Import and export

When a project depends on a repository, it is a common task to import or export content to and from that repository. Scenarios include archiving files, synchronizing data between related repositories (or staging and live systems) or installing an initial data structure into a brand new repository.

The sensenet IO tool and library solves these problems. You can use it as a command line tool or integrate the IO functionality into your own program.

This article is a high-level overview of this tool. For detailed command line arguments and features please visit the sensenet IO tool and library on GitHub.

Installation

You can get the SnIO tool in the following ways:

• integrate the SenseNet.IO NuGet package into your application and use our API to manage content in your repository
• compile the source code in this repository and use the tool from the SenseNet.IO.CLI folder
• BETA: install the tool as a dotnet tool from NuGet and use it anywhere from command line. The following command will install the sensenet IO tool as a global dotnet tool:

dotnet tool install -g sensenet.io.cli

Scenarios

There are four scenarios offered by the built-in tool.

• EXPORT: Transfer content from a sensenet repository to the file system.
• IMPORT: Transfer content from the file system to a sensenet repository.
• COPY: Transfer content between file system directories :).
• SYNC: Transfer content from a sensenet repository to another repository.

When using the tool, you provide the scenario name as the first parameter.

Configuration

In this article we assume you execute the snio tool either from a local directory or installed it as a global dotnet tool. In both cases you will need to provide the repository connection information in the following local configuration file:

providerSettings.json

It is possible to provide some of these values from the command line. It is up to you whether you choose to combine these two modes.

Every scenario needs logging. The following is a recommended generic logging configuration:

{
    "display": { 
        "level": "Verbose" // None, Progress, Errors, Verbose. Default: Errors
    },
    "Serilog": {
        "Using": [ "Serilog.Sinks.Console", "Serilog.Sinks.File" ],
        "MinimumLevel": {
        "Default": "Verbose",
        "Override": {
            "Microsoft": "Warning",
            "System": "Warning"
        }
        },
        "WriteTo": [
            { "Name": "Console" },
            {
                "Name": "File",
                "Args": {
                "path": "logs/SenseNet.IO-.txt",
                "rollingInterval": "Day"
                }
            }
        ]
    }
}

See scenario-specific additional configuration values below. Most of them will require authentication. To read more about that, please visit the API and security page on admin UI or the authentication article.

Export

To be able to export from a sensenet repository, you will need to provide connection info to the repository and a target folder in your local file system. Add the following sections to the config file:

"repositoryReader": {
    "url": "https://example.com", // Repository url
    "path": "/Root/Content", // Source path. Default: "/Root",
    "blockSize": null, // Contents per request. Default: 10.
    "Authentication": {
      "ClientId": "...", // connect as an authenticated user
      "ClientSecret": "..." 
    } 
}

To configure the target folder, please provide the path:

"fsWriter": {
    "path": "D:\\temp\\export",
    "name": null // Optional. Default: name of the reader's root.
}

To execute the tool, simply call it providing the scenario name. Everything else will be loaded from the configuration:

snio export

Import

To be able to import content to a sensenet repository, you will need to provide connection info to the repository and a source folder in your local file system. The source folder should contain the import structure (folders, simple files or .Content files). Add the following sections to the config file:

"fsReader": {
    "path": "D:\\temp\\import"
},
"repositoryWriter": {
    "url": "https://example.com", // Target repository URL
    "path": "/Root/Content", // Target path. Default: "/",
    "name": null, // Target name under the container. Default: name of the reader's root.
    "Authentication": {
      "ClientId": "...", // connect as an authenticated user
      "ClientSecret": "..." 
    }
},

To execute the tool, simply call it providing the scenario name. Everything else will be loaded from the configuration:

snio import