Unable to create a bootstrap file due to encryption password issue

Product:TIBCO Spotfire Server
Versions:All versions

Summary:
This article explains about a particular scenario where creating a bootstrap file against an existing repository database fails because we do not have an existing Spotfire server instance that is connected to that database in use.

Details:

This is a case where in there is no Spotfire server instance but we have an existing Spotfire database that has encryption password set before (which you do not have now). Now on the new machine, when creating a bootstrap file while setting up a new Spotfire Server on the existing database repository, it fails due to encryption issue. Here is the reason behind this issue:

1. You do not have the existing Spotfire Server available. Due to this, you will not be able to run the "config config-encryption -u -p <new encryption password>" command.
2. You do not have the old encryption password.
3. You only have a Spotfire database restored from the old backup database.

Resolution:

Below are the steps to connect to an old Spotfire repository(encrypted with an encryption password but do not have it).

• Launch a command prompt on the Spotfire Server machine as Administrator and browse to <spotfire server installation dir\tomcat\spotfire-bin folder
• Create a new bootstrap.xml file using the bootstrap command, and specify the --force-encryption-password argument as below:

config bootstrap --force --force-encryption-password --driver-class=value --database-url=value --username=value --password=value --enable-config-tool=true --tool-password=value --encryption-password=value

     Example:

config bootstrap --force-encryption-password --driver-class=org.postgresql.Driver --database-url="jdbc:postgresql://xxx:5432/spotfire_server_db" --username=admin --password=test123 --enable-config-tool=true --tool-password=test123 --encryption-password=test123 --force

      

• Once the bootstrap file is configured, check the configuration and update the LDAP passwords, public addresses or any other secrets.
• Restart the Spotfire Server service after making these changes.

Note: A better solution would have been to make sure that the right (current) encryption password was set in the bootstrap.xml file.