Management Center Configuration Tool

The Management Center Configuration Tool (hz-mc conf) is a command line tool that allows you to automate processes that require configuring Management Center, without using the UI.

This tool makes changes to the configuration settings in the hazelcast-mc directory of the user's home directory. As a result, the tool must be used on the same device as the Management Center web application is deployed on, and Management Center must not be running while using the tool.

tip

For a fully declarative, GitOps-friendly alternative that reuses the same underlying configuration logic as this tool, see YAML declarative configuration (Beta).

Get started

To use the hz-mc conf tool, execute the hz-mc conf command in the bin/ directory of the Management Center distribution. This command is available as a shell script (hz-mc conf) for Linux and Mac or a batch file (mc-conf.bat) for Windows.

1. Make sure Management Center isn't running.

   You cannot use this tool while Management Center is running.

2. To see all available commands, execute the hz-mc conf command with no additional arguments.

   Linux and Mac

   bash

   hz-mc conf

   Windows

   bash

   mc-conf.bat

   tip

   If you've set a non-default home directory with the hazelcast.mc.home property, you must provide the path to the home directory with the -H or --home options.

3. To see documentation for a specific command, enter the command, followed by the -h flag.

   Linux and Mac

   bash

   hz-mc conf user -h

   Windows

   bash

   mc-conf.bat user -h

4. To see documentation for a specific task, enter the command, followed by the task and the -h flag.

   Linux and Mac

   bash

   hz-mc conf user create -h

   Windows

   bash

   mc-conf.bat user create -h

Commands

The hz-mc conf tool comes with the following commands. Each command includes tasks that you can execute.

Command	Description
cluster	Manage cluster connections. See Connect with hz-mc conf.
user	Manage users in the default security provider. See Local security provider
ldap	Manage the LDAP security provider. See LDAP
active-directory	Manage the Active Directory security provider. See Active Directory
jaas	Manage the JAAS security provider. See JAAS
oidc	Manage the OpenID Connect security provider. See OpenID Connect
saml	Manage the SAML security provider. See SAML
security	Manage security providers. See Switch to a new security provider
set	Change some settings in Management Center.
get	Read some settings from Management Center.
dev-mode	Manage the dev mode security provider. See Dev mode

Skip the check for a lock file

When you execute hz-mc conf or mc-conf.bat, the script checks if Management Center is running by looking for a lock file called mc.lock in the Management Center home directory. If the mc.lock file is found, the script exits with an error. You can disable this check by starting Management Center with the hazelcast.mc.lock.skip property.

bash

export JAVA_OPTS='-Dhazelcast.mc.lock.skip=true'
hz-mc conf ...

This property can be useful when you run Management Center on Kubernetes, and the home directory is on a mounted persistent volume. In this case, when Kubernetes restarts the container for any reason, the mc.lock file won't be deleted, therefore the next startup will be prevented due to the lock file.

Hide sensitive configuration in the UI

The set sensitive-properties task configures the sensitive properties that must not be shown in plain text in Management Center. --hidden-properties is a comma-separated list of member properties to be hidden in the member properties. --masked-config-properties is a comma-separated list of XPath expressions in the member configuration to be masked.

tip

This can also be set with the sensitiveProperties key of a YAML declarative configuration file (Beta).

Secure interactive prompt for passwords

By default, passwords are displayed in the console as you type. If you want to hide your password from the console, you can use a secure interactive prompt.

To use a secure interactive prompt, enter the password option without providing a value. For example, instead of --password=<password>, use --password.

When you use the --password option without providing a value, you will get a prompt to enter a value on the console.

bash

hz-mc conf user update-password --username=admin --password
Enter value for --password (Password for the user record. Provide value directly,
or use without value to enter securely with interactive prompt.): ********
Successfully changed password for user 'admin'.

As you can see in the above example, the password input is not echoed to the console since it's provided with the secure interactive mode.

Verbose output

Use the -v or --verbose flag to enable full logging output, including full stack traces.

bash

hz-mc conf cluster add --cluster-name=dev --cluster-address=localhost:5701 --verbose

Lenient mode

Use the -l or --lenient flag to exit with code 0 when trying to add an object that already exists, instead of failing with an error. This is useful in automation scripts where you want the command to fail silently if the object is already configured.

bash

hz-mc conf cluster add --cluster-name=dev --cluster-address=localhost:5701 --lenient

Argument files

When an argument beginning with the character @ is encountered, it is treated as a path leading to a text file. The contents of that file are automatically expanded into the current task. An example of the argument file usage is shown below.

bash

hz-mc conf user update-password @arg-file.txt
Successfully changed password for user 'admin'.
cat arg-file.txt
--username=admin --password=mnb3c4s0