ATG Content Administration Programming Guide

If the custom VFS will not be located on an ATG server, the target server does not have an agent that communicates with the ATG Content Administration server during deployment, but it requires one. In this case install the Publishing Web agent on the server. For help with this step, see Installing the Publishing Web Agent in this chapter.

Note: The Publishing Web agent is configured with an out-of-the-box VFS, the WWWFileSystem, as a convenience for users whose sites require that static content be deployed directly to the Web server, where it is served quickly. However, you can install the Publishing Web agent on any non-ATG server to which you want to deploy files, regardless of whether that server is a Web server or not. In this case, if you do not require the WWWFileSystem on the server, you must either remove its configuration file or exclude it from your deployment topology (see Plan Deployment Agent Responsibilities).

Create and configure the switchable VFS. More specifically, configure a SwitchableLocalFileSystem instance and place the configuration file in your localconfig directory.

Note: To facilitate this process, you can use the WWWFileSystem.properties file that is installed with the Publishing Web agent as the template for your custom VFS. Moreover, if you do not require the WWWFileSystem on the given server, you can create your custom VFS simply by renaming the WWWFileSystem.properties file and modifying both its class and properties.

As a hypothetical example, the following is the configuration file for a switchable VFS named /mycompany/FTPFileSystem that stores files on an FTP server. (This hypothetical example continues the example used in Extending the PublishingFileRepository.)

$class=atg.vfs.switchable.SwitchableLocalFileSystem

liveDirectory={atg.dynamo.server.home}/MyConfig/ftpFiles/live
stagingDirectory={atg.dynamo.server.home}/MyConfig/ftpFiles/staging
dataDirectory={atg.dynamo.server.home}/MyConfig/ftpFiles/data

name1=firstDataStore
name2=secondDataStore

For a description of each property, see SwitchableLocalFileSystem in Appendix B, Virtual File Systems.

Add the custom VFS to the agent’s list of switchable data stores in /atg/epub/DeploymentAgent.switchableDataStores. Make sure to specify the VFS by its fully qualified Nucleus path.