Replication replication

the author requests that certain content be published (activated); this can be initiated by a manual request, or by automatic triggers which have been preconfigured.

the request is passed to the appropriate default replication agent; an environment can have several default agents which will always be selected for such actions.

the replication agent “packages” the content and places it in the replication queue.

in the Websites tab the colored status indicator is set for the individual pages.

the content is lifted from the queue and transported to the publish environment using the configured protocol; usually this is HTTP.

a servlet in the publish environment receives the request and publishes the received content; the default servlet is http://localhost:4503/bin/receive.

multiple author and publish environments can be configured.

Default Agent (publish)
This agent replicates content to the default publish instance.

Details of this (configuration and logs) can be accessed from the Tools console of the author environment; or:

http://localhost:4502/etc/replication/agents.author/publish.html.

Default Agent - Used for replicating from author to publish.

Dispatcher Flush - This is used for managing the Dispatcher cache. See Invalidating Dispatcher Cache from the Authoring Environment and Invalidating Dispatcher Cache from a Publishing Instance for more information.

Reverse Replication - Used for replicating from publish to author. Reverse replication is not used for Communities features, such as forums, blogs, and comments. It is effectively disabled as the outbox is not enabled. Use of reverse replication would require custom configuration.

Static Agent - This is an “Agent that stores a static representation of a node into the filesystem.” For example with the default settings, content pages and dam assets are stored under /tmp, either as HTML or the appropriate asset format. See the Settings and Rules tabs for the configuration. This was requested so that when the page is requested directly from the application server the content can be seen. This is a specialized agent and (probably) will not be required for most instances.

Name

A unique name for the replication agent.

Description

A description of the purpose this replication agent will serve.

Enabled

Indicates whether the replication agent is currently enabled.

When the agent is enabled the queue will be shown as:

• Active when items are being processed.
• Idle when the queue is empty.
• Blocked when items are in the queue, but cannot be processed; for example, when the receiving queue is disabled.

Serialization Type

The type of serialization:

• Default: Set if the agent is to be automatically selected.
• Dispatcher Flush: Select this if the agent is to be used for flushing the dispatcher cache.

Retry Delay

The delay (waiting time in milliseconds) between two retries, should a problem be encountered.

Default: 60000

Agent User Id

Depending on the environment, the agent will use this user account to:

• collect and package the content from the author environment
• create and write the content on the publish environment

Leave this field empty to use the system user account (the account defined in sling as the administrator user; by default this is admin).

Log Level

Specifies the level of detail to be used for log messages.

• Error: only errors will be logged
• Info: errors, warnings and other informational messages will be logged
• Debug: a high level of detail will be used in the messages, primarily for debug purposes

Default: Info

Use for reverse replication

Indicates whether this agent will be used for reverse replication; returns user input from the publish to author environment.

Alias update

Selecting this option enables alias or vanity path invalidation requests to Dispatcher. Also, see Configuring a Dispatcher Flush Agent.

URI

This specifies the receiving servlet at the target location. In particular, you can specify the hostname (or alias) and context path to the target instance here.

For example:

• A Default Agent may replicate to http://localhost:4503/bin/receive
• A Dispatcher Flush agent may replicate to http://localhost:8000/dispatcher/invalidate.cache

The protocol specified here (HTTP or HTTPS) will determine the transport method.

For Dispatcher Flush agents, the URI property is used only if you use path-based virtualhost entries to differentiate between farms, you use this field to target the farm to invalidate. For example, farm #1 has a virtual host of www.mysite.com/path1/* and farm #2 has a virtual host of www.mysite.com/path2/*. You can use a URL of /path1/invalidate.cache to target the first farm and /path2/invalidate.cache to target the second farm.

User

User name of the account to be used for accessing the target.

Password

Password for the account to be used for accessing the target.

NTLM Domain

Domain for NTML authentication.

NTLM Host

Host for NTML authentication.

Enable relaxed SSL

Enable if you want self-certified SSL certificates to be accepted.

Allow expired certs

Enable if you want expired SSL certificates to be accepted.

Proxy Host

Hostname of the proxy used for transport.

Proxy Port

Port of the proxy.

Proxy User

User name of the account to be used.

Proxy Password

Password of the account to be used.

Proxy NTLM Domain

The proxy NTLM domain.

Proxy NTLM Host

The proxy NTLM domain.

Interface

Here you can define the socket interface to bind to.

This sets the local address to be used when creating connections. If this is not set, the default address will be used. This is useful for specifying the interface to use on multi-homed or clustered systems.

HTTP Method

The HTTP method to be used.

For a Dispatcher Flush agent this is nearly always GET and should not be changed (POST would be another possible value).

HTTP Headers

These are used for Dispatcher Flush agents and specify elements that must be flushed.

For a Dispatcher Flush agent the three standard entries should not need changing:

• CQ-Action:{action}
• CQ-Handle:{path}
• CQ-Path:{path}

These are used, as appropriate, to indicate the action to be used when flushing the handle or path. The sub-parameters are dynamic:

• {action} indicates a replication action
• {path} indicates a path

They are substituted by the path/action relevant to the request and therefore do not need to be “hardcoded”:

Close Connection

Enable to close the connection after each request.

Connect Timeout

Timeout (in milliseconds) to be applied when trying to establish a connection.

Socket Timeout

Timeout (in milliseconds) to be applied when waiting for traffic after a connection has been established.

Protocol Version

Version of the protocol; for example 1.0 for HTTP/1.0.

Ignore default

If checked, the agent is excluded from default replication; this means it will not be used if a content author issues a replication action.

On Modification

Here a replication by this agent will be automatically triggered when a page is modified. This is mainly used for Dispatcher Flush agents, but also for reverse replication.

On Distribute

If checked, the agent will automatically replicate any content that is marked for distribution when it is modified.

On-/Offtime reached

This will trigger automatic replication (to activate or deactivate a page as appropriate) when the ontimes or offtimes defined for a page occur. This is primarily used for Dispatcher Flush agents.

On Receive

If checked, the agent will chain replicate whenever receiving replication events.

No Status Update

When checked the agent will not force a replication status update.

No Versioning

When checked the agent will not force versioning of activated pages.