Settings hierarchy¶

Introduction¶

GeoNetwork stores many options and information inside the Settings table. Information is grouped into hierarchies where each node has a key/value pair and can have many children. Each key is limited to 32 characters while each value is limited to 250. The 2 top level hierarchies are system and harvesting.

In the following sections, the indentation is used to show hierarchies. Names in bold represent keys with the value’s datatype in parenthesis. An italic font is used to indicate basic types (string, integer, boolean) while normal font with a | is used to represent a set of allowed values. Regarding the boolean type, value can be only true or false. A missing datatype means that the value of the node is not used. Square brackets indicate cardinality. If they are missing, a cardinality of [1..1] should be considered.

The system hierarchy¶

• site: Contains information about the site
  • name (string): Name used to present this site to other sites. Used to fill comboboxes or lists.
  • organisation (string): Name of the organization/company/institute that is running GeoNetwork
  • siteId (string): A UUID that uniquely identifies the site. It is generated by the installer.
• platform: Contains information about the current version
  • version (string): GeoNetwork’s version in the X.Y.Z format
  • subVersion (string): A small description about the version, like ’alpha-1’, ’beta’ etc...
• server: Used when it is necessary to build absolute URLs to the GeoNetwork server. This is the case, for example, when creating links inside a metadata or when providing CSW capabilities.
  • host (string): Main HTTP server’s address
  • port (integer): Main HTTP server’s port (can be empty)
• Intranet: specify the network of the Intranet
  • network (string): Network’s address
  • netmask (string): Network’s netmask
• z3950: A container for Z39.50 server parameters
  • enable (boolean): If true, GeoNetwork will start the Z30.50 server
  • port (integer): The port opened by GeoNetwork to listen to Z39.50 requests. Usually is 2100.
• proxy: This container specify proxy configuration to use
  • use (boolean): If true, GeoNetwork will use the given proxy for outgoing connections
  • host (string): Proxy’s host
  • port (integer): Proxy’s port
  • username (string): Proxy’s credentials.
  • password (string): Proxy’s credentials.
• feedback: Feedback is sent with proper web form or when downloading a resource.
  • email (string): email address of a GeoNetwork administrator or someone else
  • mailServer: This container represents the mail server that will be used to send email
    • host (string): Address of the SMTP server to use
    • port (string): SMTP port to use
• removedMetadata: This container contains settings about removed metadata.
  • dir: This folder will contain removed metadata in MEF format. It gets populated when the user deletes a metadata using the web interface.
• LDAP: Parameters for LDAP authentication
  • use (boolean)
  • host (string)
  • port (integer)
  • defaultProfile (string): Default GeoNetwork’s profile to use when the profile user attribute does not exist.
  • login
    • userDN (string)
    • password (string)
  • distinguishedNames
    • base (string)
    • users (string)
  • userAttribs: A container for user attributes present into the LDAP directory that must be retrieved and used to create the user in GeoNetwork.
    • name (string)
    • password (string)
    • profile (string)

Harvesting nodes¶

The second top level hierarchy is harvesting. All nodes added using the web interface are stored here. Each child has node in its key and its value can be GeoNetwork, WebDAV, CSW or another depending on the node type.

All harvesting nodes share a common setting structure, which is used by the harvesting engine to retrieve these common parameters. This imply that any new harvesting type must honour this structure, which is the following:

• site: A container for site information.
  • name (string): Node name as shown in the harvesting list.
  • UUID (string): A unique identifier assigned by the system when the harvesting node is created.
  • useAccount (boolean): Indicates if the harvester has to authenticate to access the data.
    • username (string):
    • password (string):
• options:
  • every (integer): Timeout, in minutes, between 2 consecutive harvesting.
  • oneRunOnly (boolean): If true, the harvester will harvest one time from this node and then it will set the status to inactive.
  • status (active|inactive): Indicates if the harvesting from this node is stopped (inactive) or if the harvester is waiting until the timeout comes.
• privileges [0..1]: This is a container for privileges to assign to each imported metadata
  • group (integer) [0..n]: Indicate a local group. The node’s value is its local identifier. There can be several group nodes each with its set of privileges.
    • operation (integer) [0..n]: Privilege to assign to the group. The node’s value is the numeric id of the operation like 0=view, 1=download, 2=edit etc...
• categories [0..1]: This is a container for categories to assign to each imported metadata
  • category (integer) [0..n]: Indicate a local category and the node’s value is its local identifier.
• info: Just a container for some information about harvesting from this node.
  • lastRun (string): If not empty, tells when the harvester harvested from this node. The value is the current time in milliseconds since 1 January, 1970.

Privileges and categories nodes can or cannot be present depending on the harvesting type. In the following structures, this common structure is not shown. Only extra information specific to the harvesting type is described.