Application Configuration

The Fedora web-application supports several deploy-time, system-level configuration options. These configuration elements are set via the definition of System Properties.

Deployments

Four means of deploying Fedora have been verified

• Tomcat 9 servlet container
• Jetty 9 servlet container
• Maven jetty:run plugin - for testing
• One-Click Run - for testing

Each of these deployment approaches has its own way of setting System Properties.

Tomcat 9

On Debian Linux systems, the typical way of setting System Properties is to update the following file:

/etc/default/tomcat9

Within that file, new properties can be added per the example below:

JAVA_OPTS="${JAVA_OPTS} -Dfcrepo.home=/mnt/fedora-data"

Additional information regarding the configuration of System Properties in Tomcat 9 can be found here.

Windows notes

Alternatively on Windows systems you can set the following file:

CATALINA_BASE/bin/setenv.bat (windows)

Within that file, new properties can be added per the example below:

set CATALINA_OPTS=%CATALINA_OPTS% -Dfcrepo.home=/mnt/fedora-data

Jetty 9

On Debian Linux systems, one way of setting System Properties is to update the following file:

/etc/default/jetty

Within that file, new properties can be added per the example below (note the use of JAVA_OPTIONS instead of JAVA_OPTS):

JAVA_OPTIONS="${JAVA_OPTIONS} -Dfcrepo.home=/mnt/fedora-data"

Additional information regarding the configuration of System Properties in Jetty 9 can be found here.

Windows notes

Alternatively on Windows systems you can set the following file:

{JETTY_DIST}/start.ini

Within that file, new properties can be added per the example below:

--exec
-Dfcrepo.home=/mnt/fedora-data
Maven jetty:run

System Properties can be set when using the Maven jetty:run plugin by passing them per the example below:

mvn -Dfcrepo.home=/mnt/fedora-data jetty:run

One-Click Run

One option is to use the "one click" application, which comes with an embedded Jetty servlet. This can be optionally built by running:

mvn install -pl fcrepo-webapp -P one-click

and can be started by either double-clicking on the jar file or by running the following command:

java -jar ./fcrepo-webapp/target/fcrepo-webapp-<version>-jetty-console.jar

By default, a Fedora home directory, fcrepo, is created in the current directory. You can change the default location by passing in an argument when starting the one-click, e.g.:

java -Dfcrepo.home=/data/fedora-home -jar fcrepo-webapp-6.0.0-SNAPSHOT-jetty-console.jar

Configuration Elements

Two ways of  passing configuration:  property file or command-line argument 

Before we enumerate the configurable properties and their defaults it should be noted that there are two ways of passing this configuration to your Fedora instance.  As noted above you can use the -D<param.name>=<param.value> syntax.   Optionally you can pass all the parameters at once by putting them in a java properties file and passing the path of the file as a command line argument.  For example, to pass two parameters at once using a property file,  by file simply create a file with any arbitrary name  and path such as  "my_fcrepo.properties".  Then add your parameters as you would in any Java properties file, like this:

# add any number of properties below
fcrepo.home: my_fcrepo_home_directory
fcrepo.autoversioning.enabled: true

Then pass these parameters to Fedora like this: 

java -Dfcrepo.config-file=my_fcrepo.properties -jar fcrepo-webapp-6.0.0-SNAPSHOT-jetty-console.jar

IMPORTANT NOTE ON PROPERTY PRECEDENCE

You may pass parameters simultaneously via the command-line params as well as by property file.  However,  please keep in mind that command-line parameter values will overwrite any values defined in your properties file.  So using the above mentioned property file as an example

java -Dfcrepo.config-file=my_fcrepo.properties -jar fcrepo-webapp-6.0.0-SNAPSHOT-jetty-console.jar

will have an fcrepo.home value of "my_fcrepo_home_directory"  whereas

java -Dfcrepo.home=overridden_fcrepo_home -Dfcrepo.config-file=my_fcrepo.properties -jar fcrepo-webapp-6.0.0-SNAPSHOT-jetty-console.jar

will have an fcrepo.home value of "overridden_fcrepo_home".

Table of Configurable Properties

There are a number of configuration elements that can be optionally be set when starting the Fedora web-application, noted below within brackets: <>. 

This results in every change to Fedora resources being persisted in the OCFL "mutable-head" extension, as opposed in a new OCFL version. (default is "true")

    <!-- Containment Index DB -->
    <bean id="containmentIndexDataSource" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource">
      <property name="driverClassName" value="org.h2.Driver" />
      <property name="url" value="jdbc:h2:mem:index" />
    </bean>

Within Fedora's fcrepo-config.xml file, the value of "url" can be changed to support a wide range of connection modes and connection settings. Reference

-Dfcrepo.session.timeout=<milliseconds>

This sets the duration for which a transaction will stay active before auto-rolling back. Defaults to 180000 ms, or 3 minutes

-Dfcrepo.persistence.defaultDigestAlgorithm=[sha512|sha256]

This sets the default digest algorithm on ingested binary resources (default: sha512)

OCFL

The OCFL persistence configurations mentioned above have a number of more detailed configuration elements that can optionally be set.

Some common elements relate to the directories in which application information is persisted. As mentioned above, if no fcrepo.home property is set then application information will be persisted in the current working directory under the directory "fcrepo/". There will then be several directories within "fcrepo/":

fcrepo/data/staging
fcrepo/data/ocfl-root
fcrepo/data/ocfl-temp

To set the location of the fcrepo.home directory ("fcrepo/"), use the following system property:

-Dfcrepo.home=<some_directory>

For a more granular approach, the three directories within fcrepo.home can individually be set with their respective properties:

-Dfcrepo.ocfl.staging=<some_staging_directory>
-Dfcrepo.ocfl.root=<some_root_directory>
-Dfcrepo.ocfl.temp=<some_temp_directory>

fcrepo.activemq.directory

Contains the reliable messaging information maintained by ActiveMQ.

Databases

By default, Fedora uses h2 for storing internal indices derived from the persistent application state.  Alternatively, Fedora can be configured to use MySQL,  MariaDB or PostgresQL instead.  Insert the values appropriate to your database configuration in the parameters specified below in brackets (<>). 

-Dfcrepo.db.url=jdbc:<database_type>://<database_host>:<database_port>/<database_name> -Dfcrepo.db.user=<database_username> -Dfcrepo.db.password=<database_password>

Below is are examples for mysql, mariadb, and postgresql using the default ports.

-Dfcrepo.db.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/fcrepo -Dfcrepo.db.user=<database_username> -Dfcrepo.db.password=<database_password>
-Dfcrepo.db.url=jdbc:mariadb://localhost:3306/fcrepo -Dfcrepo.db.user=<database_username> -Dfcrepo.db.password=<database_password>
-Dfcrepo.db.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/fcrepo -Dfcrepo.db.user=<database_username> -Dfcrepo.db.password=<database_password>

Configuration Chain

The standard configuration chain is as follows:

1. fcrepo/fcrepo-webapp/src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/web.xml contains a context-param element with param-name "contextConfigLocation".  The param-value points to a repository.xml which includes either the default fcrepo-config.xml or your spring configuration file (as defined by the fcrepo.spring.configuration property.
2. Your spring configuration file contains a property repositoryConfiguration defining the location of your repository.json