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HCL Commerce is a high-availability, highly scalable and customizable e-commerce platform. Able to support hundreds of thousands of transactions per day, HCL Commerce allows you to do business with consumers (B2C) or directly with businesses (B2B). HCL Commerce uses cloud friendly technology to make deployment and operation both easy and efficient. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels. Business users can also use AI enabled content management capabilities.
Reference
Topics in the Reference section contain all of the HCL Commerce reference documentation.
Utilities
In HCL Commerce utilities are scripts that perform operations such as loading access control policies, loading store data, and cleaning the database of obsolete objects. In runtime environments, run utilities from the Utility server Docker container. In the development environment, run utilities from the bin directory.
encryptChallengeAnswer
The encryptChallengeAnswer utility encrypts plain text data that is stored in the database column USERREG.CHALLENGEANSWER.

Documentation
HCL Commerce is a high-availability, highly scalable and customizable e-commerce platform. Able to support hundreds of thousands of transactions per day, HCL Commerce allows you to do business with consumers (B2C) or directly with businesses (B2B). HCL Commerce uses cloud friendly technology to make deployment and operation both easy and efficient. It provides easy-to-use tools for business users to centrally manage a cross-channel strategy. Business users can create and manage precision marketing campaigns, promotions, catalog, and merchandising across all sales channels. Business users can also use AI enabled content management capabilities.
- Getting started
  HCL Commerce has different advantages for business users, administrators and developers. HCL Commerce targets each of these roles with a tailored set of offerings so that each of your users can get maximum benefit.
- Installing and deploying
  Learn how to install and deploy HCL Commerce development environments and HCL Commerce production environments.
- Migrating
  Before you migrate to HCL Commerce Version 9, review this information to help plan and execute your migration.
- Operating
  Topics in the Operating category highlight tasks that are typically performed by business users, customer support representatives, to complete their day-to-day tasks in the operation of the HCL Commerce site.
- Integrating
  Topics in the Integrating category highlight the tasks that are commonly performed for using HCL Commerce in combination with other products.
- Administering
  Topics in the Administering category highlight tasks that are typically performed by the Site Administrator, to support daily operations of the HCL Commerce site.
- Customizing
  The topics in the Customizing section describe tasks performed by an application developer to customize HCL Commerce.
- Tutorials
  HCL Commerce provides many tutorials to help you customize and understand your HCL Commerce instance and stores.
- Samples
  Topics in the Samples category highlight the various samples that are provided with HCL Commerce.
- Compliance
  The following section describes how you can leverage HCL Commerce features and functionality to help your site be compliant with different privacy and security standards.
- Securing
  These topics describe the security features of HCL Commerce and how to configure these features.
- Performance
  Topics in the Performance section describe the means by which to plan, implement, test, and re-visit the optimization of HCL Commerce site performance.
- Troubleshooting
  Topics in the Troubleshooting section highlight common issues that are encountered with HCL Commerce, and how they can be addressed or mitigated.
- Reference
  Topics in the Reference section contain all of the HCL Commerce reference documentation.
  - HCL Commerce API reference
    HCL Commerce exposes two main programming APIs. The first and newest API is a REST interface, and most new classes are exposed here. The legacy Java API also contains new classes not suitable for REST, and can be browsed in Javadoc format.
  - Cross-reference of data beans and tables
    Data beans are grouped into several component groups.
  - Cross-reference of commands, tasks, and tables
    URL commands, controller commands, task commands, view commands and tables are related to each other.
  - Cross reference: Commands to beans to database tables
    Use this information when you are customizing a command and you want to know which tables are affected. You should also use this topic if you are modifying a table and want to know which commands and beans are affected.
  - Run Engine commands
    The following Run Engine commands are available by default for you to configure the applications that are running inside the containers.
  - Entering Docker containers
    To enter a Docker container you can complete the following steps.
  - Docker container start up logic for 9.0.0.0 and 9.0.0.1
    When you deploy a container from an HCL provided image, an Entrypoint.sh helper script determines the configurations to use while starting up the container. Review the following information to learn about what the helper script does, and how you can customize the configurations.
  - Docker container start up logic for HCL Commerce Version 9.0.0.2 or later
    When you deploy a container from an HCL provided image, an Entrypoint.sh helper script determines the configurations to use while starting up the container. Review the following information to learn about what the helper script does, and how you can customize the configurations.
  - HCL Commerce database schema
    The HCL Commerce database model was designed for data integrity and optimal performance. HCL Commerce provides several hundred tables that store HCL Commerce instance data. To maintain data integrity, and to ease maintenance referential integrity, constraints are widely used in the database model. Indexes are used carefully on tables to avoid over-indexing and to provide a good balance between data retrieval and data manipulation activities (insert and update). The business rules are implemented at the application level rather than by using database trigger. Triggers, however, are used to facilitate data staging and optimistic locking. A limited number of SQL-based database stored procedures are used for data intensive activities.
  - Payments subsystem
    In HCL Commerce, payment processing uses the Payments subsystem.
  - Dynamic caching
    In general, caching improves response time and reduces system load. Caching techniques are used to improve the performance of World Wide Web Internet applications. Most techniques cache static content (content that rarely changes) such as graphic and text files. However, many websites serve dynamic content, containing personalized information or data that changes more frequently. Caching dynamic content requires more sophisticated caching techniques, such as those provided by the WebSphere Application Server dynamic cache, a built-in service for caching and serving dynamic content.
  - HCL Commerce store pages properties
  - Cache-entry elements
    The root element of the cachespec.xml file, <cache>, contains <cache-entry> elements. The WebSphere dynamic cache service parses the cachespec.xml file during start-up, and extracts a set of configuration parameters from each <cache-entry> element.
  - Data Load utility configuration file schema
    The Data Load utility contains several configuration files. You can use the configuration file schema to understand and customize the data load configuration files.
  - HCL Commerce web services
    HCL Commerce provides many web services.
  - Utilities
    In HCL Commerce utilities are scripts that perform operations such as loading access control policies, loading store data, and cleaning the database of obsolete objects. In runtime environments, run utilities from the Utility server Docker container. In the development environment, run utilities from the bin directory.
    - Running utilities from the Utility server Docker container
      To run utilities, enter the Utility server Docker container container and use a bash shell.
    - acpload
      The acpload utility loads the XML files that contain the main access control policies into the appropriate databases.
    - acpnlsload
      The acpnlsload utility loads the XML files that contain display names and descriptions into the appropriate databases.
    - acugload
      The acugload utility loads the XML files containing the user (access) group definitions into the appropriate databases.
    - ContractExport
      This URL exports a contract to an XML file.
    - ContractImportApprovedVersion
      This URL imports a contract in XML format into HCL Commerce.
    - dataload
      This utility loads data from a source file into a target database. Loading the file populates and updates the HCL Commerce database. You can also use the Data Load utility to delete data from a database.
    - dataextract
      The Data Extract utility, which uses the Data Load utility framework, extracts data from the HCL Commerce database into an output file.
    - dbclean
      The Database Cleanup utility (dbclean) removes unused or obsolete objects from the database.
    - di-buildindex
      The di-buildindex utility is a wrapping utility that updates the information in the Master Index with the Data Import Handler (DIH) service to build the index. The information is updated either partially through delta index updates or completely through full index builds.
    - di-preprocess
      The di-preprocess utility extracts and flattens WebSphere Commerce data and then outputs the data into a set of temporary tables inside the HCL Commerce database. The data in the temporary tables is then used by the index building utility to populate the data into search indexes with the Data Import Handler (DIH).
    - di-parallel-process
      The di-parallel-process utility indexes preprocessed shards based on a configured input properties file.
    - encryptChallengeAnswer
      The encryptChallengeAnswer utility encrypts plain text data that is stored in the database column USERREG.CHALLENGEANSWER.
    - exportstats
      This utility exports marketing statistics to an XML file.
    - importstats
      This utility imports marketing statistics from a source XML file.
    - MigrateEncryptedInfo
      MigrateEncryptedInfo is a utility for changing the merchant key and re-encrypting all encrypted data in the database.
    - MigrateEncryptedFiles
      The MigrateEncryptedFiles utility updates the encrypted information in configuration files from 3DES encryption to AES encryption, and sets the encryption mechanism to AES.
    - runSQL
      The runSQL utility runs SQL statements defined in one or more files against a database.
    - seourlkeywordgen
      When you are installing the search engine optimization feature to create shorter SEO friendly URLs, HCL Commerce needs SEO keywords for the product and category pages of the store. The seourlkeywordgen utility creates these SEO keywords that are based on the object name.
    - stagingcopy
      The stagingcopy utility copies data from the production database to the production-ready data on a staging or authoring environment.
    - stagingprop
      The stagingprop utility propagates staged data and managed files from the production-ready data to the production environment. It consolidates the changed data from the production-ready database, and then it propagates the necessary changed data into the production database if the connection is available.
    - updatedb
      The updatedb utility updates the HCL Commerce database to the latest release level that is installed on your system.
    - updateua
      You can use the updateua utility to update the database user authorizations for a user or schema on an HCL Commerce database. You can use this utility in any environment to update user authorizations to grant or revoke authorization for any database object that you own.
    - updateVersionSchema
      The UpdateVersionSchema utility identifies which tables to be versioned, and then creates the tables in your version schema. This utility replicates newly added tables marked to be versioned from the base schema into the version schema.
    - CM_updateWorkspacesSchema script
      Use the update workspaces schema script when you change your base schema and need to update your workspaces schema to include the changes.
    - CM_updateWorkspacesTable script
      Use the update workspaces table script when you make schema changes to a table and need to update your workspaces schema to include the changes.
    - versionInfo utility
      The versionInfo utility displays HCL Commerce level.
    - wcs_encrypt
      The wcs_encrypt utility encrypts sensitive information with an optional encryption key.
    - wcs_password
      The wcs_password utility is used for encrypting user passwords to be stored in the HCL Commerce database.
    - webFeedLoad
      The webFeedLoad utility facilitates the integration of a web feed with HCL Commerce.
  - Shopping flow URLs
    HCL Commerce shopping flow URLs are organized by subsystem.
  - Messaging system URLs
    The following URLs relate to the Messaging system.
  - Scheduler URLs
    The server subsystem consists of functions that are associated with URLs that are run by the scheduler.
  - jQuery Enhancements API
    The Aurora starter store in HCL Commerce is completely written in jQuery, which is one of the most commonly used JavaScript libraries used in dynamic websites. The jQuery AJAX and events API provides an easy to use framework that meets most AJAX requirements for storefront development.
  - HCL Commerce foundation tag library
    The HCL Commerce foundation JSTL tag library is a collection of custom tags that are provided to you to support the authoring of HCL Commerce JSP files. HCL Commerce stores use the JavaServer Pages Standard Tag Library (JSTL) to perform logic, instead of Java code. At the same time, business logic is moved into data beans. The combination of these steps allows for less Java code in a JSP page.

Deprecated feature

encryptChallengeAnswer utility

The encryptChallengeAnswer utility encrypts plain text data that is stored in the database column USERREG.CHALLENGEANSWER.

The MemberSubSystem/challengeAnswerEncrypted configuration attribute in the instance configuration file must be set to true to encrypt the data.

Note: After you run the utility for the first time, you can use the MigrateEncryptedInfo utility to re-encrypt the data in USERREG.CHALLENGEANSWER.

Before you begin

Set the HostName and HostJDBCPort parameters in the utilities_root/schema/DBTYPE/migration/encryptChallengeAnswerDBUpdate.txt configuration file.

Syntax

Diagram showing the encryptChallengeAnswer utility. Parameters are described in the following list.

Parameter values

database_type: Is your database type (db2 for DB2 databases, or oracle for Oracle databases).
instance_name: Is a mandatory parameter for the name of the instance, which to update.
num_of_threads: The number of threads that are created to re-encrypt the data. It is recommended that this number matches the number of processors on the server that is running the utility.
commit_count: The number of records that are processed before the transaction is committed. Set the commit_count to the maximum number of transactions that your database transaction log allows. A suggested value for this parameter is 5000.

If the merchant keys are not retrieved from the Key Locator Framework, the following list shows the accepted parameters:

current_merchant_key: Is a mandatory parameter for the current merchant key.

If the merchant keys are retrieved from the Key Locator Framework, the accepted parameters are:

-k keys_config_file_location: Specify both the current key and the new key. The new key will be used to encrypt the challengeAnswer.

Example 1

Runtime environment

The current merchant key, 1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef, is stored in encrypted format in the instance.xml file, and you want to encrypt the existing plain text challenge answer values in the database using this merchant key. In the example, the data is stored in a DB2 database and "demo" is the instance name:

encryptChallengeAnswer db2 demo 4 5000 1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef

Note: This example is setting the num_of_threads value to 4 (for a four-processor server) and the commit_count to 5000.