Archibus Configuration Options

Once you have verified that the essential installation starts, you may wish to alter some configuration settings to suit your deployment. Most of the common configuration settings are in .properties files residing in the \WEB-INF\config\ folder.

If you change the configuration properties, you must restart Archibus on the application server in order for your changes to take effect.

This topic has the following sections:

Enabling Mobile Apps

By default, mobile services are enabled.

In \WEB-INF\config\context\applications\mobileservices.properties the default for projectId is FirstActiveProject. You only need to change this setting if you have more than one active project in afm-projects.xml.

Follow these steps to configure the mobile apps for one of your multiple projects:

  1. Open the \WEB-INF\config\context\applications\mobileservices.properties file for editing.
  2. Change the projectId to refer to the name of the project within WEB-INF/config/afm-projects.xml to which all mobile apps should sign in.

Encrypting Mobile Data

If you wish for the Archibus Mobile Framework to encrypt all data that Archibus stores on mobile devices, enter any string as the passphrase in this property.

# Passphrase used to encrypt/decrypt mobile client database. Optional. mobileServices.sqlitePassphrase=B374A26A71490437AA024E4FADD5B497FDFF1A8EA6FF12F6FB65AF2720B59CCF

If you do not wish to encrypt data, leave this passphrase blank.

If you wish to hide the passphrase, surround the phrase with the TO_ENCRYPT(...) macro.

Locales and Languages

See Enabling Languages and Locales.

Mail Properties

See Configuring Email.

Smart Client Properties

smartclient.properties.reinstall When set to True, the Smart Client will prompt the user to reinstall their software if the user is running a Smart Client version earlier than the one specified in the reinstall.version preference.
projects\remote-client-install\smartclient.install.properties

Holds a preference used by the remote Smart Client-Only installation program to set the default application server location that they all should sign in to, e.g.:

smartClient.applicationServerLocation=http://myappserver:8080/archibus/

Security Properties

The security.properties file controls Archibus security.

guestUserID. Is the Archibus User account name for the Guest account. Sites configure an instance of archibus to use "GUEST" as the login.properties. As soon as the site starts hostcomputer:8080/archibus (or other URL), Web Central presents the home page for that user (per the GUEST account's Navigation home page).
systemUserID Is the Archibus User account used to run scheduled rules. Archibus signs into this account automatically when it starts up.
useHierarchicalSecurity Controls whether Archibus enables hierarchical security.
sessionTimeout Is not used. See the Deployment Descriptor File section below.
removeUnlicensedActivitiesOnStartup If true, the server application removes any unlicensed applications from the afm_userprocs and afm_roleprocs tables for all users and roles. Unlicensed applications are those that either do not exist, or are disabled in the stock Archibus license file (ai-licenses.bin) or in the add-in third-party license files.
logoutView=login.axvw

View displayed to the user after signing out. SSO sites typically set this to schema/ab-core/views/process-navigator/logout-preauth.htm.
timeoutView=login.axvw

View displayed to the user after the session times out. SSO sites typically set this to schema/ab-core/views/process-navigator/logout-preauth.htm.
httpOnly

Default is true. Specifies whether to set Session Id Cookie to be httpOnly.

useSingleSessionForConcurrentUsers Set this to True if you want concurrent user accounts to always create a single session and sign out a single license just as named user accounts do.
groups

Specify what security group membership a user must have before they are able to perform certain sensitive operations, such as being able to run actions such as Replace Column that edit data in bulk, or alter the data dictionary schema. See also the following properties in \WEB-INF\config\context\compatibility\afm-config.xml; these properties specify security group membership for editing views seen by all users.

  • userGroupAllowedEditCanonicViews
  • userGroupAllowedEditViewAnalysis

Core Properties

The core.properties file holds preferences for the server application.

core.runScheduledRules Dictates whether this instance of the application will run the scheduled rules. In a cluster, you need only one application server to run the scheduled rules.
core.preloadFileIndex

Beginning with V.2023.02, data source caching requires the file index to be preloaded, so this option is ignored (always True). You may notice the additional time required to start Web Central.

Previously, you could control whether or not the application scanned the folder of application files and built an index for finding these files. Doing so slowed start-up but sped overall performance thereafter.
validateView If true, this preference will validate the XML of your view files (.axvw files) against the Archibus XML schema.
ignoreNonFatalErrorsOnStartup=true

When upgrading a database, use this setting to have the system ignore non-fatal errors and continue the Web Central startup process. See Ignoring Non-Fatal Errors when Upgrading a Database.

debug If true, sets the logging to archibus.log to capture additional information about requests to the application server and the database.

Login Properties

If you are troubleshooting or if you are creating add-ins for Archibus, you may wish to set the following option in login.properties

autoLogin If True, this preference allows you to have Web Central log in for you so that you can bypass the sign-in screen.

Deployment Descriptor File (length of user sessions)

The WEB-INF\web.xml deployment descriptor file relays information about the Archibus application to the application server that runs it. While this file holds many settings, the two that you may wish to set pertain to the length of the user session.

session-timeout Controls how long idle application server sessions last if they are idle before expiring automatically. Sites with large numbers of users often set this to a lower value (e.g. 5 minutes) to preserve server resources.
scriptSessionTimeout Controls how long the Ajax direct Web remoting script session lasts when idle. Set this slightly longer (e.g. 5 minutes 15 seconds) than the session-timeout.

Other Configuration Files

The \WEB-INF\config\context\* folders hold other configuration files that control the Archibus server application.

The cases in which you would want to change these files are:

The Package and Deploy Wizard migrates the settings in the .properties files mentioned above. If you change other XML files, be certain to migrate those manually if you move your files to another server or upgrade to another version of Archibus.