dpcmder

DataPower Commander

DataPower Commander (dpcmder) is command line tool I created for easier maintenance of files on DataPower appliances and easier development of DataPower appliance solutions.

Current functions:

• basic file maintenance
  • view, edit, copy and delete file hierarchies (DataPower and local file system)
  • filter and search files in current directory
• sync mode
  • turn on to automaticaly upload new and changed files from local filesystem to DataPower
  • usefull for development to automaticaly propagate your changes from any IDE/editor you are using to DataPower

Install

From project directory:

go install

Run

dpcmder -l LOCAL_FOLDER_PATH [-r DATA_POWER_REST_URL | -s DATA_POWER_SOMA_AMP_URL] [-u USERNAME] [-p PASSWORD] [-d DP_DOMAIN] [-x PROXY_SERVER] [-c DP_CONFIG_NAME] [-debug]

Saving DataPower connection parameters

If you choose to use flag "-c" to save DataPower connection parameters be aware that password is saved if provided with "-p" flag. Though password is not saved as clear text it is not encrypted so don't save password if you are afraid your dpcmder configuration file (~/.dpcmder/config.json) could be compromised.

Build

Build from project directory:

go build dpcmder.go

GOOS=windows GOARCH=386 go build -o dpcmder-win-386.exe dpcmder.go
GOOS=windows GOARCH=amd64 go build -o dpcmder-win-amd64.exe dpcmder.go
GOOS=darwin GOARCH=386 go build -o dpcmder-mac-386 dpcmder.go
GOOS=darwin GOARCH=amd64 go build -o dpcmder-mac-amd64 dpcmder.go
GOOS=linux GOARCH=386 go build -o dpcmder-linux-386 dpcmder.go
GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -o dpcmder-linux-amd64 dpcmder.go

A bit of history of dpcmder

When I started to work with DataPower (beginning of 2008) I plunged into world of XSLT-s - it is a verbose functional programming world. As Java developer I used Eclipse IDE a lot and I found it a good tool to work with XML/XSL files. There were some parts of XLST I could even test without uploading them to DataPower, using functionalities available in Eclipse but for some DataPower-specific parts only way to test it was to upload them to DataPower appliance.

Soon I realized it is a bit cumbersome to upload files to DataPower appliance during development. I found IBM created an eclipse plugin which enabled us to quickly copy files from local eclipse workspace to DataPower appliance (and vice versa) which made development cycle much more comfortable and faster. Unfortunately, IBM shipped this plugin only until DataPower firmware 3.8.2 and stopped maintaining this plugin to be compatible with new DataPower versions. There were some work-around solutions but none felt right for me.

At some point I thought about developing Eclipse plugin myself but decided to go other direction because of the following reasons:

• from all sources I checked Eclipse plugin development is not fulfilling experience
• I thought it would be nice to have a tool which could be used to maintain files on DataPower by sysadmins, not only developers

At first, I created a bash shell which had basic functionalities I planned to implement but on my Linux box it was working a bit slow. Then I started this script in Linux bash console using cmder Console Emulator (https://cmder.net/) and realized it is so slow it is almost unusable. I wanted to have:

• application which would work on at least 3 major OS-es (both my company and our clients use all 3 of them)
• command line application so it can be used through ssh on some jump server if required
• application which would work fast
• application which would be simple to use (and similar to Midnight Commander and/or Total Commander)

I evaluated few technologies to implement this. After checking Node.js pkg and Golang which both enabled me to build executables for all target platforms on my Linux machine. At the end I decided to go with the Go as it produced smaller executables.

One issue which is still left partialy unsolved is handling keypresses for some of the special keys on Windows (maybe MacOS) environment. Seems like it is not quite easy to crate portable application which can correctly use arrow keys, Home & End key etc so I added alternative keys for each of those actions. Best of all, if you are not sure just press 'h' key (or any other unmapped key) and help will be shown.

dpcmder funcions help

ArrowUp / i         - move one item up
ArrowDown / k       - move one item down
Shift+ArrowUp / I   - select current item and move one item up (can use Alt instead of Shift)
Shift+ArrowDown / K - select current item and move one item down (can use Alt instead of Shift)
PgUp / u            - move page of items up
PgDown / o          - move page of items down
Shift+PgUp / U      - select current item and move page of items up
Shift+PgDown / O    - select current item and move page of items down
Home / a            - move to first item
End / z             - move to last item
Shift+Home / A      - move to first item and select all items from current one to the first one
Shift+End / Z       - move to last item and select all items from current one to the last one
ArrowLeft / j       - scroll items left (usefull for long names)
ArrowRight / l      - scroll items right (usefull for long names)
Space               - select current item
TAB                 - switch from left to right panel and vice versa
Return              - enter directory
F2/2                - refresh focused pane (reload files/dirs)
F3/3                - view current file
F4/4                - edit file
F5/5                - copy selected (or current if none selected) directories and files
                    - if selected is DataPower domain create export of domain (TODO)
                    - if selected is DataPower configuration create export of whole appliance (TODO)
F7/7                - create directory
DEL/x               - delete selected (or current if none selected) directories and files
d                   - diff current files/directories
                      ("blocking" diff command have to be used, for example script ldiff.sh containing "diff $1 $2 | less")
/                   - find string
n                   - find next string
p                   - find previous string
f                   - filter shown items by string
.                   - enter location (full path) for local file system
s                   - auto-synchronize selected directories (local to dp)
q                   - quit
any-other-char      - show help (+ hex value of key pressed visible in status bar)

Navigational keys (except Left/Right can be used in combination with Shift for selections):
PgUp  Up  PgDn
Left Down Right
Home      End

Alternative keys:
u i o
j k l
a   z

Custom Viewer/Editor commands:
dpcmder configuration is saved to ~/.dpcmder/config.json where commands used for
calling viewer and editor are set. By default these are "less" and "vi" but could
be any commands although edit command should not be started in background (for
example: a new tab in editor which is already open) for editing to work as expected.

SOMA (+ AMP) vs REST:
SOMA and AMP interfaces have one shortcoming - you can't see domain list if you
don't have proper rights. With REST you can get domain list without any credentials.