Presentation from Meru Networks at Merge World Tour in India - Meru Networks P4 Conference

1. 1
Forwarding Replica for Remote Site
Thandesha VK
Principal Engineer
Meru Networks
Logo area

2. 2
By the Numbers
• Market: Enterprise Wireless LANs
• Founded: January 2002
• IPO: March 2010
• Ticker: NASDAQ: MERU
• Headquarters: Silicon Valley, USA
• Offices: 22 countries
• Customers: 7,600+ in 56 countries
Major Verticals
• Healthcare
– Hospitals
– Assisted
Living
• Educa-on
– Higher
Educa8on
– Primary/Secondary
(K-­‐12)
• Hospitality
– Hotels
– Conference
Centers
– Cruise
Lines
– Airports
– Stadiums

3. 3
Working from remote site
• P4D
• P4D and remote Proxy
• Proxy with advance caching
• Replica
• What is replica
• How to setup
• Uses of replica
• Edge-Commit server

4. 4
Remote P4D
• Connect to remote server
• Fetch Metadata
• Fetch Versioned files
• Every transaction must
contact remote server

5. 5
Remote P4D, local P4P
• Connect via local proxy
• Fetch Metadata
• First user fetch versioned
files from server and rest
from local proxy cache.
• No transfer of file over the
network for second time
access
P
4
P
P
4
P

6. 6
Remote P4D, local P4P advance caching
• Connect to local proxy
• Fetch Metadata
• Let the first person be me
• Setup a cron that sync frequently
used branch/dir/files at regular
intervals
P
4
P
P
4
P

7. 7
Forwarding Replica

8. 8
Replication
• Replication is the duplication
of server data from one
Perforce Server to another
Perforce Server
• Cache both versioned files
and metadata along with
some more added
intelligence.
Failover?
Read-­‐only?
Forwarding?
Filtered
?
.
.
.

9. 9
Forwarding Replica
• From where to replicate?
• To where to replicate?
• Who is replicating?
• What to replicate from server?
• How frequently?
• Ask server to forward
Readable
cache
of
versioned
files
and
metadata,
and
forward
write
command
to
a
central
server

10. 10
Forwarding Replica - Readable cache of versioned files and metadata, and forward write command to a central server.
From where? To where?
Services:
The
services
provided
by
this
server,
one
of:
standard:
standard
Perforce
server
replica:
read-­‐only
replica
server
broker:
p4broker
process
proxy:
p4p
caching
proxy
forwarding-­‐replica:
replica
which
forwards
update
commands
build-­‐server:
replica
which
supports
build
farm
integra8on
P4AUTH:
server
which
provides
central
authen8ca8on
P4CHANGE:
server
which
provides
central
change
numbers
Create server identifier for master and replica
$p4 server [master_name]
ServerID: master
Type: server
Name: master
Services: standard
$p4 server [replica_name]
ServerID: REPLICA
Type: server
Name: REPLICA
Services: forwarding-replica

11. 11
Forwarding Replica - Readable cache of versioned files and metadata, and forward write command to a central server.
Connect two servers
Tell master about replica
$p4 configure set [replica_name]#P4TARGET=[master_address]
$p4 configure set [replica_name]#db.replication=readonly
$p4 configure set [replica_name]#lbr.replication=readonly
$p4 configure set [replica_name]#P4LOG=replica.log
$p4 configure set [replica_name]#P4AUDIT=replica.audit
$p4 configure set [replica_name]#server=3
$p4 configure set [replica_name]#monitor=1

12. 12
Forwarding Replica - Readable cache of versioned files and metadata, and forward write command to a central server.
Who is replicating?
1. Create a service user for replication
$
p4
user
-­‐f
service
#
A
Perforce
User
Specifica1on.
#
Type:
Either
'service',
'operator',
or
'standard'.
#
Default:
'standard'.
Read
only.
User:
service
Type:
service
2. Set the ticket
$p4
-­‐u
service
login
–a
$p4
configure
set
"[replica_name]#P4TICKETS=/home/p4/.p41ckets“
3. Give it the super power
super
user
service
*
//...
4. Give it the unlimited timeout
$p4
group
<some-­‐name>
5. Let this users do the replication
$p4
configure
set
[replica_name]#serviceUser=service

13. 13
Forwarding Replica - Readable cache of versioned files and metadata, and forward write command to a central server.
What to replicate? Frequency?
• Configure meta data pull command (one) to pull every second
$p4 configure set "[replica_name]#startup.1=pull -i 1”
• Configure files pull command (can be more than one) to pull every second
$p4 configure set "[replica_name]#startup.2=pull -u -i 1"
$p4 configure set "[replica_name]#startup.3=pull -u -i 1"

14. 14
Forwarding Replica - Readable cache of versioned files and metadata, and forward write command to a central server.
Ask the server to forward
• Now tell replica server to forward the request.
$p4 configure set [replica_name]#rpl.forward.all=1

15. 15
Forwarding Replica - Readable cache of versioned files and metadata, and forward write command to a central server.
Set it up.
• Take checkpoint of master server
$p4 admin checkpoint
• Copy versioned files from master server to replica server node
• Replay the checkpoint to create replica node (-z if compressed)
$p4d -r [replica_root] -jr checkpoint.[xyz]
• Start the replica node with configured name.
$p4d -r [replica_root] –In [replica_name] -p [replica port] -d -q

16. 16
Forwarding Replica - Readable cache of versioned files and metadata, and forward write command to a central server.
Keep an eye
• Keep an eye on replication status
$p4 -p <replica-server> pull -l –j
• Script to monitor replication health
http://public.perforce.com:8080/@md=d&cd=//&cdf=//guest/vk_thandesh/bin/p4-
watchreplica&c=JM5@//guest/vk_thandesh/bin/p4-watchreplica?ac=64&rev1=1
• Blog on how to setup forwarding replica
http://thandesha.blogspot.in/2013/05/simple-how-to-for-setting-up-perforce.html

17. 17
Hooray!! I have productive & happy users
master
replica
replica8on
Write
Write
Write

18. 18
Thinking about it?
support@perforce.com
thandeshavk@merunetworks.com