Upgrading to RTC 2.0 – Lessons Learned

I have recently been upgrading my Jazz/Team Concert environment to version 2.0 from 1.0. I’m using the Express-C version which is based on Apache Tomcat and Derby. These versions come in a zip file format and can easily be extracted out on a Linux server and started with minimal configuration. Upgrading from one to the other, however has had a hiccup or two. I highly recommend the Linux version. I run it on OpenSUSE 11.1 with zero issues on the OS. Its really flawless…. and cheap.

First, the two versions can work entirely independent of one another since they are just zipped up. Just don’t run them at the same time as they run on the same port. When I extracted the 2.0 version, I put it under /opt/IBM/RTC, whereas my 1.0 version was under /opt/IBM/jazz. However, when I extracted it, I actually replaced the “jazz” folder with “RTC”. As I had blogged earlier, there MUST be a jazz directory in the absolute file path. Once I put it extract under /opt/IBM/RTC/jazz, I was able to startup the virgin server fine.

Then came the migration. The documentation on the Jazz.net site for upgrading is accurate. There are several files that you must copy over and you MUST migrate the database using the repotools.sh script. Once I followed it exactly I got my site up and running, but only when I used the IP address. Somehow, it would not connect using the host name. Being that I connect to my server from behind a firewall (such as when I am at a customer site), I need to use the host name, as the IP address is just an internal address. Outside the firewall, it gets NAT’d, and I subsequently would timeout when trying to connect. The problem was that it would initially connect, and then give me the self-signed SSL cert error, which is fine. But then it would just sit and eventually time out. There was nothing in the log files that would ever indicate the source of the problem. That is one Friday night will never get back! I must have deleted and rebuilt the 2.0 version a dozen times before I figured out the cause problem. And it is a simple one.

Simply be sure you can ping your host from your host. Once I added a static entry into my /etc/hosts file, all was right with the world. I could connect to my server with no problem at all from outside my office as well as inside.

The last lesson learned, is that if you have installed the Team Concert client from any of the various Rational 7.5 products, you will have to uninstall it, and then install the 2.0 version using the IBM Installation Manager option from the Jazz.net site. You must completely uninstall all 1.0 clients. In my case I had Rational Developer for System i as well as Rational Software Architect installed. Both have an RTC client (one of which being for RTC for i), and both had to be removed in order to install the 2.0 client.