Operational Environment

This page details all of the services and applications that are running as part of the RAS operational environment, specifically on the raweb-prod servers.

All of these files and services are owned by the 'tomadm' user on the servers.

Server Hostnames

Tomcat

Apache Tomcat 8.5.38

Installed at /usr/local/apache-tomcat-8.5.38

Hosts all publicly available web applications

webapps directory contains the following files:

• kc.war – Expanded into the kc/ directory, this is the main Kuali Coeus service.
  • https://ras.tufts.edu/kc/
• AwardBudgetTool.war – Expanded into the AwardBudgetTool/ directory, this is the supplemental Award Budget Tool application. 
  
  • https://ras.tufts.edu/AwardBudgetTool/login
• keywords directory – Contains a basic web page listing all of the currently-available "keywords" in RAS that can be tagged on proposals. This page is automatically updated every night by the 'keywords' cron job (see below).
  
  • https://ras.tufts.edu/keywords/
• ROOT/index.html – Default server home page which serves as a 'landing page' for RAS. Contains a button redirecting to the KC application, as well as a "Known Issues" list. The known issues list is maintained manually; we typically update it after each release to remove resolved issues and add any new ones. (The css/ and images/ folder here are also part of this page.)
  
  • https://ras.tufts.edu/
• ROOT/ras_docs – This is a public directory hosting a number of supplemental files and forms related to RAS, such as the RAS job aids, user checklists, sponsor request forms, etc. Files added to this directory are public and can be directly linked via URL (e.g. https://ras.tufts.edu/ras_docs/RAS_Complete_Job_Aids.pdf). Most of the files here are linked in the main menu of KC, under the "Researcher" menu.

Automated Tasks

There are a number of automated scripts and jobs which run via a cron schedule. Each of these is detailed below.

PeopleSoft Data Sync

Path: /home/tomadm/kuali/peoplesoft/

Purpose: Scans for budgets in the 'To Be Posted' state in the Award Budget tool, and populates the necessary data for that award+budget in the tables which PeopleSoft scans for new grant information. See the Peoplesoft Integration page for more details.

Schedule: Runs every five minutes on the 2s and 7s. 

Source: https://gitlab.it.tufts.edu/ras/kc-scripts/tree/master/Maintenance%20Scripts/kuali/peoplesoft

Rolodex Monitor

Path: /home/tomadm/kuali/rolodex_monitor/

Purpose: Checks to see if there are any proposals in KC with rolodex (non-employee personnel) entries that cannot be found in the rolodex table. Set up to gather data for investigating an issue where rolodex entries are being removed from the table somehow (https://bugs.atech.tufts.edu/browse/RAS-1494).

Schedule: Runs every hour, on the hour.

Source: https://gitlab.it.tufts.edu/ras/kc-scripts/tree/master/Maintenance%20Scripts/kuali/rolodex_monitor

Sponsor Hierarchy Update

Path: /home/tomadm/kuali/sponsor_hierarchy/

Purpose: Scans the KC 'Sponsor' table, and automatically adds any new sponsors found to the appropriate location Sponsor Hierarchy (used for reporting purposes). New Federal sponsors cannot be added automatically as they need to be placed under the correct federal agency; 

Schedule: Hierarchy update runs nightly at 11:45pm. Check for new federal sponsors runs nightly at 1:05am.

Source: https://gitlab.it.tufts.edu/ras/kc-scripts/tree/master/Maintenance%20Scripts/kuali/sponsor_hierarchy

KC Person Feed

Path: /home/tomadm/kuali/sponsor_hierarchy/

Purpose: Loads all person data from the Tufts LDAP server into a table within the KC database, then scans for new/updated person records and updates KC's person table appropriately. Runs in four steps:

1. Copies last night's LDAP data into an 'old' table (copy_old_ldap_data.sh)
2. Reads all current person data from the LDAP server into a 'new' table (tufts_ldap_load.jar)
3. Updates KC person records by comparing the old and new data (load_kc_person.sh) 
4. Checks for any errors in the log file and sends an email if found (personfeed_log_monitor.sh)

Schedule: Copy of old data runs nightly at 11:50pm. Reading from LDAP server runs nightly at 12:00am. Updating the KC person table runs nightly at 12:15am. The error check runs nightly at 1:11am.

Source:
Scripts - https://gitlab.it.tufts.edu/ras/kc-scripts/tree/master/Maintenance%20Scripts/kuali/personfeed
JAR File - https://gitlab.it.tufts.edu/ras/kc-ldap-person-feed/tree/master

HR Event Feed

Path: /home/tomadm/kuali/hr_feed/

Purpose: Receives employee hire/termination/change events from HR and adds/removes security permissions as appropriate.

Schedule: Runs nightly at 12:25am. (Needs to be after the KC Person Feed, but before the Data Warehouse Update.)

Source: https://gitlab.it.tufts.edu/ras/kc-scripts/tree/master/Maintenance%20Scripts/kuali/hr-feed 

Tomcat Restart

Path: /home/tomadm/kuali/kc/tomcat_restart.sh

Purpose: Stops and restarts the tomcat server every night. This was recommended by Kuali to prevent performance/memory issues.

Schedule: Server 1 restarts nightly at 12:30am; server 2 restarts nightly at 12:40am.

Source: https://gitlab.it.tufts.edu/ras/kc-scripts/blob/master/Maintenance%20Scripts/kuali/kc/tomcat_restart.sh

Data Warehouse Refresh

Path: /home/tomadm/kuali/dw/

Purpose: Refreshes the database tables and views used by the Data Warehouse with current data.

Schedule: Runs nightly at 12:45 am. An error check which sends emails on any failures runs nightly at 1:10am.

Source: https://gitlab.it.tufts.edu/ras/kc-scripts/tree/master/Maintenance%20Scripts/kuali/dw

LDAP Unit Monitor

Path: /home/tomadm/kuali/ldap_unit_monitor

Purpose: Sends an email alert when the LDAP person feed contained a unit number (aka Department ID) that is not already in the KC unit table. Units are added manually, as the LDAP feed does not contain the department name or school/campus info.

Schedule: Runs nightly at 1:00am.

Source: https://gitlab.it.tufts.edu/ras/kc-scripts/tree/master/Maintenance%20Scripts/kuali/ldap_unit_monitor

Keyword Update

Path: /home/tomadm/kuali/keywords/

Purpose: Loads the current list of 'keywords' from KC into a web page for easy reference. Updates the 'keywords' directory on the tomcat server (see above).

Schedule: Runs nightly at 1:15am.

Source: https://gitlab.it.tufts.edu/ras/kc-scripts/tree/master/Maintenance%20Scripts/kuali/keywords