Alma Job Runner, schedule any manual Alma Job!

This app allows schedule any Alma job. The app loads job configurations from another Git repository and registers a cron job for every configuration file. When the cron expressions triggers, the job is started via an Alma API call.

How to configure and run the app

App Configuration

The app needs the following environment variables to run:

• GIT_REPO_SSH: this is the connection to the Git repo with the job config files (more on this later), something like [email protected]:HSG-Library/alma-job-runner-config.git
• GIT_PRIVATE_KEY_BASE64: this is the private SSH key encoded with Base64, needed to authenticate when cloning the config repo (more on this later), something like "LS0tLS1CRUdJTiBPUEVOU1NIIFBSSVZBVEUgS0VZLS0tLS0KYjN CbGJuTnphQzFyWlhrdGRqRUFBQUFBQkc1dmJtVUFBQUFFYm05dVpRQUFBQUFBQUFBQkFBQUFNd0FBQUF0emMyZ3RaVwpReU5UVXhPUUFBQUNBSTFGMzdNdWJrRWRoT20yYS". The Base64 encoding is needed to avoid issues with newlines when passing environment variables to Docker.
• ALMA_API_KEY: this is the Alma API key needed to start the jobs. The key needs write permission to the ' Configuration' area.
• ALMA_API_URL: this is the base URL for the Alma API (e.g. https://api-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/)

To enable notification emails on jobs which failed to start, the following environment variables are needed:

• NOTIFICATION_ACTIVE: 'true'/'false', enable/disable notifications, default is disabled. If notifications are enabled, the following variables are needed too.
• NOTIFICATION_SMTP_SERVER: something like smpt.yourdomain.com
• NOTIFICATION_SMTP_PORT: the port of your SMTP server, default is 587
• NOTIFICATION_SMTP_USER: user for the SMTP authentication
• NOTIFICATION_SMTP_PASSWORD: password for the SMTP authentication
• NOTIFICATION_TO_ADDRESS: recipient address of the notification email, comma separated lists of addresses are possible
• NOTIFICATION_FROM_ADDRESS: sender address of the notification email

Note, the SMTP server must support TLS (activated by default).

Run the app

The app is available as Docker image.

Run the Docker container, Docker must be installed (note that the notifications are not configured in this example):

export GIT_REPO_SSH="[email protected]:your/config-repo.git"
export GIT_PRIVATE_KEY_BASE64="<base64-of-your-private-key>"
export ALMA_API_KEY="your-alma-api-key"
export ALMA_API_URL="https://api-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/"

docker run -i -p 8080:8080 --env GIT_REPO_SSH=$GIT_REPO_SSH --env GIT_PRIVATE_KEY_BASE64=$GIT_PRIVATE_KEY_BASE64 --env ALMA_API_KEY=$ALMA_API_KEY ghcr.io/hsg-library/alma-job-runner

Since Docker can not handle \n in --env parameters, we need to encode the private key with base64. Encode the key like this on Linux-like or macOS:

cat path/to/your/privatekey | base64

Encode like this on Windows in PowerShell:

([Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes("-----BEGIN OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----
b3BlbnNzaC1rZXktdjEAAAAABG5vbmUAAAAEbm9uZQAAAAAAAAABAAAAMwAAAAtzc2gtZW
[...your-full-private-key]
Fj2Nw1+DxfGbAfJJvs7NAAAACWFsbWEtam9icwECAwQ=
-----END OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----
"))) -join ""

The job endpoints should now be available under http://localhost:8080/jobs. The following endpoints are available:

• register: register all job configs from the git repo http://localhost:8080/jobs/register
• unregister: unregister all job configs from the git repo http://localhost:8080/jobs/unregister
• reregister: first unregister all jobs, get a new clone of the config repo and register all job configs http://localhost:8080/jobs/reregister
• list: list all registered jobs http://localhost:8080/jobs/list
• results: show the responses from the run jobs since the start of the instance http://localhost:8080/jobs/results

How to configure the jobs and where store the config files

Job configuration files format

Filename: [any-name].conf (files without the .conf extension will be ignored)

• 1st line: name of the Job
• 2nd line: cron expression
• 3rd line: HTTP method and API URI
• rest: XML payload

Example:

Add titles to collection

45 23 * * *

POST /almaws/v1/conf/jobs/M502xxx?op=run

<job>
	<parameters>
		<parameter>
			<name>COLLECTION_NAME</name>
			<value>Test-Collection</value>
		</parameter>
		<parameter>
			<name>UNASSIGN_FROM_COLLECTION</name>
			<value>false</value>
		</parameter>
		<parameter>
			<name>COLLECTION_ID</name>
			<value>81702xxx</value>
		</parameter>
		<parameter>
			<name>set_id</name>
			<value>33624xxx</value>
		</parameter>
		<parameter>
			<name>job_name</name>
			<value>Add Titles to Collection - via API - jfu-test</value>
		</parameter>
	</parameters>
</job>

Where to get the configuration data

• Name: just choose a fitting name
• Cron expression: this defines when the job should run, use websites like https://crontab.guru or https://cronexpressiontogo.com
• Method and Api URI: Use Alma. This information is provided when configuring a job. See: https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/blog/working-with-the-alma-jobs-api/
• XML Payload: Same as above

How to store the config files

The config files must be stored in another Git repo. This repo should probably be private. The files should be in the main branch without any directories.

It must be possible to clone the repo via SSH. To achieve this the following steps are necessary:

1. Generate a key pair, see e.g. https://www.purdue.edu/science/scienceit/ssh-keys-windows.html
2. Add your public key as deployment key in your git repo
3. Keep your private key secret, but configure it as environment variable to run the app

Dev-Notes

Run in VSCode

Add the following command to your launch.json:

{
    "type": "java",
    "name": "Run",
    "request": "launch",
    "mainClass": "ch.unisg.library.systemlibrarian.Application",
    "projectName": "alma-job-runner",
    "env": {
        "GIT_REPO_SSH": "[email protected]:your/config-repo",
        "GIT_PRIVATE_KEY_BASE64": "<base64 of your private key>",
        "ALMA_API_KEY": "YOUR-ALMA-API-KEY",
        "ALMA_API_URL": "https://api-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/",
    }
}

Build

Build Docker image:

./mvnw package

Push Docker image:
This needs authentication and is done via GitHub Workflow, using the GitHub Token from the workflow. If the image must be pushed otherwise, a GitHub PAT must be used.

./mvnw deploy

Test

Test don't run automatically via Maven, because packaging is set to docker. To run tests via Maven use the jar profile:

./mvnw test -Pjar

Upgrade dependencies

Update Micronaut

• Check the current version of Micronaut: https://micronaut.io/download/
• Set the current Version in the pom.xml file in parent > version and in properties > micronaut.version

Update other dependencies
Make sure, the versions of the dependencies to be updates are maintained in properties (pom.xml)

• Check for updates, but only in versions, managed in the properties:

    mvn versions:display-property-updates
  

• update properties:

    mvn versions:update-properties
  

Additional resources

https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/blog/working-with-the-alma-jobs-api/ https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/alma/apis/docs/conf/UE9TVCAvYWxtYXdzL3YxL2NvbmYvam9icy97am9iX2lkfQ==/

Micronaut CLI

Generated project with the following Micronaut CLI command:

mn create-app --build=maven --jdk=17 --lang=java --test=junit --features=logback ch.unisg.library.systemlibrarian.alma-job-runner