Content Storage

The default location for the content storage is: <Collaborator Server>/tomcat/collaborator-content-cache

The internal structure of the content storage is subject to change between versions of Collaborator, so we do not recommend altering the contents of the content storage directly without specific instructions from SmartBear technical support.

In some environments, the default content storage location could not be an acceptable solution. In this case you can change it.

Below are some things to consider when choosing a content storage location:

• File permissions may not allow writing in the installation folder.

• Maintenance of network storage may be easier if backups are already in place and disk usage is monitored automatically.

• Network storage allows for warm standby Collaborator servers to be available in the event of failure of the primary server.

To change content storage location:

1. Stop Collaborator server if it is running.
2. Open the <Collaborator Server>/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/ROOT.xml file.
3. Find the Parameter element with the content-cache name attribute.
4. Specify the new path to the content storage in the value attribute of this element. Relative paths in this attribute are interpreted relative to the server installation folder.
5. Copy the contents of the <Collaborator Server>/tomcat/collaborator-content-cache folder to the new content storage folder. Otherwise, review participants would encounter this error message when trying to open a file in a review: "Content for is not available – it was probably archived by your administrator."
6. Start Collaborator server.

Over time, content storage will grow to be quite large, and will periodically need to be purged. When deleting a review, Collaborator deletes files that were uploaded for this review from the content storage as well (unless they are used in some other reviews). To check the current status of the content cache and to archive (or delete) files that have not been in use for a long time, see the Archive section of the administrator interface.

Sharing the content storage between servers is not supported. The only environment where Collaborator servers should be configured to use the same content storage is if one is configured as a warm backup for the primary server. A warm backup is a system that is configured but not running. It can be started in the event of primary server failure to reduce downtime.

Starting from version 6, Collaborator has a new file content storage format that works better with many file systems by having a deeper folder structure, reducing the number of files in each folder. By default all new installations of Collaborator server use the new file content storage format.

To upgrade the content storage format of existing installations of legacy (CodeCollaborator 5 and earlier) servers:

1. Stop the server if it is running.
2. Open the <Collaborator Server>/tomcat/collaborator-content-cache/cache.properties file.

3. Edit it as follows:

   version=2
   lazy-upgrade-from-version=1
4. Start the server.

The cache.properties file is a Java properties file having two configuration keys, version and lazy-upgrade-from-version. The version key determines whether to use the new format (2), or the old format (1) for storing new data. The lazy-upgrade-from-version key determines whether to search for and upgrade data stored in the old format (1), or not (blank).