Options for Updating courseware_studentmodulehistory#

This topic outlines the options for updating to the new database and table configuration required by the courseware_studentmodulehistory change.

Because each Open edX installation has a unique set of constraints and requirements, edX recommends that you review all of these options before selecting one for your instance or instances.

Keep, and Query, Both Tables#

This option is suitable for many instances with small databases, such as a fullstack or small production instance, that do not have the performance considerations or other operational needs described in the overview.

For instances with relatively small databases, you set up the new database and table and then configure the system to read from both tables, without migrating data. An outline of the steps you need to complete follows.

  1. Create the edxapp_csmh database.

  2. Update lms.yml with a new entry in the DATABASES section.

  3. Update lms.yml to set "ENABLE_CSMH_EXTENDED": true. Leave "ENABLE_READING_FROM_MULTIPLE_HISTORY_TABLES": true.

  4. Run django migrations to generate the new table.

A system with this configuration writes only to the new coursewarehistoryextended_studentmodulehistoryextended table, but it reads from both that table and the courseware_studentmodulehistory table in the edxapp database.

For more information, see Procedures for Replacing courseware_studentmodulehistory.

Reprovision or Reinstall Your Devstack#

Note

This option is suitable only for devstacks that were provisioned recently. If your devstack dates from before March 2016, follow the destroy and reprovision instructions.

To set up devstack with the new database and SQL table, you can reprovision. If you choose this option for updating devstack, no further configuration or migration procedures are required. Before you reprovision, make sure that any active development is committed in your devstack’s edx-platform GitHub repository. If that repository has changes, Ansible™ will fail to provision because it cannot update. After vagrant provision completes, your devstack will be running the release branch of edx-platform.

cd devstack
vagrant provision

Reprovisioning adds the edxapp_csmh database and its coursewarehistoryextended_studentmodulehistoryextended table. The lms.yml feature flags that control use of the coursewarehistoryextended_studentmodulehistoryextended table have the following settings.

"ENABLE_CSMH_EXTENDED": true
"ENABLE_READING_FROM_MULTIPLE_HISTORY_TABLES": true

A system with this configuration writes to the new coursewarehistoryextended_studentmodulehistoryextended table only, but queries both tables.

Note

Only set ENABLE_READING_FROM_MULTIPLE_HISTORY_TABLES to true for an existing site that does not choose the data migration option. For new installations, this setting should be false.

You can also completely destroy and rebuild your devstack if you prefer by using vagrant destroy before running vagrant provision. If you use this approach, update your Vagrantfile to ensure that you retrieve the newest base box. For more information, see the “Download the Vagrantfile” section of the devstack wiki.

cd devstack
vagrant destroy
vagrant provision

Please note, this procedure does not remove your git source control directories under the devstack directory.

Migrate All Data to One Table#

This option is suitable for installations that have a large number of records in the coursewarehistoryextended_studentmodulehistoryextended table, such as large production instances.

If you select this option, you set up the new database and table and then migrate all existing data to the new table. When the process is complete, the system uses only the new table. This is the procedure that edX followed for edx.org and edX Edge.

For more information, see Why Is A New Database Needed?.

An outline of the steps you complete follows.

  1. Create the edxapp_csmh database.

  2. Update lms.yml with a new entry in the DATABASES section.

    If you use the edxapp Ansible role to update lms.yml, the system automatically merges an update to the edxapp_databases dictionary in edxapp/defaults/main.yml.

  3. Update lms.yml to set "ENABLE_CSMH_EXTENDED": true.

  4. Run migrations to create the new database table.

  5. Deploy so that all new data is being written to the new coursewarehistoryextended_studentmodulehistoryextended table.

  6. Migrate all data from courseware_studentmodulehistory to coursewarehistoryextended_studentmodulehistoryextended.

  7. Update lms.yml to set "ENABLE_READING_FROM_MULTIPLE_HISTORY_TABLES": false.

  8. Truncate courseware_studentmodulehistory.

As soon as you deploy a system with ENABLE_CSMH_EXTENDED enabled, the system writes only to the coursewarehistoryextended_studentmodulehistoryextended table, but it reads from both that table and the courseware_studentmodulehistory table. To reduce the overhead of querying two tables in two databases, you migrate data and then set "ENABLE_READING_FROM_MULTIPLE_HISTORY_TABLES": false.

For more information, see Procedures for Replacing courseware_studentmodulehistory.