This topic is for PhixFlow administrators who need to know the configuration and maintenance tasks that are needed to keep PhixFlow running.

Minimum Set-up After Installation

If you have installed PhixFlow for the first time, you may want to do the minimum set-up so that you can start creating models and basic applications.

1. Login as the startup user.
2. Add your licence key to System Configuration → Advanced →  Licence Key

3. Create a user with Administrator privileges.

    How?

   • In the Full Repository →  Role, create a new role called “Administrator”.  
   • In the role properties → Privileges section, open the list of privileges and drag them all into the role.
   • In Full Repository →  User Group, create a new group called “Administrators”.
   • In the user group properties → Roles section, open the list of privileges and drag in the “Administrator” role.
   • In Full Repository →  User, create a new user for yourself.
   • In the user properties → User Groups section, open the list of user groups and drag in the “Administrators” user group.
4. Check your new user account works.
• Logout
• Login using your new user account
5. Once your account works, delete the startup user.
6. Set up the essential file locations in System Configuration →  System Directories:

• Restricted Directory: this is optional, but is an important security setting. Leaving it empty effectively allows users to scan the server file system with File Collectors. Although it only allows users to see files that Tomcat has permission to access, this can include files which most users should not be able to see. Typically this is set to the root of the file system you set up for PhixFlow data files. E.g. /opt/phixflow/data.
  

  When you set a Restricted Directory, all other system directories, except the Driver Class File Directory, must be sub-directories of the restricted directory.

  
  

• Temporary File Location: e.g. /opt/phixflow/data/temp – needed for exporting and importing applications and models between PhixFlow instances.
• File Upload Directory: e.g. /opt/phixflow/data/upload –  needed for uploaded files ( via file collectors)
• Download Location: required to export data; see Configuring the Download Area.

Full System Configuration

For a full system with multiple users, you need to configure:

• Connections to external data sources, e.g. databases; see Driver Classes.
• All the system directories and other System Configuration options; see System Configuration and System Logging Configuration.
• Data formats; see Configuring Data Formats.
• Users and privileges, either in PhixFlow or by integrating with external login systems; see User Administration.
  • For integration with other authentication systems, see:
    • Configure Active Directory Integration: users are authenticated using one or more Active Directory servers in addition to users that are defined locally within the PhixFlow database. 
    • Configure SAML Integration: map the PhixFlow user groups to user groups in your existing single-sign-on system.
  • For how to prevent users accessing PhixFlow during system maintenance or upgrades, see Restricting Access During System Maintenance.

We recommend that you install new Theme palettes, which are provided by PhixFlow as packages; see Installing Packages

You can optionally configure:

• Localisation; see Configuring System Localisation and also Localising Applications
• Home screen messages to display on user login: see Configuring a Login Message
• PhixFlow for mobile access; see PhixFlow on the Web: Security and Deployment

To monitor and maintain PhixFlow, you need to:

• set up scheduled maintenance using task plans that include system and archive tasks; see Using Tasks and Task Plans

  Use task plans to schedule tasks that maintain the PhixFlow system. The system task includes processes that clear the data from incomplete stream sets. It is important to run a system task daily, or at a minimum weekly. We recommend that you add a system task to a task plan that is scheduled to run daily

• configure a stand-by webapp to shadow the active webapp. The standby webapp will automatically take over in the event that the active server fails; see Configuring for Resilience.
• monitor PhixFlow processes, tasks and user activity; see System Monitoring and System Console.
• prepare server machines for installing or upgrading to a new version of PhixFlow; see the Installation and Upgrade pages: 
  • Planning your PhixFlow System
  • Installing PhixFlow
  • Upgrading PhixFlow

If you have several PhixFlow instances, for example a development instance and production instance, you may also need to move packages, applications, models and streams between PhixFlow instances; see Administration Menu and Managing Data.

Other useful information is available in:

• PhixFlow Architecture
• Third Party Licence Information.

PhixFlow Database Considerations

When users or automated process change the data in the PhixFlow client, the data changes are automatically published to the PhixFlow database.