The settings.json file holds environmental information (server addresses, passwords, system properties, repository settings, etc.) for your Aspire installation.

What goes in the Settings File? This is the information to include in the settings.xml Configuration File:

• Node configuration

• Security configuration

• Maven repositories

• App Bundle properties

• Applications to launch on startup

Settings File Location

On startup, the Aspire application will automatically attempt to load the settings from the configured provider. Aspire by default uses Elasticsearch as a provider, and the settings are expected to be in the aspire-settings index.

The settings file can be uploaded by using the aspire.bat/aspire.sh file with the command "-upload_settings <absolute_settings_path>"  or "-us<absolute_settings_path>" or in the case of using containers, these will be uploaded automatically on the startup. 

Structure of settings.json

The settings.json file contains sections for automatically starting system configuration files, setting Aspire system properties, and setting Apache Felix system properties. The structure is as follows:

Auto Start Section

The "autoStart" section will automatically load applications when Aspire is initialized. It contains a simple list of application files to load, for example:

Applications are loaded in the order specified. However, since Aspire has component-dependency checking built-in, the order of load is usually not that important.

Both Application XML/JSON Files and App Bundles

Each application can be launched either from an application XML file or an App Bundle.

• For application XML files: The @config attribute should hold the file name of the Application XML/JSON file to load.

• For App Bundles: The @config attribute should hold the Maven coordinates of the App Bundle to start.

Rename Auto-Started Applications

In general, the name of the application will be taken as the “default name” as specified at the top of the application.xml file. 

However, you can specify other names for the configuration file using the @name attribute, as shown below:

This lets you install the same App Bundle multiple times, but with different top-level names.

Application Properties

Finally, as shown above, applications can have a nested “properties” section which holds properties that are defined just for that application. These properties can then be used with the ${propName} substitution pattern within the application.xml file.

Repositories Section

The “repositories” identifies where to find component code to load into Aspire. 

The following options are available for the repositories section:

There are three types of repositories that can be configured in the “repository” section:

Distribution Repository

The Distribution Repository will load the component Jar files in a directory within your Aspire distribution, typically the "bundles/aspire" directory.

It is configured as follows:

On startup, Aspire will scan through the entire directory looking for bundles to load. If at any time you add new bundles (or update bundles) in this directory, then click on "Check for Updates" on the Aspire application home page. This will cause Aspire to re-scan the directory so that the new files are available. The “directory” tag identifies the directory where the bundles can be located.

S3 Distribution Repository

The S3 bucket Distribution Repository will load the component Jar files to your Aspire distribution, typically from S3 "bundles/" directory. S3 directory must end with "/".

It is configured as follows:

Upon startup, Aspire will scan the entire S3 directory, similarly to the Distribution repository, to look for bundles to load. If you add new bundles (or update existing ones) to this directory at any time, then click on "Check for Updates" on the Aspire application home page. This action will prompt Aspire to rescan the directory, making the new files available. The "directory" tag specifies the location where the bundles can be found.

Maven Repository

The Maven Repository loads the component Jar files directly from Maven. The Maven Repository allows Aspire to share the same Jars as Eclipse and the Maven command-line program. Therefore, any newly 'install'ed or 'deploy'ed Jar file artifacts will be automatically available to Aspire.

It is configured as follows:

The following options are available for the maven repository:

Use Specific Versions of Bundle

If required, you can force the Maven repository to give you a specific version of a bundle. This is if you don't specify it in the factoryName in application.xml files or in the config attribute in the autoStart section of the settings file. In the settings.json file, the bundleVersions section must be created within the Repositories section.

Normally in Aspire, if references to Maven artifacts do not give the version, then the defaultVersion (see above) is used. However, you may add a bundleVersions section to the settings file to give more precise control over the versions of bundles loaded. The parameters are shown below:

Example:

The following snippet will load all requested bundles at version 5.0, except the three specified, which will be loaded at the requested version

Proxy Settings

You can configure Maven remote repositories to use an HTTP proxy for outgoing communications. This is useful when your Aspire server has restricted access to the Internet, and you want to be able to fetch bundles as normal from the configured repository. To do this, add a <proxy> section to your remote repository and set the following properties:

Example:

Properties

Properties are specified as name/value pairs. For example:

Once specified in the settings.xml file, these properties become available for use in Application XML files. Careful use of such properties will make your system configuration files portable to multiple Aspire installations without modification.

You can use these properties from the UI when configuring content sources, services, and workflow applications.

For example, you might use "http://localhost:8080" as your SOLR server on your personal laptop, but then use "http://customer.searchtechnologies.com:8983" for the production site. Using a property allows the same system configuration file to be tested on one machine and then installed on another machine without modification.

Properties & Environment Variables in Application XML Files

Properties declared in the settings.xml file can be used in application XML files with the ${propertyName} syntax. As an example:

In the above example, the "solrServer" property was defined in the settings.xml file and then referenced with ${solrServer} in the application XML file.

This property value substitution occurs automatically on the component configurations by the Component Manager. It does not require any further intervention or programming for any individual component.

The ${XXX} syntax can also be used for substitution of environment variables and Java system properties (i.e., those defined on the command line with -Dxxx=yyy). Substitution prefers properties defined in the settings.json file. If the property is not found in the settings.json file, the system properties are checked and if still not found, the system environment is checked. Furthermore, in these versions, properties may be defined from other properties:

Note: Property references for properties that are not in the settings.xml file will be left as-is. This allows for other configurations that use the same syntax (specifically, the Groovy Scripting component) to continue to operate properly.

Property Escaping (for Groovy Scripts)

If you need to insert a property into a Groovy script, assigning it to a string that contains the \ character (such as ${aspire.home} would), will cause Groovy to raise an error as it sees invalid escaped characters. To avoid this, you can prefix the property name with escape: and any \ characters in the contents of the property will be replaced with \\.

For example:

and

expands to

Properties for Applications

You can specify properties that apply to a specific application (rather than the properties above, which apply to all components).

These properties are passed to all components (and only those components) that exist “under” the component manager. If the same property names are used at both the global level and the component manager level, the component manager definition will be used for components “under” that manager, whilst the global value would be used for other components.

Apache Felix Configuration

Some Apache Felix configuration parameters can also be placed in the settings.xml file, as follows:

Although, before using this approach, check to see if these parameters can be stored in the Apache Felix system properties file (called "felix.properties" for most Aspire installations). That may be the better location for these properties.

Inside <configAdmin>, each <property> tag contains a "pid" attribute, which is the “persistent ID” of the configuration element. The nested properties are the OSGi Configuration properties.

See the following for more information about OSGi and Apache Felix configuration properties:

• Apache Felix Framework Usage

• OSGi specifications download page - Go here and download the “Compendium Specification” to get more details on the OSGi configuration server and how it's used.

• Apache Felix Web Console Properties

• Apache Felix HTTP Service Properties

Security Configuration

This is the configuration to use the Login page. 

Action available based on Role

Aspire uses a token-based security to access the Rest API. These are the general configuration options.

LDAP Configuration

LDAP is configured as defined below.

These are the configuration properties for the LDAP authentication: