PingAccess

Promoting the replica administrative node

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

About this task

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

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

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

Use this method to promote the replica admin node to the primary admin node without requiring file system changes.

This promotion method is intended for DevOps environments only.

Steps

  1. Sign on to the replica admin 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/index.html and sign on.

    Example:

    https://localhost:9005/pa-admin-api/v3/api-docs/index.html

    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.

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

    This endpoint is only available on the replica admin 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 admin node’s configuration with the promoted replica admin node’s host:port value.

    editPrimaryHttpProxy

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

    editPrimaryHttpsProxy

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

  5. Click Try it out.

Next steps

Changes last until you restart the promoted node. If you want the promoted replica node to remain the primary admin 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 admin node.