Data Collector Base
- name:
- Data Collector Base
- description:
- Inventory Data Collector toolkit for creating your own data collectors for iTop
- version:
- 1.1.2
- release:
- 2019-11-07
- download:
- http://www.combodo.com/itop-extensions/itop-data-collector-base-1.1.2-496.zip
This module provides the base for creating an industrial data collection and synchronization application for iTop. Developers can rely on this module to perform all the heavy lifting related to the iTop data import and synchronization process in order to focus on the data collection.
Features
-
Simple API to make the creation of a new collector fast and easy.
-
Automatic creation and update of Synchronization Data Sources in iTop, based on JSON definitions.
-
Support small variations to the target Data Model via explicitely “Optional” attributes
-
Basic validation of the CSV format compared to the expected fields in the synchro data source.
-
Data upload and synchronization by chunks of
max_chunk_size
(configurable). -
Extensible mechanism for handling configuration parameters.
-
Extensible list of placeholders in the JSON definition.
-
Automatic management (via placeholders) of the contact to notify and the user to use for running the synchro.
-
Validation of the minimum version of PHP and the needed extensions (as specified by the collector).
-
Command line tool to produce the JSON definition from an existing Synchro Data Source in iTop.
-
Capability to run independently: the configuration of the data sources, the data collection and the data synchronization.
-
Configurable log level (for console output or syslog logging)
-
Simple framework for quickly creating SQL based collectors
Revision History
Release Date | Version | Comments |
---|---|---|
2019-11-07 | 1.1.2 | Fix “undefined constant TABLENAME_PATTERN” |
2019-10-28 | 1.1.1 | Contains upgrades from both 1.0.13 and 1.1.0 * Reject invalid characters for database_table_name |
2019-10-28 | 1.1.0 | Based on 1.0.9 * Added the specific class MySQLCollector which forces the DB connection to use UTF-8 characters |
2019-10-28 | 1.0.13 | * LookupTables can now be non case sensitive
(since MySQL is not) * Prevent a warning in SQLCollector for each “ignored” attribute * Improved support of iTop 2.4+ (obsolescence flag) |
2019-10-28 | 1.0.12 | * removed a warning in PHP 7.2 |
2018-06-26 | 1.0.11 | Added a debug trace (visible if
console_log_level=9) to show which mapping regular expression is
applied (when one is applied). Bug fix: properly handle utf-8 characters in the mapping table's regular expressions (/u modifier) Make the cUrl/SSL options configurable to suit all possible combinations and security considerations. |
2015-06-30 | 1.0.10 | New class of collector:
MySQLCollector which forces the retrieved data to be
encoded in UTF-8. |
2015-06-09 | 1.0.9 | Performance enhancement: retrieve only the needed fields when building a lookup table. |
2015-06-02 | 1.0.8 | Better checking of files access rights for writing. SQL connection string (for SQL collectors) is now fully configurable. |
2015-05-20 | 1.0.7 | Bug fixes: Support of backslashes in file names. Removed a warning by marking Utils::Substitute() static. |
2015-05-13 | 1.0.6 | Added the support of “ignoring” some rows in the data while re-processing them. SQL collector can be configured to safely ignore some fields. |
2015-02-16 | 1.0.4 | Added the configuration parameter
stop_on_synchro_error . |
2015-01-06 | 1.0.3 | Handling of non UTF-8 data (via the overloading of GetCharset()), error checking for the data import phase, optimization for iTop 2.1.0: ignoring any change in the database_table_name field. |
2014-11-03 | 1.0.2 | Added the base class SQLCollector for easily creating SQL based collectors. |
2014-10-11 | 1.0.1 | Added the method AttributeIsOptional
to handle variations in the target Data Model. |
2014-05-13 | 1.0.0 | First version |
Limitations
-
Data upload to iTop is done only via the syncho_import web service (could use the command line version or direct SQLcommands. TBD later, maybe)
-
Prior to the revision 3805 of iTop from SVN (from 2015-10-12!) the collector will NOT work properly if the account used to connect to iTop is not configured to use English as the language !!
Requirements
-
PHP Version 5.3.0 (support of namespaces may be required by some collectors)
-
An access to the iTop web services (REST + synchro_import.php and synchro_exec.php)
-
We recommand to install php_curl to use the collector base parameter
itop_synchro_timeout
otherwise the timeout is hardcoded to 200 secondes and can't be overwritten by the collector.
php_curl
, above it won't!Installation
-
Expand the content of the zip archive on a folder on the machine were the collector will run.
-
Edit the content of the file
conf/params.local.xml
to suit your installation.
Configuration
params.local.xml
is the only file to edit to
configure a collector.
At minimum the following parameters must be set in this file:
<itop_url>https://localhost/</itop_url> <itop_login>admin</itop_login> <itop_password>admin</itop_password>
Parameter | Meaning | Sample value |
---|---|---|
itop_login | Login (user account) for connecting to iTop. Must have admin rights for executing the data synchro. | admin |
itop_password | Password for the iTop account. | |
itop_url | URL to the iTop Application | https://localhost/itop |
Optional parameters
The following parameters can be redefined to alter the default behavior of the collector:
Parameter | Meaning | Default value |
---|---|---|
max_chunk_size | Maximum number of elements to process in one iteration (for upload and synchro in iTop). If there are more elements than this number, the process will automatically iterate. | 1000 |
itop_synchro_timeout | Timeout for waiting for the execution of one data
synchro task (in seconds)- requires php_curl
|
600 |
stop_on_synchro_error | Whether or not to stop when an error occurs during
a synchronization (yes or no ). |
no |
console_log_level | Level of ouput to the console. From -1 (none) to 9 (debug). | 6 (info) |
curl_options | When using cUrl to connect to the iTop Webservices
the cUrl options can be specified in this section. The syntax is
<CURLOPT_NAME_OF_THE_OPTION1>VALUE_1</CURLOPT_NAME_OF_THE_OPTION1>
where VALUE_x are either: The numeric value of the option, or the string representation of the corresponding PHP “define” (case sensitive). It is possible to define several php_curl options like in the example below |
<curl_options> <CURLOPT_SSLVERSION>CURL_SSLVERSION_SSLv3</CURLOPT_SSLVERSION> <CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST>0</CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST> <CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER>1</CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER> </curl_options>
params.distrib.xml
contains the default values for the parameters. Both files
(params.distrib.xml
and params.local.xml
)
use exactly the same format. But params.distrib.xml
is
considered as the reference and should remain unmodified. Should
you need to change the value of a parameter, copy and modify its
definition in params.local.xml
. The values in
params.local.xml
have precedence over the ones in
params.distrib.xml
Usage
To launch the data collection and synchronization with iTop, run the following command (from the root directory where the application is installed):
php exec.php
The following (optional) command line options are available:
Option | Meaning | default value |
---|---|---|
--console_log_level=<level> | Level of ouput to the console. From -1 (none) to 9 (debug). | 6 (info) |
--collect_only | Run only the data collection, but do not synchronize the data with iTop | false |
--synchro_only | Synchronizes the data previously collected (stored
in the data directory) with iTop. Do not run the
collection. |
false |
--configure_only | Check (and update if necessary) the synchronization data sources in iTop and exit. Do NOT run the collection or the synchronization | |
--max_chunk_size=<size> | Maximum number of items to process in one pass, for preserving the memory of the system. If there are more items to process, the application will iterate. | 1000 |
Creating a collector
The specifics about a collector resides inside the “collectors”
folder. There must be at least one file main.php
inside this folder. The purpose of main.php
is to
register all the Collector
classes for your module and
load the corresponding classes (either via
require_once(…)
or by registering an auto-loader).
A collector is a PHP class that provides the data for a given
Synchronization Data Source. Collector classes are derived from the
abstract Collector
class. Each collector is associated
with a Synchronization Data Source, defined in JSON format. The
default implementation simply looks for a JSON file with the same
name as the collector class and the extension “.json”, in the
collectors
folder.
Specifying required extensions
If your collector needs a specific extension (or a minimum PHP
version), you can indicate this dependency by calling the static
method Orchestrator::AddRequirement($sMinRequiredVersion,
$sExtension = 'PHP')
in main.php
:
For example:
Orchestrator::AddRequirement('5.4.0'); //This requires at least PHP 5.4 Orchestrator::AddRequirement('1.2.0', 'ldap'); //This requires at least the ldap extension version 1.2.0
Creating the JSON definition file
The simpler way to create the JSON file for a Synchro Data Source, is to export the definition of an existing data source.
-
Create the synchronisation data source in iTop, adjust its parameters (attributes, etc.) to suit your needs
-
Use the command line tool
dump_tasks.php
(available in thetoolkit
folder to produce the JSON file:
php toolkit/dump_tasks.php --task_name="name of the task to export" > collectors/myCollector.json
Inside your data source definition you can use special placeholders to make the data source configurable by the user of the application, or to adjust its behavior via some special settings:
Placeholder code | Meaning | Sample value |
---|---|---|
$version$ |
The version of the module. Useful for versioning your application, for example in the “description” of the synchro data source. | 1.0.0 |
$synchro_user$ |
The user to run the synchro, specified by its login in the configuration file. The identifier of the User object is available via this placeholder. | 12 |
$contact_to_notify$ |
The contact to notify, specified by its email address in the configuration file. The identifer of the contact is supplied via this placeholder. | 48 |
Sample configuration file:
- params.local.xml
-
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!-- Local values for parameters. --> <!-- The values defined in this file have precedence over the ones defined in params.distrib.xml --> <parameters> <itop_url>https://localhost/trunk</itop_url> <itop_login>admin</itop_login> <itop_password>admin</itop_password> <console_log_level>9</console_log_level> <contact_to_notify>denis.flaven@combodo.com</contact_to_notify> <synchro_user>admin</synchro_user> <json_placeholders type="hash"> <test>Test 1</test> </json_placeholders> </parameters>
Sample Synchro Data Source definition file, notice the use of
the $version$
, $synchro_user$
,
$contact_to_notify$
and $test$
placeholders:
- MyCollector.json
-
{ "name": "$test$", "description": "A test synchro data source - version $version$", "status": "implementation", "user_id": "$synchro_user$", "notify_contact_id": "$contact_to_notify$", "scope_class": "Server", "database_table_name": "", "scope_restriction": "", "full_load_periodicity": "0", "reconciliation_policy": "use_attributes", "action_on_zero": "create", "action_on_one": "update", "action_on_multiple": "error", "delete_policy": "ignore", "delete_policy_update": "", "delete_policy_retention": "0", "attribute_list": [ { "attcode": "applicationsolution_list", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "applicationsolution_list" }, { "attcode": "asset_number", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "asset_number" }, { "attcode": "brand_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "brand_id" }, { "attcode": "business_criticity", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "business_criticity" }, { "attcode": "contacts_list", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "contacts_list" }, { "attcode": "cpu", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "cpu" }, { "attcode": "description", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "description" }, { "attcode": "documents_list", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "documents_list" }, { "attcode": "enclosure_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "enclosure_id" }, { "attcode": "end_of_warranty", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "end_of_warranty" }, { "attcode": "location_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "location_id" }, { "attcode": "logicalvolumes_list", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "logicalvolumes_list" }, { "attcode": "managementip", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "managementip" }, { "attcode": "model_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "model_id" }, { "attcode": "move2production", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "move2production" }, { "attcode": "name", "update": "1", "reconcile": "1", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "name" }, { "attcode": "nb_u", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "nb_u" }, { "attcode": "networkdevice_list", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "networkdevice_list" }, { "attcode": "org_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "1", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "name", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "org_id" }, { "attcode": "osfamily_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "osfamily_id" }, { "attcode": "oslicence_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "oslicence_id" }, { "attcode": "osversion_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "osversion_id" }, { "attcode": "powerA_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "powerA_id" }, { "attcode": "powerB_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "powerB_id" }, { "attcode": "providercontracts_list", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "providercontracts_list" }, { "attcode": "purchase_date", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "purchase_date" }, { "attcode": "rack_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "rack_id" }, { "attcode": "ram", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "ram" }, { "attcode": "san_list", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "san_list" }, { "attcode": "serialnumber", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "serialnumber" }, { "attcode": "services_list", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "services_list" }, { "attcode": "status", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "status" }, { "attcode": "tickets_list", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "tickets_list" } ], "user_delete_policy": "nobody", "url_icon": "", "url_application": "", "friendlyname": "Test 1", "user_id_friendlyname": "", "user_id_finalclass_recall": "", "notify_contact_id_friendlyname": " ", "notify_contact_id_finalclass_recall": "" }
database_table_name
, this name MUST BEGIN
WITH <prefix>synchro_data
. Where
<prefix>
is the prefix used for all tables in
iTop (configured using the db_subname
parameter in the
iTop configuration file).no
update
and no lock
.Implementing your collector
Your collector must be a class derived from
Collector
. It must implement (at least) the
Fetch()
method. Fetch must return either, for each
object to load, an array using the format attribute_code
=> value
or false
when the end of the set of
objects has been reached.
The array returned by Fetch()
must contain:
-
an entry
primary_key
that uniquely identifies the object being synchronized with iTop. The entry can contain whatever unique ID you can obtain from the inventory collection, or a unique identifier generated as a combination of the various fields of the object. It's up to the collector application to guarantee the unicity of this identifier (and its stability in time) -
an entry for each attribute of the object to be loaded in iTop.
The sample code below generates a set of 10 servers, named 'Server 1', 'Server 2' … 'Server 10', and initialized 3 fields of the servers: their name, their organization (always 'Demo') and their description.
- main.php
-
class MyCollector extends Collector { protected $idx; public function Prepare() { $bResult = parent::Prepare(); $this->idx = 0; return $bResult; } public function Fetch() { if ($this->idx < 10) { $this->idx++; return array( 'primary_key' => $this->idx, 'name' => 'Server '.$this->idx, 'org_id' => 'Demo', 'description' => 'Test Collector' ); } return false; } } // Register the collector, as the 1st to run Orchestrator::AddCollector(1, 'MyCollector');
GetCharset()
of your collector to return the name of
the character set (must return a value accepted by iconv on the
iTop server)Registering your collector
To register your collector, call the static method
Orchestrator::AddCollector()
. The two parameters
are:
-
The order in which the collector should be run (when you need to run several collectors one after the other)
-
The name of the class (derived from
Collector
) in which the collector is implemented.
Default values for the parameters
A collector module can provide default values for its parameters
by providing a file params.distrib.xml
in the
collectors
folder. If such a file exists, its values
are merged over the equivalent file in the conf
directory.
SQL Collectors
The 'core' folder provides an abstract class
SQLCollector
which can serve as the basis for quickly
creating collectors that retrieve their data via a SQL query.
To create such a collector you need to:
-
Create a class derived from SQLCollector
-
Create the json definition file for the data synchro source
-
Add a configuration parameter (in
params.distrib.xml
) to define the SQL query to run -
Register your collector in
collectors/main.php
The configuration parameters for the SQL Collectors are:
Parameter | Meaning | Default Value |
---|---|---|
sql_engine | The PDO driver/engine to use for the database connection. | mysql |
sql_host | The name or IP address of the database server to connect to. | localhost |
sql_database | The name of the database to connect to. | empty |
sql_login | The login to use when connecting to the database | root |
sql_password | The password to use when connecting to the database | n/a |
sql_connection_string |
New in 1.0.8 The format of the
PDO connection string. 3 placeholders are available inside the
format string: %1$s = sql_engine,
%2$s = sql_database and %3$s =
sql_host
|
%1$s:dbname=%2$s;host=%3$s |
collector_class_query | The query to run for the collector which PHP class is collector_class | |
collector_class_ignored_attributes | New in 1.0.6 To take into account the possible variations of the data model, without re-writing a collector each time, it is possible to mark some of the collected attributes as “optional” so that the collector can run even if the corresponding attribute does not exist in the data model. Supply an array of attribute codes to ignore, here. |
sql_connection_string
. For example:
%1$s:dbname=%2$s;host=%3$s;port=3307
For versions prior to 1.0.8, to specify a port number (other
than the default port), use the syntax host;port=xxxx
for the sql_host
parameter. Example:
localhost;port=3307
MySQLCollector
.
This class is identical to SQLCollector
except that it
forces the retrieved data to be encoded in UTF-8 by issuing the SQL
command SET NAMES 'utf8
' at the beginning of the each
connection to the database. To avoid any problem with the character
set of the data, it is recommended to use this new class for all
connections to a MySQL/MariaDB database.Example of a simple SQL Collector
Let's create a very simple SQL collector which copies the “Notes” documents (class DocumentNote) from one iTop instance to another. Since the collector inherits all its behavior from the base class, the PHP code for the collector is simply:
- DocumentNotesCollector.class.inc.php
-
<?php class DocumentNoteCollector extends SQLCollector { }
The JSON definition file is
- DocumentNotesCollector.json
-
{ "name": "$prefix$DocumentNote", "description": "", "status": "production", "user_id": "$synchro_user$", "notify_contact_id": "$contact_to_notify$", "scope_class": "DocumentNote", "database_table_name": "", "scope_restriction": "", "full_load_periodicity": "604800", "reconciliation_policy": "use_attributes", "action_on_zero": "create", "action_on_one": "update", "action_on_multiple": "error", "delete_policy": "update", "delete_policy_update": "status:obsolete", "delete_policy_retention": "0", "attribute_list": [ { "attcode": "cis_list", "update": "0", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "cis_list" }, { "attcode": "contracts_list", "update": "0", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "contracts_list" }, { "attcode": "description", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "description" }, { "attcode": "documenttype_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "documenttype_id" }, { "attcode": "name", "update": "1", "reconcile": "1", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "name" }, { "attcode": "org_id", "update": "1", "reconcile": "1", "update_policy": "master_locked", "reconciliation_attcode": "", "finalclass": "SynchroAttExtKey", "friendlyname": "org_id" }, { "attcode": "services_list", "update": "0", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "row_separator": "|", "attribute_separator": ";", "value_separator": ":", "attribute_qualifier": "'", "finalclass": "SynchroAttLinkSet", "friendlyname": "services_list" }, { "attcode": "status", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "status" }, { "attcode": "text", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "text" }, { "attcode": "version", "update": "1", "reconcile": "0", "update_policy": "master_locked", "finalclass": "SynchroAttribute", "friendlyname": "version" } ], "user_delete_policy": "nobody", "url_icon": "", "url_application": "" }
Then in params.distrib.xml
, add the foollowing
entries:
<sql_database>test</sql_database> <sql_login>root</sql_login> <sql_password>s3cret</sql_password> <documentnotecollector_query>SELECT id as primary_key, name, text, description, status, '2.0' as version, documenttype_id, 1 as org_id FROM view_DocumentNote</documentnotecollector_query> <documentnotecollector_ignored_attributes type="array"> <attribute>location_id</attribute> <attribute>version_id</attribute> </documentnotecollector_ignored_attributes>
Finally, in collectors/main.php
add the following
lines:
- main.php
-
<?php require_once(APPROOT.'collectors/DocumentNoteCollector.class.inc.php'); Orchestrator::AddCollector(1 /* $iRank */, 'DocumentNoteCollector');
Advanced collectors
The collector framework provides means to perform some advanced processing for real-life collectors:
-
DataMapping for configurable data normalizations
-
LookupTable for advanced reconciliations based on multiple fields
Data Mapping
Raw data collected by inventory scripts sometimes require a
normalization before being imported into iTop, in order to obtain
homogenous data. The framework provides the helper class
MappingTable
for performing simple normalizations
tasks.
A mapping table is configured (in the
params.xxx.xml
configuration file) as an ordered list
of patterns, with a value associated to each pattern. The “clean”
value returned by the mapping table is the value associated with
the first pattern that matches the input value. Patterns are
expressed as regular expressions. Values can use the placeholders
to refer to some part of the matched pattern (%1$s
is
the whole pattern, %2$s
the first group inside the
regular expression, etc.).
Example of configuration (Brand normalization):
<brand_mapping type="array"> <!-- Syntax /pattern/replacement where: any delimiter can be used (not only /) but the delimiter cannot be present in the "replacement" string pattern is a RegExpr pattern replacement is a sprintf string in which: %1$s will be replaced by the whole matched text, %2$s will be replaced by the first matched group, if any group is defined in the RegExpr %3$s will be replaced by the second matched group, etc... --> <pattern>/IBM/IBM</pattern> <pattern>/Hewlett.Packard/Hewlett-Packard</pattern> <pattern>/Dell/Dell</pattern> <pattern>/.*/%1$s</pattern> </brand_mapping>
This example file performs the following normalization:
-
Every string containing “IBM” is transformed into “IBM”,
-
Every string containing “Hewlett”, followed by any character, followed by “Packard” is transformed into “Hewlett-Packard”,
-
Every string containing “Dell” is transformed into “Dell”,
-
All other strings are kept as is.
Using a mapping table in your code
-
Create an instance of the
MappingTable
class, passing it the name of the XML tag in which to look for its configuration (inside the XML param file) -
Use the
MapValue
method to process each value as needed (the second parameter is the default value, when no match is found in the mapping table).
Usage example:
// Turns the raw brand string ('brand_id') into a normalized brand // Use 'Other' for brands not found in the normalization table class TestCollector extends SQLCollector { protected $oBrandMapping; public function Prepare() { $bRet = parent::Prepare(); // Create the MappingTable once at the initialization of your collector $this->oBrandMapping = new MappingTable('brand_mapping'); return $bRet; } public function Fetch() { $aData = parent::Fetch(); if ($aData !== false) { // Then process each collected brand $aData['brand_id'] = $this->oBrandMapping->MapValue($aData['brand_id'], 'Other'); } return $aData; } }
Advanced Lookups
The data synchronization mechanism embedded in iTop is not
capable of performing reconciliations based on multiple fields
(like searching for a Model based on both the Brand name and the
Model name). The LookupTable
class provides this
reconciliation capability for any number of fields.
The class LookupTable
builds a lookup table by
retrieving the specified fields of a set of iTop objects, and
storing the resulting identifier of the objects in iTop.
An instance of LookupTable
is created by specifying
an OQL query (the set of iTop objects to retrieve) and the fields
of the objects that will be used for the mapping.
LookupTable
instance is the list of fields to be passed later on when
performing a Lookup(…)
Once the LookupTable
has been initialized, a call
to the Lookup($aData, array(Field1, Field2, …),
destField)
method will replace in $aData
the
value of the column destField
by identifier of the
iTop object whose specified fields match the values passed in
$aData
as the columns Field1,
Field2…
.
Lookup
method returns false if not corresponding
lookup was found. In such a case the code can either supply a
default value, of throw an exception
IgnoredRowException
to tell the collector to reject
the whole line of collected data.Example
In iTop, the operating system version is represented as a
version
depending on an OS family
object. We can have the
following objects in iTop:
-
Windows, versions 7.0 and 8.1,
-
Debian version 12.0.0.
This will be stored in iTop as shown below:
Object class | id | name |
---|---|---|
OSFamily | 1 | Windows |
OSFamily | 2 | Linux Debian |
Object class | id | osfamily_id | name |
---|---|---|---|
OSVersion | 1 | 1 | 7.0.0 |
OSVersion | 2 | 1 | 8.1.0 |
OSVersion | 3 | 2 | 12.0.0 |
Now let's imagine that our collector script gives us the two informations: 'Windows' and '8.1.0'. We can store the 'Windows' text string in the 'osfamily_id' field of the data synchro table and configure the synchro data source to perform the reconciliation based on the 'name' (this will properly replace 'Windows' by 1).
But to retrieve the identifier of the version 8.1.0 of Windows
(which is 2 in our example) we need both the OS Family ('Windows') and the version
number ('8.1.0'). The Synchronization Data Source is not capable of
doing this composite lookup, this where the
LookupTable
comes into play.
$oOSVersionLookup = new LookupTable('SELECT OSVersion', array('osfamily_id_friendlyname', 'name'));
This will build - in memory - the following table:
lookup_key | id |
---|---|
Windows_7.0.0 | 1 |
Windows_8.1.0 | 2 |
Debian_12.0.0 | 3 |
So if we have in $aData
the following values:
osfamily_id | osversion_id |
---|---|
Windows | 8.1.0 |
Calling:
$oOSVersionLookup->Lookup($aData, array('osfamily_id', 'osversion_id'), 'osversion_id', 0);
Will place in the column 'osversion_id' the result of the lookup
for the values $aData['osfamily_id']
and
$aData['osversion_id']
.
$aData
will then contain the following values:
osfamily_id | osversion_id |
---|---|
Windows | 2 |
We then have to configure the Synchro Data Source so that it
accepts the oversion_id
as-is without performing any
reconciliation on it.
Lookup(…)
must contain the line number inside the CSV
file being processed. This is used internally to perform some
initializations only once when processing the first line of the
file.The advanced reconciliation works by retrieving (via the
REST/JSON API), the objects to be
matched against the composite key, after the data
collection but before pushing the data to iTop. Therefore,
in order to use this advanced lookup mechanism, you must
tell the framework that the collector has to reprocess the
collected data before the actual synchro. This is achieved by
overloading the method MustProcessBeforeSynchro
of the
collector; and returning true
.
The collector framework provides two additional methods which can be overloaded:
-
InitProcessBeforeSynchro
is called after the data collection, but before starting to reprocess each line of the collected data. This is the plece where to create theLookupTable
instance -
ProcessLineBeforeSynchro
is called for each line of the collected data (including the header line of the CSV file, which index is zero)
Usage Example
The following code fragment shows to use cases of lookup tables altogether: one for brand + model and one for OS family + OS version.
protected function MustProcessBeforeSynchro() { // We must reprocess the CSV data obtained from the inventory script // to lookup the Brand/Model and OSFamily/OSVersion in iTop return true; } protected function InitProcessBeforeSynchro() { // Retrieve the identifiers of the OSVersion since we must do a lookup based on two fields: Family + Version // which is not supported by the iTop Data Synchro... so let's do the job of an ETL $this->oOSVersionLookup = new LookupTable('SELECT OSVersion', array('osfamily_id_friendlyname', 'name')); // Retrieve the identifiers of the Model since we must do a lookup based on two fields: Brand + Model // which is not supported by the iTop Data Synchro... so let's do the job of an ETL $this->oModelLookup = new LookupTable('SELECT Model', array('brand_id_friendlyname', 'name')); } protected function ProcessLineBeforeSynchro(&$aLineData, $iLineIndex) { // Process each line of the CSV if (!$this->oOSVersionLookup->Lookup($aLineData, array('osfamily_id', 'osversion_id'), 'osversion_id', $iLineIndex)) { throw New IgnoreRowException('Unknown OS Version'); } if (!$this->oModelLookup->Lookup($aLineData, array('brand_id', 'model_id'), 'model_id', $iLineIndex)) { throw New IgnoreRowException('Unknown Model'); } }
Data Model Variants
It may happen that the target Data Model has some variants
(depending on the set of modules chosen during the installation).
If a given attribute can be missing in some configurations, you can
tell your collector to accept this variation, by overloading the
method AttributeIsOptional
. (This is simpler than
writing a specific collector for each combination).
If an attribute specified in the JSON definition of the Synchro
Data Source is missing, the processing will stop with an error,
unless this attribute is declared as optional. In the later case,
the name of the skipped attribute is recorded in the protected
member variable $this->aSkippedAttributes
and the
processing continues. The code of the collector can later check the
content of the array $this->aSkippedAttributes
to
determine which fields have to be collected or not.
Example of implementation of AttributeIsOptional
as
a method of the VirtualMachineCollector
class:
public function AttributeIsOptional($sAttCode) { // If the module Service Management for Service Providers is selected during the setup // there is no "services_list" attribute on VirtualMachines. Let's safely ignore it. if ($sAttCode == 'services_list') return true; return parent::AttributeIsOptional($sAttCode); }
Troubleshooting
When troubleshooting the reconciliation mechanism it is useful
to compare the original (raw) values as reported by the inventory
script with the result of the reconciliation process. Whenever the
method MustProcessBeforeSynchro
of a collector returns
true
, the framework generates two files inthe
data
subdirectory. You can easily compare the values
before/after the lookup by comparing the two CSV files:
-
<collector_name>.raw-<index>.csv
: the original data, as produced by the inventory script, -
<collector_name>-<index>.csv
: the reprocessed data, to be uploaded to iTop.