Working with STR

Owned by Kevin Wu
Last updated: Jun 15, 2023
3 min read

A principle behind the configuration representation used in the STR, is to support both manual configuration, i e editing configuration files in a text editor, and scripted configuration using the mzsh topo command. Most changes to the files can be done in either way. 

The figure below illustrates how you can edit a particular system property, either using a command or a text editor. 

Updating a system property in STR

Manual Configuration

There are three methods of manually editing configurations in STR.

Method 1

  1. Open a configuration file under MZ_HOME/common/config/cell/default/master.


  2. Edit the file and save.


  3. Run the mzsh command topo activate. This is required in order the for changes to become effective. 

    $ mzsh topo activate



Method 2

  1. Open a configuration by running the mzsh command topo open. The configuration opens in vi or the editor specified by the environment variable EDITOR.





    If the pico name is not unique in the system, you will be prompted to specify the container.



  2. Edit the configuration and save. The mzsh command topo activate will be called with the --verbose option and the saved changes are displayed in a scripted syntax.


Method 3

As an alternative to the command line  tool, you can manage pico configurations and start/stop pico instances from the System Administration GUI. For further information, see Managing Picos in Desktop.

Activation and Validation

When you use the mzsh commands  topo set or topo open, changes are automatically validated before they are copied to the active registry. If the command and its arguments can be parsed but fails the validation, you can update the configuration or use a reset command to undo the changes.  

You can disable the validation by using the option --no-activation. Changes performed by the mzsh topo will then remain in the master registry until you submit a separate activate command. 

 $ mzsh topo set --no-activation





The options --dry-run and --verbose are useful to learn the mzsh topo syntax. When you have edited the configuration manually, use the following command, to view the corresponding edits in a scripted syntax:



You can then restore the master registry with the the command mzsh topo reset.



Restart the picos to apply the changes




Example, after an mzsh topo activate of ec5, mzsh shutdown and startup needs to be done to apply the changes.







Note!

Note that the sorting and layout of the configuration files may change when it is updated both using manual editing and the commands. That means that the exact ordering of keys, and layout of the file could change. However: this will not affect how the system interprets the configuration at runtime. It is not supported to edit the configuration files using command line utilities (such as sed or awk), all scripted changes must be done via the mzsh topo command, to minimize the risk of invalid assumptions regarding the exact layout of the configuration files.

For further information about the various sub-commands that are available in the mzsh topo command, see 2.1.15 topo in Command Line Tool User's Guide.

For further information about how to manage pico- and service configurations, see Managing Picos with Topo and Managing Service Configurations.