Metacat Properties File

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Metacat Server has properties that are stored in two general locations. Global properties are held in:

<CONTEXT_DIR>*/WEB_INF/metacat.properties.

Skin specific properties are set on a per-skin basis in:

<CONTEXT_DIR>*/WEB_INF/style/skins/<SKIN_NAME>/<SKIN_NAME>.properties

The most dynamic properties are modified using the internal Metacat configuration utility . However, it may be necessary to manually edit a configuration file to update more static values.

The list of properties shown on this page gives the following information about each property:

Property Name - the header for each section is the name of the property as it appears in the property file.
Default Value - the default value set for that property if any.
Description - what does the property control and how can it be set.
Set Method - how does the value get set in the properties file. There are two options:
- Configuration Utility - the value is set via the internal Metacat configuration utility
- Manually - the value is set to a default that can only be changed by manually editing the configuration file.
Example - an example setting for the property.

(* CONTEXT_DIR refers to the directory where the Metacat application code lives. This is a combination of the web application directory and the metacat context directory. This usually looks something like /usr/local/tomcat/webapps/knb. However, your webapps directory could be somewhere besides the tomcat directory and your context could be something other than knb.)

Global Metacat Properties - (metacat.properties)

server.name

Default Value:

localhost

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

The network host name that will be used to access Metacat. Note that this is not necessarily the physical name of the server running Metacat. The host name should not include the protocol prefix (http://).

Example:

knb.ecoinformatics.org

server.httpPort

Default Value:

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

The network port that will be used to access Metacat for non-secure (standard) connections. This is usually 80 if Apache web server is running (typical install), and 8080 if Tomcat is running alone, but both Apache and Tomcat could have been configured to listen on alternate ports.

Example:

server.httpSSLPort

Default Value:

443

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

The network port that will be used to access Metacat for secure connections. This is usually 443 if Apache web server is running (typical install), and 8443 if Tomcat is running alone, but both Apache and Tomcat could have been configured to listen on alternate ports.

Example:

443

application.metacatVersion

Default Value:

1.9.0

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The Metacat version number. usually, this should never be changed. It is set by the build engineer at build time.

Example:

1.9.0

application.deployDir

Default Value:

(none)

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

The directory where web applications are deployed. Many times this is in a directory named "webapps" in the Tomcat installation directory. However, Tomcat may be configured to look in a different directory.

Example:

/usr/local/tomcat/webapps

application.context

Default Value:

(none)

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

Applications run in individual directories in the applicaton deployment directory. The name of the application directory is the application context. This corresponds to the first part of the war file name (the part before .war). Most commonly, this is "knb", but it can be changed to other things.

Example:

knb

application.default-style

Default Value:

default

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

There are some custom web skins available in Metacat. Typically these are associated with an organizational theme. If there is not a custom skin for your organization, you should leave it as "default".

Example:

default

application.knbSiteURL

Default Value:

http://knb.ecoinformatics.org

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

The KNB site to redirect to.

Example:

http://knb.ecoinformatics.org

application.datafilepath

Default Value:

/var/metacat/data

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

This is the directory whera data files will be stored. This should be some directory outside the Metacat installation directories so data files will not get lost when Metacat is upgraded. The data file directory must be writable by the user that starts Tomcat (and thus Metacat).

Example:

/var/metacat/data

application.inlinedatafilepath

Default Value:

/var/metacat/inline-data

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

This is the directory where inline data files will be stored. Inline data files are created from data that is embedded in EML metadata. This should be some directory outside the Metacat installation directories so data files will not get lost when Metacat is upgraded. For clarity of data, this should probably not be the same as application.datafilepath. The data file directory must be writable by the user that starts Tomcat (and thus Metacat).

Example:

/var/metacat/inline-data

application.cgiDir

Default Value:

TODO MCD add this

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

This is the directory that is configured in Apache web server to have CGI executables.

Example:

TODO MCD add this

database.connectionURI

Default Value:

jdbc:postgresql://localhost/metacat

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

The jdbc connection URI for the main database instance of Metacat. The uri is formatted like:
jdbc:<database_type>:thin@<your_server_name>:1521:<metacat_database_name>
An empty database must have been created prior to Metacat configuration.

Example:

jdbc:postgresql://yourserver.yourdomain.edu/metacat

database.user

Default Value:

(none)

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

The user for the main database instance of Metacat. The user must have already been created on the database.

Example:

metacat-user

database.password

Default Value:

(none)

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

The password of the user for the main database instance of Metacat. The password must have already been created for the user.

Example:

securepassword4843

database.type

Default Value:

(none)

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

The type of database you are running. Currently, there are two supported types, Oracle and Postgres.

Example:

postgres

database.driver

Default Value:

(none)

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

The JDBC driver to be used to access the main database instance of Metacat. There is one of these associated with each type of database.

Example:

org.postgresql.Driver

database.adapter

Default Value:

(none)

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

The adapter class that allows Metacat to access your database type. There is one of these associated with each type of database.

Example:

edu.ucsb.nceas.dbadapter.PostgresqlAdapter

database.scriptsuffix.<database_type>

Default Value:

database.scriptsuffix.postgres=postgres.sql
database.scriptsuffix.oracle=oracle.sql

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

There is a database.scriptsuffix entry for every supported type of database. These tell the system which database scripts to run when installing or updating database schema.

Example:

postgres.sql

database.upgradeVersion.<database_version>

Default Value:

    database.upgradeVersion.0.0.0=xmltables,loaddtdschema
    database.upgradeVersion.1.2.0=upgrade-db-to-1.2
    database.upgradeVersion.1.3.0=upgrade-db-to-1.3
    database.upgradeVersion.1.4.0=upgrade-db-to-1.4
    database.upgradeVersion.1.5.0=upgrade-db-to-1.5
    database.upgradeVersion.1.6.0=upgrade-db-to-1.6
    database.upgradeVersion.1.7.0=upgrade-db-to-1.7
    database.upgradeVersion.1.8.0=upgrade-db-to-1.8
    database.upgradeVersion.1.9.0=upgrade-db-to-1.9

Set Method:

Configuration Utility

Description:

There is a database.scriptsuffix entry for every metacat database schema version. (Note that a schema version corresponds to an application version.) These tell the system which database scripts to run when installing or updating database schema.

Example:

upgrade-db-to-1.2

database.initialConnections

Default Value:

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The number of initial connection that Metacat creates to the database.

Example:

database.incrementConnections

Default Value:

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The number of connections that are created when Metacat needs more connections.

Example:

database.maximumConnections

Default Value:

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The maximum number of database connections Metacat can make.

Example:

database.maximumConnectionAge

Default Value:

120000

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The maximum time in milliseconds that a database connection can live.

Example:

120000

database.maximumConnectionTime

Default Value:

60000

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The maximum time in milliseconds that a database connection can accumulate in actual connection time.

Example:

60000

database.maximumUsageNumber

Default Value:

100

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The maximum number of times a single connection can be used.

Example:

100

database.numberOfIndexingThreads

Default Value:

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The number of threads available for indexing.

Example:

database.indexingTimerTaskTime

Default Value:

604800000

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The time in milliseconds between indexing.

Example:

604800000

database.indexingInitialDelay

Default Value:

3600000

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The delay in milliseconds before first indexing is executed.

Example:

3600000

database.maximumIndexDelay

Default Value:

5000

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The time in milliseconds that an indexing thread will wait when it can't get a doc id before retrying the indexing.

Example:

5000

database.runDBConnectionRecycleThread

Default Value:

off

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

Determines whether the database connection pool should run a thread to recycle connections. Possible values are "on" and "off"

Example:

off

database.cycleTimeOfDBConnection

Default Value:

30000

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

The time in milliseconds between connection recycling runs.

Example:

30000

database.queryignoredparams

Default Value:

enableediting,foo

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

Parameters to ignore in a structured xml query.

Example:

enableediting

database.usexmlindex

Default Value:

true

Set Method:

Manual

Description:

Determines whether to use xml indexes when finding documents. Possible values are true and false.

Example:

true

Property	Description	Possible or default value
config-dir	directory where the style-sets exist	/opt/tomcat/webapps/metacat/lib
default-style	the style-set to use if qformat is set to 'html'
xmlcatalogfile	The default file type catalog file location. DEPRECATED	/opt/tomcat/webapps/xmltodb/catalog.txt
siteCode	The code for the current site.	nceas
accNumSeparator	The separator that is used to separate the three parts of the accession number: codename, sequence and revision number. changing this parameter will likely break the application, so make sure you know what you are doing. It should be synchronized with the Client application.	. (period)
saxparser	The SAX parser to be used to parse XML documents.	org.apache.xerces.parsers.SAXParser
servletpath	The path on the local machine to the Metacat Servlet.	/knb/servlet/metacat
htmlpath	The path to the HTML server for this Metacat context. This is where the Metacat web interface would be served from.	/knb
packagedoctype	The doctype of a package file. The system will only recognize documents of this type as a Package files.	-//NCEAS//eml-dataset-2.0//EN
accessdoctype	The doctype of an access control list (ACL) file. The system will only recognize documents of this type as an Access files.	-//NCEAS//eml-access-2.0//EN
server	The server on which this Metacat server runs.	dev.nceas.ucsb.edu:8090
authclass	The authorization plugin to use. In this example, LDAP.	edu.ucsb.nceas.metacat.AuthLdap
ldapurl	The path to your LDAP server (if LDAP authentication is being used.	ldap://ldap.nceas.ucsb.edu:389/
ldapsurl	The path to your LDAP server with SSL support. (if LDAP authentication is being used and if your LDAT server is set with SSL support.) 2 ports are used to listen: 389 for plain sockets and 636 for SSL Sockect. If your LDAP server is not set to support SSL this property should be the same as ldapurl, else Metacat will retieve an error.	ldap://ldap.nceas.ucsb.edu:636/
ldapbase	LDAP base parameters for the LDAP server.	o=NCEAS,c=US
referral	The type of ldap referrals you want to use. Eithe 'follow', 'throw' or 'none'. See the ldap documentation for further information	follow
deltaT	The default delta T used for replication.	60
replicationpath	The relative path to the replication servlet.	/knb/servlet/replication
replicationlog	Location of the replication log file.	/logs/Metacatreplication.log
dtdPath	Path to which DTDs are uploaded.	/opt/tomcat/webapps/knb/dtd/
dtdURL	The HTTP accessable URL to the DTD files specified in dtdPath.	http://server.domain.com/knb/dtd/
datafilepath	The path to which you want data files uploaded.	/opt/tomcat/webapps/knb/data
certPath	path to the SSL keys for secure transmissions.	/opt/tomcat/webapps/metacat/lib
administrators	The administrators parameter lists the accounts that are allowed to perform administrative actions such as rebuilding indices for documents. The list can can contain more than one account separated by colons.	Default: `uid=jones,o=NCEAS,dc=ecoinformatics,dc=org` Examples: `uid=localadmin,o=ucnrs.org`

Additional properties that probably do not need to be changed
configured	Configuration flag	true
configurationPage	The page to do metacat configuration	/configure.jsp
configurationSuccessPage	The page to show successful message after configuration	/configure-restart.jsp
version	Release version.	1.7.1
maximumConnectionAge		120000
maximumConnectionTime		60000
maximumUsageNumber		100
numberOfIndexingThreads		5
indexingTimerTaskTime		604800000
indexingInitialDelay		3600000
maximumIndexDelay		5000
runDBConnectionRecycleThread		off
cycleTimeOfDBConnection		30000
timedreplication	Determines whether timed replication to other metacat servers is being used.	Default: `false` Other possible values: `true`
firsttimedreplication	The time for starting first timed replication if timedreplication is true. (See comments in build.properties file for additional details.)	Default: `10:00 PM`
timedreplicationinterval	The interval to next timed replication if timedreplication is true. The value is in milliseconds and default value is 48 hours.	Default: `172800000`
forcereplicationwaitingtime
eml2_0_0namespace	Namespace of EML 2.0.0 documents.	eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.0.0
eml2_0_1namespace	Namespace of EML 2.0.1 documents.	eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.0.1
eml2_1_0namespace	Namespace of EML 2.1.0 documents. Currently unused, reserved.	eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.1.0
physicaldoctype		-//ecoinformatics.org//eml-physical-2.0.0beta6//EN, -//ecoinformatics.org//eml-physical-2.0.0beta4//EN
entitydoctype		-//ecoinformatics.org//eml-entity-2.0.0beta6//EN, -//ecoinformatics.org//eml-entity-2.0.0beta4//EN
packagedoctypeset
httpserver	httpserver is the plain HTTP address and port number that Metacat uses for purposes other than replication. Since this property is usually composed of the `config.hosthame` and `config.port` properties (described above), the default setting can be used in most cases.	Default: `${config.hostname}:${config.port}`
junittesturl	The url of the test server.
replicationerrorlog
schemaPath	Path to installed XSD schemas.
schemaURL	URL to installed XSD schemas.
inlinedatafilepath	Path for storing data that was extracted from `inline` element of EML documents.
context	The name of the servlet context
debuglevel	Verbosity of debugging messages. Higher numbers means more debugging detail.
datafileflag		datafile
datafilesizelimit	Limit on file size for uploaded data files.	1000
defaultcontenttype
query.ignored.params	Parameters that are passed through to XSLT style sheets without modification.	enableediting,foo
usexmlindex	Flag indicating whether to use the traditional xml_index table or not. This needs to be set on startup, and once set to false can not be changed back to true without significant database modifications. Setting this option to 'false' also slows down queries significantly, but it does allow arbitrarily deep dcoument paths. Not recommended to change this setting -- data loss may result.	true
app_resultsetsize	Used for the setting the size of resultset that is processed at a time for applications like morpho	400
web_resultsetsize	Used for the setting the size of resultset for search done using browser	900
queryresult_string_length	Used for the setting the size of queryresult_string in queryresult table	4000
queryresult_cache_size	The size of query result cache.	Default: 500
query_cache_on	Turn the query result cache on or off	Default: true
xml_returnfield_count	Value of xml_returnfield.usage_count should be more than this value for records to be entered into xml_queryresult	0
moderators	Moderator accounts, in a colon-separated list. Special users who will review general user's submission. Moderators can approve, revise and reject the submission after reviewing. This property is only used in ESA skin.	Default: `cn=knb-prod,o=NCEAS,dc=ecoinformatics,dc=org`
allowedSubmitters	Specifies the list of users who should be allowed to submit documents. If no value is specified (the default setting), all users will be allowed to submit documents.	Default: (no value)
deniedSubmitters	Specify the list of users who should not be allowed to submit documents. If no value is specified (the default setting), all users will be allowed to submit documents.	Default: (no value)
indexNamespaces	A comma-separated list of doctypes which will be indexed	Default: eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.0.0,eml://ecoinformatics.org/eml-2.0.1
indexPaths	See description of build properties	Default: `organizationName,originator/individualName/surName,...`
ldapconnecttimelimit	The time in milliseconds allowed for ldap server connections.	Default: 5000
ldapsearchtimelimit	The time in milliseconds allowed for ldap server searches.	Default: 30000
ldapsearchcountlimit	The count of return entries allowed for ldap server searches.	Default: 30000
onlySecureLDAPConnection	When set to true, connects main LDAP server only by SSL	Default: false
onlySecureLDAPReferalsConnection	When set to true, connects referal LDAP server only by SSL	Default: false
skinconfigfiles	List of skins which have configure files	Default: esa,nceas,knb,obfs,nrs,sanparks
writeDebugToFile	Used for writing debug info into a another output file.	Default: true
debugOutputFile	Output file name where debug info will be written.	Default: /tmp/metacat.debug
delimiteredOutputFile	Delimited text output file name where debug info will be written.	Default: /tmp/metacat.debug.delimitered
Metacat Harvester properties: connectToMetacat, delay, harvesterAdministrator, logPeriod, maxHarvests, period, smtpServer, GetDocError, GetDocSuccess, GetHarvestListError, GetHarvestListSuccess, HarvesterStartup, HarvesterShutdown, InsertDocError, InsertDocSuccess, MetacatHasDoc, UpdateDocError, UpdateDocSuccess, ValidateDocError, ValidateDocSuccess, ValidateHarvestListError, ValidateHarvestListSuccess	See Metacat Harvester documentation
Spatial properties: runSpatialOption, regenerateCacheOnRestart, spatialDocnameList, eml_westBoundingCoordinatePath, eml_eastBoundingCoordinatePath, eml_southBoundingCoordinatePath, eml_northBoundingCoordinatePath, fgdc_westBoundingCoordinatePath, fgdc_eastBoundingCoordinatePath, fgdc_southBoundingCoordinatePath, fgdc_northBoundingCoordinatePath, metadata_westBoundingCoordinatePath, metadata_eastBoundingCoordinatePath, metadata_southBoundingCoordinatePath, metadata_northBoundingCoordinatePath, docTitle, metacatUrl, baseUrl	See Metacat Spatial Option documentation
sitemapDirectory	The relative directory path in which sitemap files should be written.	Default: {tomcat_dir}/webapps/{context_name}/sitemaps
sitemapInterval	The time interval (in milliseconds) between rebuilding the sitemap.	Default: 86400000

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