The Virtual File System configuration.

Where to find the VFS configuration

  • You can find or add any VFS-related configuration in the hosts.xml file, most of them in the node <censhare-vfs/>. Example:
<host name="hostname" authentication-method="" compressionlevel="0" url="//some/where/corpus.RMIServer">
	<censhare-vfs use="1" />
</host>
XML
  • Some parameters are also available in the censhare Client. However, not all parameters in those dialogues are related to VFS. 
  • File → Preferences → Servers

  • File → Preferences → Logs

The dialogue is only accessible in the admin mode. See Switch to Admin mode - censhare Client for instructions.

hosts.xml and configuration in Client are opened in the same time

When hosts.xml and one of the above dialogues in the Client are opened at the same time, changes made in the Client will override changes made in hosts.xml. Changes made in the hosts.xml file will be lost.


Configuration parameters

use | Enabling and disabling the VFS

The virtual file system is activated by default. You may also disable it:

  • by setting the use parameter to "0" in the hosts.xml
  • by unchecking the Active box in the File → Preferences → Servers →  General →  Virtual volume


databasename and name | Default VFS name

Generally, you do not need to pay attention to the choice of the VFS name. However, in some situations, you must ensure that problems with third-party software do not affect the operation of censhare. For this, you can configure the VFS name. This entry is also used for creating the VFS path. It will look like this, as an example:

/Volumes/censhare_Tracker/service/assets/asset/id/67485/storage/master/file

This path accesses the Master File of the asset with the ID 67485, in the database or on the server censhare_Tracker. If no value exists for the database name, censhare uses the server name in the associated entry. The server name is also shown in the drop-down list if a user wants to log into a system using the desktop Client. If the name contains special characters, the client might automatically change the VFS name into one that is compatible with a disk drive.

You can change the database or server name for a client: under the menu option File→ Preferences->Servers. Go to the desired entry in the dialog and in the General section of this entry, enter the database name in the Database field and/or enter the server name in the Name field.

You can also make your changes to the settings directly in the hosts.xml file. For a server entry in the associated tag <host>, enter the attribute databasename for the database name and/or the attribute name for the server name. For example:

<host ... name="SERVER-NAME" databasename="DATABASE-NAME" ...>
CODE


  • In the hosts.xml file, in the host element:
<host name="name" url="//name/corpus.RMIServer" compressionlevel="0" authentication-method="" databasename="test2">
  <proxy use="0"/>
  <censhare-vfs use="1"/>
</host>
XML
  • File → Preferences → Servers

debug-level | Activate and configure logging

VFS 3.0 (macOS) only

For VFS logging on Windows, please consult the official documentation of the CBFS provider (CBFS Connect™ from callback Technologies).

The VFS logging includes logs generated by the censhare native VFS library and logs generated by the censhare Client. Each type of logs needs to be activated separately. 

However, the structure of logs is identical on both sides. It may be enough to have only the Client-side logs activated.


VFS native logging

  1. Set the logging/debug level. This needs to be done only once in  the  hosts.xml  file.
    1. debug-level="3" or debug-level="4"in the <censhare-vfs/> node.
      1. debug-level="3" must be enough for collecting VFS logs. With the "4", you will get all possible log messages.
        <host compressionlevel="3" url="frmis://test-css01/corpus.RMIServerSSL" name="test-css01  - 2023.1.0" disable-trust-manager="true"  databasename="test" authentication-method="" >
	<proxy use="0"/>
	<censhare-vfs debug-level="3" use="1"/>
</host>
        XML


  2. Before each start of the censhare Client:
    1. Start the Console application (a native macOS application for log collection).
    2. Click Start streaming to start collecting logs.
    3. In the search field on the top right, enter censhare Client to filter logs. 
    4. Limit the censhare Client filter to Process instead of Any.
      1. Optionally, add CenshareFS as a search term to limit the displayed logs to VFS-related.
      2. Optionally, click Save underneath to save your search for the next time.
    5. Start the censhare Client.
    6. Once you finished working in the Client and closed it:
      1. Select all entries in the Console using SHIFT+A.
      2. Copy-paste them into any location convenient for you. 


VFS API/censhare Client-side logging

In the censhare Client, under File → Preferences → Logs select:

    • FILES & DIRECTORIES to get only VFS-related logs
    • or ALL to get all logs
    • specify which XML protocols should be included and in which format they should be outputted

 

If you select File as an output option, the logs will be written to ~/Library/Preferences/censhare/v4/javaclient-0.x.log

javaclient-0.0.log contains the most recent logs. Other files contain older log entries. The files get rotated.

For information on exact meaning of each log level, see this page. 

See also VFS Logging for more information on which logs are generated and why and how to read them.

Facilitate your VFS performance

The following two parameters can be used to facilitate your VFS performance. They can be added in the hosts.xml file.

filecache3 block-prefetch-size | Size of data chunks transferred between the server and the client

A block-prefetch-size parameter influences the size of data chunks transferred between the server and the client. But is not equal to the size of the chunk.

The VFS file cache now uses an internal chunk size of 256KB. By increasing the block-prefetch-size parameter, larger data chunks are exchanged, hence, reducing the amount of RMI network calls. Therefore, depending on the network connection, a larger value can significantly increase the performance. Good values are between 8 and 64 (2MB - 16MB). Higher values are not recommended, because they typically don't bring any further performance benefit and may block file system read calls too long.

filecache3 max-disk-cache-size-mb | Disk space

Additionally to the prefetch size, we also recommend to assign a large value to the disk space that is available for the client's file cache. The default value is now increased from 1GB to 10GB.

Recommended combination of the prefetch size and file cache disk space

<filecache3 max-disk-cache-size-mb="20000" block-prefetch-size="32"/>
This means 20GB of cache size and 32 * 256KB = 16MB chunk size.

hidden | Hide the mount point 

By default, the mount point will be shown in the Finder and optionally on your desktop. However, no contents (=assets) will be visible. If you have a lot of other drives, you may want to hide the VFS mount point. This can be done by setting the respective attribute hidden to "0". 

<host url="//yourServer/corpus.RMIServer"
      name="serverName">
 <censhare-vfs use="1" hidden="1" />
</host>
XML