Bookshelf v7.5: Editing the Web Server Extension Configuration File

The eapps.cfg file is divided into sections that can be used to configure a selection of Siebel eBusiness Applications from a global standpoint or at the application level. These are explained in the following pages. A number of parameters can also be manually input to control security, the ports used for Web server communications, and other operations. For more information, see Services You Must Restart.

A partial sample of the eapps.cfg file follows. This file is installed in the binary subdirectory of the Web Server Extension root directory.

The file includes language-specific Siebel Object Manager connect strings for every language supported by Siebel eBusiness Applications in the current release for every supported Siebel application, for example:

ConnectString = siebel.TCPIP.none.None:\\dedwards5:2320\Siebel\SalesCEObjMgr_sve\SiebSrvr1

The values for your configuration file may differ, depending on how you respond to the installation prompts.

none (first instance) = the encryption type chosen. If using Central Dispatch, set the Siebel Server parameter Encryption Type to the value chosen. See the Siebel Server Administration Guide for further information. If Central Dispatch is not used, compression is driven by the Encryption Type parameter and the ConnectString value is ignored.

None (second instance) = data compression method chosen. If using Central Dispatch, set the Siebel Server parameter Compression Type to the value chosen. See Siebel Server Administration Guide for further information. If Central Dispatch is not used, compression is driven by the Compression Type parameter and the ConnectString value is ignored.

Parameter Descriptions

These parameters appear in the eapps.cfg file, located in the \BIN subdirectory of your \SWEApp installation directory. The values you see are a combination of default settings and the values that you selected during the installation and configuration process. You can edit these parameters post-installation, as described in the following subsection.

[swe] Section

The parameters that follow can be found in this section of the eapps.cfg file. These parameters apply to all the selected Siebel eBusiness Applications.

Language

This is the language version of Siebel eBusiness Applications. For example, enu stands for U.S. English.

Log

These are the types of log entries you selected during installation. For example, an entry reading errors would mean that the log should show only fatal and non-fatal operational errors.

Log Directory

ClientRootDirectory

This is the location of SWSE plug-in installation, whose default location is SWEAPP_ROOT

SessionMonitor

Use this parameter to determine whether to gather statistics on all current sessions and report them in the SWSE stats page. To enable session monitoring, set SessionMonitor to TRUE. When this parameter is set to TRUE, administrators can determine who is logged into the system at any given time.

Session data includes each user's Username and unencrypted Session ID, so it is important to restrict visibility to the SWSE stats page when SessionMonitor is enabled. To prevent non-administrators from viewing the SWSE stats page, you can change the StatsPage parameter to a value known only to administrators.

If SessionMonitor is disabled (set to FALSE), sessions will remain unmonitored and will not appear on the application SWSE stats page.

NOTE: The collection of session information results in a slight degradation in performance.

AllowStats

This parameter enables or disables application-specific statistics reporting in the SWSE stats page. To enable the collection of application-specific statistics, set AllowStats to TRUE. AllowStats set to FALSE disables statistics gathering. The default is TRUE (enable statistics collection).

NOTE: If set to FALSE, only system-level statistics are displayed on the SWSE stats page.

LogSegmentSize

This parameter determines how large a segment of the log file is in kilobytes. If you set this parameter to 5, the log segment will be 5 KB in size. A value of 0 turns off segmentation.

LogMaxSegments

This parameter determines the number of log segments that will be kept. If you set this parameter to 1, only one segment will be kept. When this segment reaches the size specified by the Log Segment Size parameter, the segment will be overwritten. In general, you should set this parameter to a higher value, such as 20. In this case, the twenty-first segment will overwrite the first segment, and so forth.

SessionTracking

URLSession

This parameter is optional, requiring manual input by the user within the [swe] section of the file, if it is needed.

The Siebel Web Engine exchanges session information with Web browsers, using cookies. For browsers on which cookie acceptance has been disabled, session information is stored in Web page URLs.

When the URLSession parameter is set to TRUE, session information is always exchanged using URLs and cookies are disabled. This is known as "cookieless" session mode.

CAUTION: Some functionality requires cookies and will not operate correctly in cookieless mode. This includes the Remember My User ID and Password feature and the EAI Inbound HTTP receiver. For information on this receiver, see Transports and Interfaces: Siebel eBusiness Application Integration Volume III.

CookieSession

This parameter is optional, requiring manual input by the user within the [swe] section of the file, if it is needed.

If the CookieSession parameter is set to TRUE, cookies will always be used to exchange session information, as opposed to storing the information in Web page URLs.

Web browsers with cookies disabled will not be able to correctly maintain a connection to a Web site.

The CookieSession parameter takes precedence over the URLSession parameter if both are set to TRUE.

CAUTION: Siebel Systems does not recommend setting CookieSession to TRUE for sites that support anonymous browsing. Anonymous browsing by Web clients that have disabled cookies can have a negative impact on performance.

Table 37 describes Web server behavior when either the CookieSession or URLSession parameter has been added to the eapps.cfg file by an administrator (a blank table cell below means that the parameter has not manually been added to the file) and set or when both have been added and set.

Table 37. Web Server Behavior Based on CookieSession, and URLSession Parameters
CookieSession	URLSession	Behavior
		Automatic mode1
	`TRUE`	URL session only
	`FALSE`	Automatic mode
`TRUE`		Cookie session only
`TRUE`	`TRUE`	Cookie session only2
`TRUE`	`FALSE`	Cookie session only
`FALSE`		Automatic mode
`FALSE`	`TRUE`	URL Session only
`FALSE`	`FALSE`	Automatic mode

1If the Web browser is configured to accept cookies, the default is CookieSession mode; if it does not accept cookies, the default is URLSession mode.

2The value for CookieSession overrides the value for URLSession.

[defaults] Section

The parameters that follow apply to all the Siebel eBusiness Applications whose connect strings are referenced in this file. Any of the settings that can be specified under [defaults] can be also specified for individual eApplications (such as /esales) in the [xxx] section. If such a parameter is set for a particular eBusiness Application, it overrides the value listed in [defaults].

AnonUserName

This parameter specifies the user name required for anonymous browsing and initial access to the login pages. The user name selected should have access to views intended for anonymous browsing, but it should otherwise be the name of a restricted user.

AnonPassword

AnonUserPool

This parameter specifies the maximum number of anonymous user connections that can provide access to login pages. The anonymous user pool applies to the brief, initial actions taken by the user on the login pages before logging in. After users log in, they have a separate connection.

The default value is 10. If you expect to have a very busy site, you may want to increase this value. The recommended anonymous pool size is 10% to 15% of the number of concurrent users.

If you expect a Web site to experience large usage spikes, you should increase the anonymous user pool size. This increase in size can be offset by decreasing the anonymous session timeout. For example, any pool consisting of less than 25 anonymous sessions could have 1800-second (30-minute) timeouts. However, pools with more than 50 anonymous sessions may experience better overall performance with 300-second (5-minute) timeouts.

StatsPage

This is the URL (relative to the application's virtual directory) of the page that administrators can access to view statistics on how the Web server is being used. Statistics include the number of active users, the number of requests, and the average speed of request processing.

For information on the SWSE Stats Page, see Siebel Server Administration Guide.

HTTPPort

The HTTP port used for Web browser communications. The default setting is the standard port of the Web server in use (80).

HTTPSPort

The HTTPS port used for secure Web browser connections. The default setting is the standard port of the Web server in use (443).

EnableFQDN

This setting enables the processing of requests to Web sites even if the user does not provide the fully qualified domain name, such as http://www.ebiz.siebel.com.

The corollary parameter is FQDN, which must also be set appropriately for the request to be processed correctly. See also FQDN.

FQDN

Stands for Fully Qualified Domain Name. An example of a fully qualified domain name would be http://ebiz.siebel.com.

If the Web server receives a request for a URL that does not contain the full domain name, the FQDN setting causes the browser to reissue the request and to add the domain name.

In the example below, the eapps.cfg file is edited so that a Web site is accessed as
http://ebiz/callcenter. The FQDN setting converts the request to
http://ebiz.siebel.com/callcenter.

One possible application for this is in a Single Sign-On environment, in which cookies with FQDN must be passed to different servers in the same domain. For information about Single Sign-On, see Security Guide for Siebel eBusiness Applications.

AnonSessionTimeout

The time, in seconds, that a connection open for anonymous browsing can remain idle before it times out. The default is 900 seconds (15 minutes).

Anonymous sessions are those in the anonymous pool. They handle inbound requests from Web clients that do not have a session established. However, their main use is to handle an initial client request, whatever that request is. This normally consists of retrieving a Login page or a Login view.

An anonymous session can also be viewed as the Siebel Web Server Extension's own internal login to the Siebel Object Manager in the Siebel Server. The extension uses these sessions to communicate with the Siebel Object Manager in cases when it is not appropriate to use a session established for a specific Siebel Web Client.

Both guest and anonymous sessions use the AnonUserName and AnonPassword parameters to log in.

GuestSessionTimeout

The time, in seconds, that a connection open for anonymous browsing can remain idle before it times out. The default is 300 seconds (5 minutes).

Guest sessions are used for anonymous browsing. They permit users to navigate portions of the site without logging in. In contrast to anonymous sessions, guest sessions are associated with an individual Siebel Web Client. These sessions are opened when an unregistered user starts navigating the site, and they remain open until the Web client logs out or times out due to inactivity.

When deciding how long guest user timeout should be, your primary consideration should be whether or not anonymous browsing is being used. If so, guest user timeouts should be greater than the average time users would need to deliberate their next action. In other words, this is the time allowed between user actions.

Both guest and anonymous sessions use the AnonUserName and AnonPassword parameters to log in.

SessionTimeout

The time, in seconds, from the user's last browser request until the user's connection times out. The default is 900 seconds (15 minutes).

Standard sessions are those where users log in using their registered user name and password. Otherwise, they share many of the same characteristics as guest sessions.

NOTE: All the session timeouts mentioned above deal with the session inactivity. In other words, if they are set to 3600 seconds, then it requires one hour of session inactivity for that session to time out. The session inactivity means there should be no request made to the server on that session. Any act pinging the server, such as message broadcasting, resets the session timeout period.

Table 38. Guidelines for Setting Session Timeouts
Session Type	Condition	Recommended Setting
Anonymous Session (recommended anonymous user pool size: 10%-15%)	Large numbers of users logging in within a short period of time (login spikes). Frequent logins and logouts.	>30 min.
Guest	Long intervals between user actions. Login view is used for logins. Logout occurs on a logout view.	>30 min. <5 min. <5 min.
Regular	Employee applications. Customer applications. High security requirements. High continuity (low interaction) with the browser. Lightly loaded system.	>30 min. 1-15 min. <5 min. >30 min. >30 min.

Enabled

The Siebel Web Engine stops responding to user requests if this flag is set to FALSE. The default is TRUE, or enabled. A particular Siebel eBusiness Application (for example,
/marketing) stops responding to user requests if this flag is set to FALSE.

This is an optional parameter that, if required, must be manually input in either the [defaults] section of the file, or at the application [/xxx] level, depending on whether you want to disable all applications or just some.

In the example below, the first line has been manually input to disable the Marketing application. All applications are enabled by default.

In the following example, the parameter has been set to disable all applications, because it has been entered in the [defaults] section.

[/xxx] Section

This section of the file contains connect strings for each Siebel Web Client application, as well as the parameters WebPublicRootDir and WebUpdatePassword.

Any parameter you set for a particular eApplication overrides any opposite value listed under [defaults].

ConnectString

A connect string exists for each Siebel Web Client application. Each connect string reflects the individual object manager for that application and contains information you entered during setup.

The sample connect string below contains descriptions within parentheses of the string components.

[/eevents]
AnonUserName = User1
AnonPassword = Password1
ConnectString = siebel.TCPIP.none.NONE:\\siebel101:2320\Siebel\eEventsObjMgr\siebel2

eEvents = relevant object manager (in this example, the eEvents object manager).

NOTE: When you install Central Dispatch, the entry for the Siebel Server alias does not appear in the connect string; rather, the connect string ends with the Siebel Object Manager.

StartCommand

This value is the assumed command if your session starts and a command (query) is not explicitly specified in the URL. For example, for eservice the StartCommand is SWECmd=GotoView&SWEView=Home+Page+View+(eService). When you first bring up eservice in a new browser, it will be understood that your first query is a GotoView to your home page view. Normally you do not need to modify the StartCommand parameter specified in eapps.cfg.

WebPublicRootDir

WebUpdatePassword

This is the password used by the Siebel Administrator to refresh application images from the Siebel Server on the Web server without restarting.