The StifleR Server(s) needs regular maintenance like any other critical infrastructure to function effectively and continuously. In this section you find an operations guide that the sysadmin or operations team can follow to maintain a StifleR Environment. The guide is divided in to daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly operation tasks.
In general the tasks described in these documents should be implemented into whatever ticketing system that is being used, such as Service Now, Remedy or Zendesk.
Verify that the nightly backup was successful
Check free disk space on all volumes on the StifleR Server (s)
Review the StifleR Server Event log
Review the StifleR Resource Manager log (if implemented)
Review all daily tasks
Review and disk space usage on the StifleR Server(s), and compare to previous week to see trends etc.
Verify that networks haven’t changed (boundaries etc.)
To be added, but these are for preparing for upgrades, and to establish long term trends. Usually scheduled meetings with workplace managers and other team members.
Review the security plan for any needed changes
Change accounts and passwords if necessary according to your security plan
Review the maintenance schedule for upgrades to the StifleR platform
Check StifleR performance to ensure changes have not been made that affect operations
Review the disaster recovery plan for any needed changes
Perform a site recovery according to the disaster recovery plan in a test lab
The information on this page only applied to StifleR Server 2.6.
The 2Pint StifleR Server, by default, stores its databases in the %ProgramData% folder which is typically located on the C: drive. In some cases, an admin might want to move the databases to another drive. The steps below describes the process of migrating the StifleR databases to another folder on the same server.
On the server hosting the StifleR server, create a new folder where you would like to store the databases. In this example, the folder will be D:\StifleRDBs.
Stop the "2Pint Software StifleR Server" service.
Copy the folder structure from C:\ProgramData\2Pint Software\StifleR\Server\Databases to the folder created in step 1, Ex: D:\StifleRDBs.
To modify the configuration, you will need to edit the StifleR.Service.exe.config file. It is recommended to make a backup copy of the file before proceeding. The file is located in the installation directory in which StifleR was installed.
Open a text editor as administrator and edit the StifleR.Service.exe.config file.
In the .config file, under the <AppSettings> line, add the following:
Save the .config file and start the "2Pint Software StifleR Server" service.
Check the Event Viewer - Applications and Services Logs - StifleR and check for errors.
Open the StifleR Dashboard and verify that you can logon and verify that the data is available as expected, specifically your Networks.
If all looks well, feel free to delete the Databases folder under: C:\ProgramData\2Pint Software\StifleR\Server. If not, see the next section to Backout of the change.
If an error occurred and you need to restore the previous configuration. Stop the 2Pint Software StifleR Server service.
Restore the backup copy of the StifleR.Service.exe.config and start the 2Pint Software StifleR Server service.
This document guides you through a backup and recovery of a StifleR Server.
Note: This document replaces the old we have in our knowledge base area.
StifleR have several components that needs to be backed up in order to do a successful recovery if something happens to the server. The components are:
StifleR Databases
StifleR Configuration File
StifleR License File
StifleR Rules File
Extra scripts
Backup of the five StifleR databases can be done either online or offline. The benefit of the online method is that you don’t have to stop the StifleR Server service during backup, but the downside is that it forces you to run a repair job of the database before they can be used in a restore. The offline backup method means stopping the StifleR service during backup, and then start it again after backup has completed. Benefits with this method is that you don’t have to repair the database before a restore.
The StifleR databases are using the Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) runtime in Windows (ESENT), and as such are often called ESENT databases. In addition to the core database files, the EDB files, ESE is also using recovery logs which are in the same folder as each database file.
By default, the databases are stored in C:\ProgramData\2Pint Software\StifleR\Server\Databases , and while the StifleR databases are not very big, we recommend storing them on data volume rather than the OS volume.
The StifleR Configuration File (StifleR.Service.exe.config) is located in the StifleR Server installation directory.
The StifleR Rules File is often added to the C:\ProgramData\2Pint Software\StifleR\Rules folder, but can be in any folder as long as the IIS virtual directory knows where it is.
Additional custom scripts, like maintenance scripts, utility scripts, and generate location scripts should also be included in the daily backup.
In addition to daily snapshots of the StifleR VM, or traditional daily file-level backup via your regular backup software, we recommend archiving at least a week worth of backup sets on a different server. The StifleR backups sets are quite small, rarely over 10 GB even in larger environments.
If the client cannot connect to server, due to networking roaming or other issues, the client will try to connect to the next server in the list. Failing to connect to a valid server eventually causes the client go into a disconnected state during which the bandwidth configure for disconnected mode will be applied. Once the StifleR Server has been restored, clients will automatically check in again, and go back to normal operations.
Restoring a StifleR Server is straight forward. If you have been using the offline backup, the restore process is a follow:
Make sure to install a new VM with the same server name, disk layout, and OS version
Install the version of StifleR you had before.
Stop the StifleR service, delete the empty databases, and restore the ones you have in your backup.
Restore the Configuration File
Restore the Rules file, and recreate the IIS virtual directory
Restore any additional scripts, and re-create scheduled tasks etc.
Start the StifleR service
For an online backup the process is quite similar
Make sure to install a new VM with the same server name, disk layout, and OS version
Install the version of StifleR you had before.
Stop the StifleR service, delete the empty databases, and restore the ones you have in your backup.
Repair the StifleR databases using esentutl /p
Restore the Configuration File
Restore the Rules file, and recreate the IIS virtual directory
Restore any additional scripts, and re-create scheduled tasks etc.
Start the StifleR service
We recommend that you automate the StifleR backup by scheduling our backup script to run at least once per day. In the , we provide a sample script that can be run in either online or offline mode, and if you select the offline mode, the script takes care of stopping and starting the StifleR Server service before and after the backup. The sample scripts also have sections for backing up additional files, like the rules file, that may be stored outside the normal StifleR installation directories. If that’s the case, simply modify the script to reflect your environment.
