Updating validation sets

There are two ways to update the validation set.   The first is to use the “replaceval.sh” script.  This is used if your only update is the expiration date.  The advantage to this method is you no longer need to restart the study server.  You may need to wait for 10-15 minutes where you cannot start up any new Survent sessions while the study server links back up with the new iteration of the nsnapper process, but you no longer need to get everyone off the system to replace the validate file.  The updated process is as follows:

  • Login is the “root” user and cd into the directory /cfmc/cfg
  • Create a file with a unique name, we recommend something like validate.<yyyymmdd> where <yyyymmdd> is the current date with a 4 digit year
  • Paste in the new validation information into it
  • Update the validation set using the following command:  CFMC=/home/cfmc /opt/cfmc/surventX/go/replaceval.sh validate.<yyyymmdd> where /home/cfmc/ is the environment where nsnapper runs from, /opt/cfmc/surventX/ is the directory where the software runs out of, and validate.<yyyymmdd> is the name of the file you created above.

If you were previously getting warnings about the system expiring in X number of days, you should no longer get those.

To update your validation set without using the “replaceval.sh” script, the authorization set needs to be placed in in the /cfmc/cfg/validate file.  We strongly recommend that you back up your current validate file and do not update the strings while your study server is running as mistakes in installing them can cause serious problems.  Update the strings as follows:

  1. As the “cfmc” user (or whoever owns the software), down the study server
  2. As “root” (assuming you installed the software as root), change the validate file
  3. Restart nsnapperd by using the following command: 

For versions 8.8.x – “/opt/cfmc/survent881X/go/snappit restart” (where X is the version you are running). 

For versions 10.x – “supervisorctl restart snapper”

As the “cfmc” user (or whoever owns the software) restart the study server.  You may want to wait a minute or two before doing this to make sure nsnapperd has completed its cycle.

 

Be sure that the expiration string matches your current one in all the fields except for the expiration date field.  If there are other differences, you probably should contact Survox Support (survox.support@enghouse.com) to find out why.  The validation string will often be quite different.