administrative node, complete the Manually promoting the replica administrative node procedure after restarting the promoted node. Then complete Reinstating a replica administrative node after failing over.

Otherwise, the promoted replica node will return to being the replica administrative node.