Alternative Webapp Context Configuration

Introduction

This optional Fedora server configuration provides for the ability to deploy a Fedora server under a different webapp context than the default 'fedora'.

For example, instead of running the server at

• www.example.com/fedora

It is now possible to run at

• www.example.com/newContextName

One immediate opportunity offered by the decoupling of the server from a particular context path (namely, 'fedora'), is the capability to deploy multiple Fedora servers within a single application server.

Configuration

Installer

This is the step where the webapp context is actually set. If the 'custom' option is chosen during the execution of fcrepo-installer-3.3.jar, the option to specify "Fedora application server context" is presented. Simply specify the desired '[new context]' at this point if something other than the default ('fedora') is wanted.

Server Command-line Scripts

The server command-line scripts need to know the name of the app server context when they are run. By default, they assume 'fedora', but this assumption may be changed by defining the environment variable WEBAPP_NAME:

Client Command-line Scripts

By default, the client command-line scripts assume 'fedora' as the app server context.  This assumption may be changed by specifying the new context as an additional argument.  See Client Command-line Utilities for the exact usage information for each script.

System Tests

This is relevant to the fedora development process, and not a concern for normal fedora operation.  In the source distribution, live junit system tests are defined in the maven pom file of the integration test subproject (fcrepo-integrationtest/pom.xml).  When running these tests while using an alternate fedora app server context, the fedora.appserver property must be set to the new app server context.  If it is not, certain tests for command line utilities will fail.

Known Issues

When using an alternate context, the 'view' dissemination from the demo:SmileyStuff object will contain broken image links.  This is a problem with the demo object itself, and does not represent user or system error. You can fix this manually by modifying the image-collection-demo/SmileyStuff-ViewStylesheet.xsl stylesheet within the fedora-demo webapp.  Simply change occurances of "/fedora/get" to "/newContextName/get".