Configuration

This part of the book contains information on installation configurations that may be relevant.

Configuration concepts

Configuration of an iKnowBase installation is done through setting named configuration properties to specific values. Changes to configuration objects are static, and will require a restart of the application server. The values used by a running application are shown in various locations in the management console, e.g. at /ikb$console.

Property sources

Properties are available from many different sources. When an application requires a property value, it will check these sources in order, and the first one that can supply the required property will be used:

• The property source “IKB_INSTALLATION_PROPERTIES” represents values loaded from the database table _ikb_installation_properties_.
• The property source “servletConfigInitParams” is typically not used, but is provided as a standard source by the underlying technology.
• The property source “servletContextInitParams” is typically not used, but is provided as a standard source by the underlying technology.
• The property source “jndiProperties” is typically not used, but is provided as a standard source by the underlying technology.
• The property source “systemProperties” gets values from the command line used to start the java virtual machine, so that you can directly specify property values when starting the server.
• The property source “systemEnvironment” gets values from the operating system environment (where you find e.g. the PATH environment variable)

Often, the database table is most convenient, but you may also choose to use any of the available property source. Either way, you can and should verify that the correct values are set, using the ikb$console application as shown above.

The ikb_installation_properties database table

Using the IKB_INSTALLATION_PROPERTY table is the most common option. Since this table is shared between all applications and all application server instances, it is possible to add expressions that are checked at runtime in order to select the proper property. This is done using the “instance_qualifier” table column.

At startup, each iKnowBase java web application loads properties from the ikb_installation_table. For each row, it will evaluate the “instance_qualifier” value to decide if this particular property is valid for this particular application instance. The qualifier is interpreted using the Spring Expression Language, which allows for combining various types of tests.

The available variables and methods for the expression is limited to the following logical interface definition:

These can be combined in several ways, to achieve various effects:

Note that prior to iKnowBase 6.6, the qualifier had a different syntax which did not cater for advanced usage scenarios such as logical expressions. For backward compatibility, this syntax is still supported; however, this will be removed in the future, so we strongly recommend using the new expression style instead:

Configuring the ikbViewer application

This section describes the main configuration objects for the ikbViewer application.

ContentServerConfiguration

The Content Server is the unit responsible for serving file content, such as word documents or PDFs.

PageEngineConfiguration

The Page Engine is the unit responsible for composing portlets and data, and rendering information to web clients.

SearchClientConfiguration

The Search Client, using SOLR, handles connections to a SOLR search server. “searchEngineName” refers to the logical name given to the Solr Configuration.

CacheManagerConfiguration

The iKnowBase system provides a content cache, based on Ehcache ( http://www.ehcache.org). While Ehcache is used for many caching needs internally in iKnowBase, the content cache is special in that it is in fact a replicated cache: Values stored in the content cache is replicated to all other nodes in a cluster. For more information on Ehcache replication and the meaning of the configuration variables, see http://ehcache.org/documentation/distributed_caching_with_rmi.html.

SecureTokenEngineConfiguration

iKnowBase needs to generate a secure token for login information in the following scenarios:

1. On-demand loading in an Oracle Portal-based Dimension Navigator.
2. Content loading when using the Office add-in.
3. Client authentication integration between ikbViewer and ikbInstant.

This token is generated using the HMAC_SHA1 message authentication algorithm, based on a secret key along with user and time information.

By default, a suitable key is automatically generated when the application server starts up. However, for load balanced scenarios with multiple application servers, this would result in different keys and spurious failures during data load. You may then manually specifiy a secret key in the configuration. Please use a long phrase with multiple words, numbers and special characters.

ActivitiProcessEngineConfiguration

iKnowBase comes with an embedded process engine based on the Activity BPM Platform. This engine must be explicitly enabled if you want to use it.

BpelProcessServicesConfiguration

When iKnowBase Process Services is installed, the ikbViewer runtime application(s) will need to know how to connect to the iKnowBase Process Services engine (ikbProcessServices), and how to log on to the underlying Oracle BPEL engine.

The values for WorkflowService.initialContextFactory and WorkflowService.providerURL vary between application servers. Typical values are as follows:

SpringSecurityConfiguration

Application security in iKnowBase relies on the Spring Security Framework and provides multiple modules for authentication and authorization.

See iKnowBase Installation Guide > Web Application Security for additional explanations.

See [Application context path]/ikb$console/config/configurations for default and active web application security configuration. All sections start with com.iknowbase.spring.security.

Debug

Spring Security provides a debug mode documented as:

"Enables Spring Security debugging infrastructure. This will provide human-readable (multi-line) debugging information to monitor requests coming into the security filters. This may include sensitive information, such as request parameters or headers, and should only be used in a development environment."

For debugging, you may also want to enable trace logging adjust the logger levels to trace for org.springframework.security and com.iknowbase.spring.security.

Note that this particular debug flag is not visible under /ikb$console/config/configurations.

Default authentication module

iKnowBase supports having multiple active authentication modules at the same time and these can be explicitly triggered, however, one must be set as the default.

Authentication modules

Module specific configuration is provided in the following sections.

Basic module configuration

No configuration options available.

Container module configuration

Form module configuration

FormAuto module configuration

No configuration options available.

Header module configuration

Spnego module configuration

LDAP UsernamePassword authentication provider

The LDAP provider may also be used in conjunction with the LDAP sync service. If the user was not found, the LDAP sync service will make an attempt at synchronizing the user into the iKnowBase User Repository.

iKnowBase UsernamePassword authentication provider

Social authentication provider

Google specific configuration:

Twitter specific configuration:

Facebook specific configuration:

LinkedIn specific configuration:

Secure Token authentication

Note: The iKnowBase Secure Token Engine configuration is described in SecureTokenEngine

Anonymous / Public authentication provider

iKnowBase User Details

All authentication attempts must ultimately load a user from the iKnowBase User Repository before the authentication is fully accepted.

Switch User

User Account Activation

IKB Auth Token

Configuring the ikbBatch application

This section describes the main configuration objects for the ikbBatch application.

FileConverterConfiguration

The ikbBatch application contains a file converter server, which can be configured to listen for file conversion requests. In order to work, you must install Oracle Outside In on the server, and then set the outside in location as a configuration property.

BatchPageEngineConfiguration

The ikbBatch application contains a page engine server, which can be configured to listen for page rendering requests.

ContentIndexerConfiguration

The ikbBatch application contains a content indexer server, which listens for indexing requests and forwards them to the appropriate search engine for actual indexing. “searchEngineName” refers to the logical name given to the Solr Configuration.

EmailReaderConfiguration

The ikbBatch application contains an email reader client, which can load email from external mail servers. This can be enabled or disabled through configuration.

Configuring the ikbStudio application

There are no configuration items specific to the ikbStudio application.

Configuring the ikbWebdav application

This section describes the main configuration objects for the ikbWebdav application.

FtpServiceConfiguration

The ikbWebdav application contains an embedded FTP-server that lets you use FTP against all documents exposed through the Webdav protocol. This is enabled by setting the following properties:

Configuring the ikbWebServices application

This section describes the main configuration objects for the ikbWebServices application.

WebServicesConfiguration

WebServicesSecurityConfiguration

Configuring the ikbInstant application

This section describes the main configuration objects for the ikbInstant application.

InstantServerConfiguration

The Instant Server is the contact point for Web Clients as well as managing all topics, clients, users and message delivery.

Note: Make sure you also configure SecureTokenEngine to enable authentication for web clients

InstantQueueServerConfiguration

The Instant Queue Server is the unit responsible for consuming messages published using Instant’s PL/SQL API and delivering them to the specified topic where all web clients are connected.

Sample script

This is a sample script, showing how to set installation properties:

truncate table ikb_installation_properties;
insert into ikb_installation_properties (property_name, property_value)
select 'com.iknowbase.page.PageEngine.isContentCacheEnabled', 'true' from dual UNION
select 'com.iknowbase.ProcessServices.WorkflowService.InitialContextFactory', 'weblogic.jndi.WLInitialContextFactory' from dual UNION
select 'com.iknowbase.ProcessServices.WorkflowService.ProviderURL', 'opmn:ormi://localhost:6003:home/ikbProcessServices' from dual UNION
select 'com.iknowbase.ProcessServices.WorkflowService.SecurityPrincipal', 'orcladmin' from dual UNION
select 'com.iknowbase.ProcessServices.WorkflowService.SecurityCredentials', 'mypassword' from dual;