Advanced procedures
These manual procedures are for setting up various features that are supported by Spotfire. Many of the procedures assume prior knowledge of technologies such as LDAP, Kerberos, Apache httpd, and so on.
- Custom configurations for managing space needs
If you need more space for library content, log files, information links, or the files that the Web Player service writes to the hard disk, you can change the default settings to store these items in different directories. - Temporary tablespace
By default, the tablespaces/database files for Spotfire Server with either an Oracle or SQL database uses autoextend/autogrowth. If this does not meet your needs, alter the settings. - Virtual memory modification
If many simultaneous users intend to perform heavy data pivoting via Information Services or in other ways stress the server, you may need to modify the amount of memory available to the virtual computer. - Garbage collection logging
When old requests to a service become obsolete, the objects created in memory becomes garbage. By enabling garbage collection logs (GC logs) you can get an understanding of your system's performance and troubleshoot memory issues. - Spotfire Server public web services APIs
Spotfire Server offers several web services application programming interfaces (APIs) for building custom applications that interact with Spotfire Server. There are both SOAP and REST APIs. - Optional security HTTP headers
The Spotfire Server can be configured to include extra security-oriented HTTP headers in its responses. - Changing how long the server waits before assuming that a node manager is offline
You can configure the amount of time that Spotfire Server waits for a node manager to signal its presence. If the node manager does not send a signal within the configured time period, the server assumes that the node is offline. For setups that are experiencing a heavy load, you can raise this value to avoid unnecessarily restarting a node manager. - Disable administration tasks on specific Spotfire Servers
You can block access to administration functionality on one or more servers in a cluster. This means that no logged-in user on that server, regardless of their role, can view or modify administrative information and settings. You can use this feature to prevent Spotfire administrators from accessing the administration UI when logging in from external networks. - Changing the settings that determine when Web Player instances are recycled due to low temporary disk space
By default, Spotfire recycles Web Player instances if their temporary disk space falls below 1500 MB (the "exhausted" level), and remains below that level for one hour. When a service instance is recycled, the corresponding process is restarted; all open analyses on that instance are closed and its temp files are removed. You can change the definition of "exhausted" and the period of time that trigger Web Player recycling. - Setting the maximum execution time for an Automation Services job
This Spotfire Server property indicates how long an Automation Services job can run before the server cancels the job. The default setting for this property is 259,200 seconds (72 hours). - Setting the maximum inactivity time for an Automation Services job
This Spotfire Server property indicates how long an Automation Services job can remain inactive before the server cancels the job. The default setting for this property is 259,200 seconds (72 hours). - Absolute session timeout and idle session timeout
Absolute session timeout is a recommended security feature, while idle session timeout is mainly a resource management feature. - Changing whether scheduled updates are sent to exhausted service instances
By default, if all the Web Player instances in an implementation or a site are listed as "exhausted", scheduled update requests for analyses that are not cached will not be sent to a Web Player instance until one becomes available (no longer exhausted). In the same situation, a scheduled update request for an analysis that is already cached will be sent to exhausted instances. You can change these defaults by editing the Spotfire Server configuration file. - Preventing users from opening scheduled update files outside of their schedule window
Large analysis files are often managed by scheduled updates so that end users can view these files without waiting for them to download. If an end user tries to open one of these scheduled update files outside of its schedule window, however, the file can take a long time to open and may significantly tie up system resources. You can configure the server to block end-user access to these files when the files are not scheduled. - Changing whether recovered rules are automatically enabled
When an analysis file is deleted from the library, any scheduled update or routing rule for that file fails. If the analysis file is then imported back to its previous location, the rule is recovered but it does not run because the rule is, by default, in the "disabled" state. You can switch the default for these recovered rules to "enabled". - Restarting a node manager to terminate its running jobs
Use this procedure to "refresh" a node when its service instances appear to be running jobs that should have terminated. - Increasing the number of available sockets on Linux
Spotfire Server opens many connections, and each requires a file descriptor. For performance and security reasons, Linux has limited the number of connections that can be opened by a process. You may want to increase this limit. - Switching from online to offline administration help
By default, the help button on the administration pages of Spotfire Server opens the online version of this documentation. If you are unable to use the online version, you can switch to the offline version. - Displaying or hiding the Spotfire Server version
You can configure which users should be able to see information on the Spotfire Server version. - Hiding the Spotfire header in the user interface
When cobranding Spotfire, you can add your own header. By default, the added custom header and the Spotfire header are both visible in the UIs. If you want, you can hide the Spotfire header.
- Custom configurations for managing space needs
If you need more space for library content, log files, information links, or the files that the Web Player service writes to the hard disk, you can change the default settings to store these items in different directories. - Temporary tablespace
By default, the tablespaces/database files for Spotfire Server with either an Oracle or SQL database uses autoextend/autogrowth. If this does not meet your needs, alter the settings. - Virtual memory modification
If many simultaneous users intend to perform heavy data pivoting via Information Services or in other ways stress the server, you may need to modify the amount of memory available to the virtual computer. - Garbage collection logging
When old requests to a service become obsolete, the objects created in memory becomes garbage. By enabling garbage collection logs (GC logs) you can get an understanding of your system's performance and troubleshoot memory issues. - Spotfire Server public web services APIs
Spotfire Server offers several web services application programming interfaces (APIs) for building custom applications that interact with Spotfire Server. There are both SOAP and REST APIs. - Optional security HTTP headers
The Spotfire Server can be configured to include extra security-oriented HTTP headers in its responses. - Changing how long the server waits before assuming that a node manager is offline
You can configure the amount of time that Spotfire Server waits for a node manager to signal its presence. If the node manager does not send a signal within the configured time period, the server assumes that the node is offline. For setups that are experiencing a heavy load, you can raise this value to avoid unnecessarily restarting a node manager. - Disable administration tasks on specific Spotfire Servers
You can block access to administration functionality on one or more servers in a cluster. This means that no logged-in user on that server, regardless of their role, can view or modify administrative information and settings. You can use this feature to prevent Spotfire administrators from accessing the administration UI when logging in from external networks. - Changing the settings that determine when Web Player instances are recycled due to low temporary disk space
By default, Spotfire recycles Web Player instances if their temporary disk space falls below 1500 MB (the "exhausted" level), and remains below that level for one hour. When a service instance is recycled, the corresponding process is restarted; all open analyses on that instance are closed and its temp files are removed. You can change the definition of "exhausted" and the period of time that trigger Web Player recycling. - Setting the maximum execution time for an Automation Services job
This Spotfire Server property indicates how long an Automation Services job can run before the server cancels the job. The default setting for this property is 259,200 seconds (72 hours). - Setting the maximum inactivity time for an Automation Services job
This Spotfire Server property indicates how long an Automation Services job can remain inactive before the server cancels the job. The default setting for this property is 259,200 seconds (72 hours). - Absolute session timeout and idle session timeout
Absolute session timeout is a recommended security feature, while idle session timeout is mainly a resource management feature. - Changing whether scheduled updates are sent to exhausted service instances
By default, if all the Web Player instances in an implementation or a site are listed as "exhausted", scheduled update requests for analyses that are not cached will not be sent to a Web Player instance until one becomes available (no longer exhausted). In the same situation, a scheduled update request for an analysis that is already cached will be sent to exhausted instances. You can change these defaults by editing the Spotfire Server configuration file. - Preventing users from opening scheduled update files outside of their schedule window
Large analysis files are often managed by scheduled updates so that end users can view these files without waiting for them to download. If an end user tries to open one of these scheduled update files outside of its schedule window, however, the file can take a long time to open and may significantly tie up system resources. You can configure the server to block end-user access to these files when the files are not scheduled. - Changing whether recovered rules are automatically enabled
When an analysis file is deleted from the library, any scheduled update or routing rule for that file fails. If the analysis file is then imported back to its previous location, the rule is recovered but it does not run because the rule is, by default, in the "disabled" state. You can switch the default for these recovered rules to "enabled". - Restarting a node manager to terminate its running jobs
Use this procedure to "refresh" a node when its service instances appear to be running jobs that should have terminated. - Increasing the number of available sockets on Linux
Spotfire Server opens many connections, and each requires a file descriptor. For performance and security reasons, Linux has limited the number of connections that can be opened by a process. You may want to increase this limit. - Switching from online to offline administration help
By default, the help button on the administration pages of Spotfire Server opens the online version of this documentation. If you are unable to use the online version, you can switch to the offline version. - Displaying or hiding the Spotfire Server version
You can configure which users should be able to see information on the Spotfire Server version. - Hiding the Spotfire header in the user interface
When cobranding Spotfire, you can add your own header. By default, the added custom header and the Spotfire header are both visible in the UIs. If you want, you can hide the Spotfire header.