Document Overview

These release notes have been updated for the following xMatters Integration Agent release: 

Release version: integrationagent-5.2.1

Revision: 87554

Download: Integration Agent for xMatters On-Demand

Release Date:  September 4, 2018

NOTE: This document is subject to change after the initial release of this product. If you would like to be alerted when the document is modified, click Follow above. 

Release Overview

This is a cumulative release of the xMatters Integration Agent, incorporating all updates and patches for the Integration Agent version 5.x (all releases from 5.0.1 through 5.2.1).

NOTE: This version of the xMatters Integration Agent consolidates and replaces the 5.1.8.2 Integration Agent for all xMatters On-Demand deployments.

For premises deployments, see the 5.1.8.2 release notes for information. 

Changes to patch contents

Previous patches introduced some changes to the installation procedures and addressed a known issue. If you are upgrading from a version prior to 5.1 patch 007, it is highly recommended that you review the patch notes for that release before proceeding. 

Updates and Features

In addition to all of the updates available in the previous release (version 5.2), this release of the Integration Agent includes the following: 

Security updates

We've reviewed the libraries included with or used by the Integration Agent for known security vulnerabilities, and updated or removed libraries as necessary to address any identified issues. 

Installing

To download the required files, see Integration Agent for xMatters On-Demand.

For detailed system requirements, and installation instructions for new deployments, see the Integration Agent section of the On-Demand Help. 

The following instructions explain how to apply this update as a patch to an existing deployment.

Configuration file changes

The following files have been modified in this or other recent releases of the Integration Agent, and older versions of these files are incompatible with the current release:

If you are upgrading from an older Integration Agent and have customized or modified these files, your changes must be manually migrated into the new files.

Files included with this release:

integrationagent-5.2.1-<platform>.[zip | tgz]

Because the xMatters Integration Agent does not include an installer, patching an existing Integration Agent installation requires only that you extract the latest version of the Integration Agent archive onto your server, and then migrate selected files from your existing deployment. This ensures that you will have a working Integration Agent to fall back on if you encounter complications while configuring the new version.

NOTE: This release of the Integration Agent includes changes to the mule.sh file. If you have modified this file, you will need to merge your changes with the file included in the patch.

To patch the Integration Agent:

1. Extract the new Integration Agent folder from the archive to the root of your xMatters installation.
   • The result will be a new folder (typically c:\xmatters\integrationagent-5.2.1 or /opt/xmatters/integrationsagent-5.2.1, referred to in these release notes as <IAHOME>).
   • We will refer to the base folder of your old integration as <Old-IA>.
2. Navigate to the new <IAHOME>/conf directory, and backup the following files:
   • Copy IAConfig.xml to IAConfig.xml.orig.
   • Copy deduplicator-filter.xml to deduplicator-filter.xml.orig.
3. Open the above-named files with a text editor, and then copy any custom settings from the files in <IA-Old>/conf.

• If you have customized any other files in your old integration agent's conf folder, merge the customizations over in the same way.
• If you are not using the sample communication plan or sample integrated properties, comment out the references in the IAConfig.xml file (the paths including sample-relevance-engine.xml and sample-integrated-properties.xml).

Integration Agent utilities

The Integration Agent Utilities bundle (IAUtils) is a collection of scripts and binary code that provides required functionality for many integrations. The bundle is distributed separately from the main Integration Agent installer, but must be installed at the same time. If the IAUtils package is not present when the Integration Agent is started, the start up may fail.

Downloading the IAUtils

You can download the IAUtils package (integrationagent-utils.jar) from the same Integration Agent page.

Note: If you are using an integration that requires a specific version of the IAUtils, follow the instructions in the integration guide for that integration.

To install the IAUtils, extract the integrationagent-utils.zip archive file to <IAHOME>, and allow the extracted lib and integrationservices folders to merge with the ones created by the Integration Agent installer.

For more information about the IAUtils, see Get up and running with the Integration Agent in the On-Demand help.

Verifying the Integration Agent version

After patching and starting the Integration Agent:

Navigate to <IAHOME>/bin and run the following command:

• On Windows:

  iadmin get-status

• On Linux:

  ./iadmin.sh get-status

The following output should be displayed:

Version: 5.2.0 r87554

Repeat the above steps for each Integration Agent in your deployment

If the Integration Agent does not work as expected, you can revert to the previous version until the problem has been resolved. For help, contact xMatters Customer Support.

Appendix: Known Issues

Base64 exception

The Integration Agent will not start if an integration script is loaded that uses the Base64 function imported from Apache. For more information and solution details, see "Integration Agent will not start due to Base64 exception". 

Windows installation paths

On Windows systems, the dynamic compilation feature of the Integration Agent will fail if the path contains spaces. If you use or are planning to use this feature, ensure that the integration agent is installed in a path that contains no spaces.

(xMatters Reference: BUG-5168) 

Reloading integration service via iadmin reload command causes all web service endpoints to fail

After a single integration service is reloaded by running the iadmin reload command, all web service endpoints for all integration services (not just the service being reloaded) may stop working. This affects the functionality of mobile access requests, direct external service requests, and custom web service requests to all integration services. NOTE: issuing a subsequent  iadmin reload all restores the web service endpoints.

(xMatters Reference: BUG-2206) 

Messages may continue to be processed after the inbound queues are purged

The iadmin purge command deletes all messages from the inbound/outbound queues of the specific (or all) integration services. Messages that are "in-process" during the purge (e.g., delayed after a retriable exception or actively being processed by input/response action scripting), may remain in the inbound queues and continue to be (re)processed. To work around this issue, either stop the integration agent or suspend the integration service prior to the purge, followed by a restart/resume.

(xMatters Reference:  BUG-2180) 

Messages may be reprocessed after an integration service is suspended and resumed

Messages that are actively being processed by input/response action scripting during an iadmin suspend are allowed to complete without interruption. However, when a suspended integration service is resumed (either after an iadmin resume command or restart), messages that were being processed during the suspension may be reprocessed. Integrations are designed to handle reprocessing, but this may result in redundant updates (depending on the integration).

(xMatters Reference: BUG-2181) 

iadmin purge may periodically fail if the Integration Agent is not running

The iadmin purge command sometimes fails to work when the Integration Agent is not running. This failure is indicated by an entry similar to the following in IntegrationAgentIAdmin.txt>:

2012-08-09 10:00:46,502 [main] DEBUG - The command could not be executed because of the following problem:

java.lang.NullPointerException

at org.apache.activemq.broker.jmx.BrokerView.getQueues(BrokerView.java:185)

NOTE: re-issuing the iadmin purge command often succeeds, as the failure cause is transient.

(xMatters Reference: BUG-2205) 

Although APClient.bin reports non-connection related network errors, it does not write the failed submissions to the recovery log.

(xMatters Reference: BUG-2263, BUG-2264) 

Enabling password-authentication prevents event injections for all Integration Services using APClient.bin.

Setting the parameter in the IAConfig.xml file to "true" will prevent any event injections for all Integration Services using APClient.bin. Note that password-authentication is typically not enabled out-of-the-box for integrations, so the impact of this issue should be very limited.

(xMatters Reference: BUG-1122)