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Administrator setting up softlinks
Understanding the Soft Link Between Tomcat and PhixFlow
When you want to reference a file saved on the PhixFlow server, you need to use a path that the PhixFlow Webapp can understand. The PhixFlow webapp runs within Tomcat, so only knows about files below /opt/tomcat/webapps/phixflow
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/opt/phixflow/data/phixflow/datalink/
Where has the above come from? This will only exist if someone has already configured it?
- You may not want to save files under the datalink directory on the PhixFlow server. For example, you could have a directory for each project, and the files belong to a specific project. In this case, you can add a second soft link.
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/opt/phixflow/data/phixflow/datalink/MyProject/
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Securing Soft Links
To ensure soft links from Tomcat to PhixFlow directories are secure, configure context.xml as follows:
- Edit
/opt/tomcat/conf/context.xml - Find the line:
<Resources cachingAllowed="true" cacheMaxSize="1000000" /> - Replace it with:
<Resources allowLinking="true" cachingAllowed="true" cacheMaxSize="1000000" />
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Upgrade Considerations
You need to configure soft links in the /tomcat/webapps/phixflow directory.
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When you upgrade PhixFlow to the latest version, the process replaces everything in This is also why you must never add files directly to /tomcat/webapps/phixflow or it's subdirectories. |
Creating Soft Links
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In the following commands:
path/folder_nameis the full path to the directory to which you want to linksoft_link
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is the path to the directory
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where you want to
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access the soft link
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On Linux
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create soft links using the ln command
ln
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-s
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path/folder_name
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soft_link
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If a file path includes spaces, enclose it in double-quotes.
Example ln command
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sudo ln -s /opt/phixflow/data |
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/ /opt/tomcat/webapps/phixflow/ |
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datalink |
On Windows
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create soft links using the mklink command
By default, the mklink command creates links to specific files. To link to a directory, use the /D option.
mklink /D soft_link
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path/folder_name
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To soft link to a specific file, omit /D.
For more information about symlinks, see this article on Creating Symbolic Links.
The Path or URL to Use
Within PhixFlow, to refer to a file on the server, start the path with the datalink directory.
Examples:
- file path:
datalink/Project1/Images/file1.png - URL:
url("https:datalink/MyProject/MyImage.png")
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In your PhixFlow application, to display an image stored on the PhixFlow server, use the URL for it's location, for example: url("https:datalink/MyProject/MyImage.png").
For example, you can configure the following CSS Properties to use an image stored on the PhixFlow server as a background image.
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Example mklink command
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mklink /D c:\app\tomcat\webapps\phixflow\datalink c:\path\phixflow\data |
Tomcat configuration
If you have installed Tomcat according to the standard recommendations (Install Tomcat), you will already have the configuration you need.
But to check, or in case of problems:
For Linux installations only, configure the context.xml file as follows:
Open
/opt/tomcat/conf/context.xmlFind the line:
<Resources cachingAllowed="true" cacheMaxSize="1000000" />Replace it with:
<Resources allowLinking="true" cachingAllowed="true" cacheMaxSize="1000000" />
For Windows installations, you must not include this option. It is not needed, and adding it can cause security issues.
Example Soft Links
In the following example, Tomcat has a soft link called images-link to a files/images directory in PhixFlow.
OS | Soft link in a Tomcat directory |
| PhixFlow server directory containing files |
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Linux |
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Windows |
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You can also create soft links within the PhixFlow server, for example to simplify paths.
OS | Soft link in Tomcat directory |
| Soft link in PhixFlow server |
| Directory containing files |
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Linux |
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Windows |
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