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Configuring the info provider

In the directory /etc/dcache you will find the file info-provider.xml. This file is where you configure the info-provider. It provides information that is difficult or impossible to obtain from the running dCache directly.

You must edit the info-provider.xml to customise its content to match your dCache instance. In some places, the file contains place-holder values. These place-holder values must be changed to the correct values for your dCache instance.

Careful with < and & charaters

Take care when editing the info-provider.xml file! After changing the contents, the file must remain valid, well-formed XML. In particular, be very careful when writing a less-than symbol (<) or an ampersand symbol (&).

  • Only use an ampersand symbol (&) if it is part of an entity reference. An entity reference is a sequence that starts with an ampersand symbol and is terminated with a semi-colon (;), for example &gt; and &apos; are entity markups.

    If you want to include an ampersand character in the text then you must use the &amp; entity; for example, to include the text me & you the XML file would include me &amp; you.

  • Only use a less-than symbol (<) when starting an XML element; for example, <constant id="TEST">A test value</constant>.

    If you want to include a less-than character in the text then you must use the &lt; entity; for example, to include the text 1 < 2 the XML file would include 1 &lt; 2.

Example:

The following example shows the SE-NAME constant (which provides a human-readable description of the dCache instance) from a well-formed info-provider.xml configuration file:

<constant id="SE-NAME">Simple &amp; small dCache instance for small VOs
(typically &lt; 20 users)</constant>

The SE-NAME constant is configured to have the value Simple & small dCache instance for small VOs (typically < 20 users). This illustrates how to include ampersand and less-than characters in an XML file.

When editing the info-provider.xml file, you should only edit text between two elements or add more elements (for lists and mappings). You should never alter the text inside double-quote marks.

Example:

This example shows how to edit the SITE-UNIQUE-ID constant. This constant has a default value EXAMPLESITE-ID, which is a place-holder value and must be edited.

<constant id="SITE-UNIQUE-ID">EXAMPLESITE-ID</constant>

To edit the constant’s value, you must change the text between the start- and end-element tags: EXAMPLESITE-ID. You should not edit the text SITE-UNIQUE-ID as it is in double-quote marks. After editing, the file may read:

<constant id="SITE-UNIQUE-ID">DESY-HH</constant>

The info-provider.xml contains detailed descriptions of all the properties that are editable. You should refer to this documentation when editing the info-provider.xml.