"The database contains objects with non-Unicode characters" error from R80.x Pre-Upgrade Verification during database export
R80.10/R80.20 uses the Unicode character set and the UTF-8 encoding to store non-English (non-ASCII) characters.
In previous R7x.x versions, SmartDashboard allowed the user to use other encodings for non-English characters in definition of some objects.
For example: names of rules, user names, and comments for rules. In order to be able to convert an encoding of non-English characters to UTF-8 during an upgrade to R80.10, an action on the user side during database export is required.
Before exporting the management database with R80.10/R80.20 migration tools, or before starting the in-place upgrade using CPUSE, create a new file named db_encoding.txt in the $FWDIR/conf/ directory (in case of Security Management Server) or $MDSDIR/conf/ directory (in case of Multi-Domain Server) and write in it the value of the encoding used for non-English characters.
In order to identify the non-Unicode encoding used on the Windows SmartConsole machine, download and run this utility that detects and displays the encoding.
Extract and run the utility on the Windows SmartConsole machine and write the detected value in the db_encoding.txt file.
Notes:
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If a wrong encoding was selected, then the upgrade would still succeed, but during the upgrade, contents of object fields that contain non-English characters
will be converted to an ASCII representation of bytes used for the original text in the field.
For example, the Russian word for 'hello' ('привет') in CP1251 encoding will be converted to the following string: 'ef_f0_e8_e2_e5_f2'
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It is supported to use encodings that include "WINDOWS" (e.g., "WINDOWS-1252") on Gaia OS
Usage Example:
- For Security Management Server:
[Expert@HostName]# vi $FWDIR/conf/db_encoding.txt
[Expert@HostName]# vi $MDSDIR/conf/db_encoding.txt
Then add the encoding detected by the Encoding detection utility.
Example if the utility displayed WINDOWS-1252:
[Expert@HostName]# cat db_encoding.txt
WINDOWS-1252
The following is the list of supported encodings:
