Chapter 2: Server Administration
To view your server configuration settings:
- Select “File -> Configuration...”.
- This will pop up the “Console Configuration Dialog” window where
you can configure your server parameters.
Set the check box if you would like to enable "Remote server administration
through the admin account". This would allow the "admin" account to remotely
access the server configuration from any workstation with Akeni Expert
Client installed. If this is not checked, then you can access the admin
account through the client only from the computer where the server is running.
- Select “Action -> Server Configuration...”.
- This will pop up the “Console Configuration Dialog” window where
you can remotely configure your server parameters.
Set the check box if you would like to enable "Remote shutdown of server
through the admin account". This would allow the "admin" account to remotely
shutdown the server from any workstation with Akeni Expert Client installed.
- Select “Action -> Shutdown Server...”.
- This will pop up the “Shutdown Confirmation Dialog” window where
you will enter the "admin" password.
Set the check box if you would like to enable "Existing users can register
new accounts". This would allow existing users to register new user
accounts. Important warning: If you have also enabled the "Activate newly
registered accounts automatically" check box, then existing users can
register new users and activate the new accounts WITHOUT the "admin"
approval. It is best to leave "Activate newly
registered accounts automatically" off except when the server is running
entirely within a trusted LAN and no external access is allowed.
- from any existing client account, Select “Action -> Contact List ->
Advanced -> Register New User...”.
- This will pop up the “New User Registration Dialog” where
user can enter the new account information.
- If you set the check box "Add new user to everyone's contact list" then
this new user will be automatically added on everyone's contact list.
Set the check box if you would like to enable "Users can search contacts
using given/family names". This would allow a user to search other users
using given/family names.
- from client account, Select “Action -> Contact List ->
Advanced -> Search User By Name...”.
- This will pop up the “Search User By Name Dialog” where
user can enter the new account information.
Set the check box if you would like to enable "Users can ask the server to
send the entire user list". Important Warning: this feature would allow a user to ask the server to
send the entire user list so that the user can add selected users into
contact list. This might cause your server's user list to be exposed to the
internet so the administrator might want to disable this feature if the Expert
Server is connected to the internet.
- from client account, Select “Action -> Contact List ->
Advanced -> Search User By Name...”.
- This will pop up the “Add To Contact List Dialog”, if the user
enters blank and presses the return key, then the server will send the entire
user list.
Important Warning: The server will Automatically Shutdown once you have
changed this parameter. Please do this operation during non-business hours
or send warning messages to all users before changing this parameter.
Set the check box if you would like to enable "messages are saved by the
server for auditing purposes". If this feature is enabled, then the server will store all the
messages passed between the users for auditing purposes.
Important Warning: all logs are stored as unencrypted files, so the administrator
should make sure that the files are stored in a secured location where normal
users can not read them, preferrably using an encrypted file system. These
logs should be backup and then removed from the system to minimize potential exposure.
The advanced options can be used by experienced administrators to fine tune
the behavoir of the system. These advanced options can be changed
using the (Files | Configuration) menu from the server console.
If you are running as an NT service then you need
to shutdown the server before you change them. You can also edit the file
/Akeni/AkeniExpertMessengerServerData/advancedsetting.conf manully.
- AllowAddNewBuddyToContactList:
Set to 0 to prevent users from adding new people to their contact lists.
Users can still add new groups and manipulate the existing contact on their
lists. This feature is useful because it allows the administrator
to decide to whom the users of the system can talk to, while still
allowing users to customize their contact list. Note that if you
do not want the users to be able to change their contact lists at all,
then just uncheck the "Allowed to modify contact list" option
under the user's (Property | Permissions).
- AllowConference:
Set to 0 to disable conferences. All conference related menu and tool bar
button will not be shown to the user. This feature is useful for
specialized environments (such as class rooms or computer labs)
where conference may not be a desirable feature.
- AllowCustomerSupportAccountNewUserRegistration:
Set to 1 to allows the special web support account to register new users
through the system (but the new account still needs to be activated by
the admin). This feature is useful for implementing web based user
registration forms and could be used when "Existing users can register
new accounts" is turned off (so that normal users can not register new
user accounts through the normal client), but a web based registration
form is still allowed.
- AllowDisplayClientIpAddress:
Set to 1 to allow users to seeing each other's IP address. Note that the
admin can always see this information regardless of this setting.
- AllowEmail:
With this set to 0, the user will not see any of the email menus
and tool bar buttons.
- AllowPreference:
With this set to 0, the user will not see any of the menus and tool
bar buttons related to client side preferences.
- AllowRemovalOfRootFromBuddyList:
Allows the administrator to remove the "admin" account from a user's
contact list. This is NOT recommended because then the administrator
will not be able to contact the user.
- AllowUpdateUserInfo:
Set to 0 so that the user can not modify their contact info and
display name. This effectively "locked down" the user database.
- ConferenceHistoryFifo:
Set to the number of messages in conferences and forums that are
retained by the server.
Whenever someone joins a conference he/she will see these
messages. The default is set to 100. Setting this to a very large
value may impact the overall performance of the system.
- ConferenceHistoryForBespokeOnly:
Set to 0 so that all conference will have a history (the number of
messages retained is set via ConferenceHistoryFifo explained above).
Otherwise history are kept for web based customer support sessions only.
- CustomerSupportAccounts:
The name of the special web based customer support account. It is set to
"websupport" by default.
- DefaultAddToEverybodyGroupName:
The name of the group into which a new user is added when the account is
created with the "Add new user to everyone's contact list" option turned
on. The default value is "New-Contacts".
- DefaultInitialForumName:
The name of the forum that is created by the system automatically.
The default value is "Forum".
- DefaultNewUserGroupName:
The name of the first group that is created automatically for each new
account. The default value is "Contacts".
- ForceEncryptionOff:
Turn the encryption off. Note that the clients will no longer be able to
connect the server until the environment variable AKENI_DISABLE_CRYPTO is
set to 0 for every machine.
- KeywordDatabase:
Used internally by the system. Please do not change it.
- MySqlDatabaseHost:
The domain name or IP address of the external MySQL server.
- NotificationExpireAfterDays:
The number of the day an off-line notifications are retained by the system.
When a user signs into the system only those notification that are less
than NotificationExpireAfterDays days old will be sent.
The default value is 0, which means that all off-line notifications are
kept.
- OdbcSource:
Used internally by the system. Please do not change it.
- PerUserServerAuditLog:
Set to 1 so that the message logs kept by the server are stored on a per
user basis. Users will have their own directory with all the
messages that they have sent and received. By setting up the
appropriate network directory permission the admin of the system can
then make the logs accessible to the users.
- PrimaryDatabaseClass:
Set to "sqlitemessagedatabase" by default. SQLite is an embedded
database that is run within the server's process, so no data will be
lost due to network error between the messaging server and the SQL
server. It is suggest that you do not change the default.
Please note that the SQL message database need to be turned by via the
"Messages are saved into a database" option. The database can then be
access using Akeni's Expert Audit Tool or any number of Open Source
SQLite tools out there.
- PrimaryDatabaseName:
Set to "xpserver" by default. Best to leave it alone.
- PrimaryDatabasePassword:
There is no password for SQLite, but if you've change PrimaryDatabaseClass
to something else such as "mysqlmessagedatabase" then you need to set
the password here.
- PrimaryDatabaseUserName:
There is no username for SQLite, but if you've change PrimaryDatabaseClass
to something else such as "mysqlmessagedatabase" then you need to set
the username here.
- RemoveUnregisteredUserFromEveryContactList:
Set to 1 to let the server remove unregistered users from every one's
contact list. Please note that if this option is turned on and a user
have made some notes about the unregistered user via
(Properties | Notes) then the notes will no longer be
accessible.
- SecondaryDatabaseClass:
The system allows the message to be logged into two databases for added
redundancy. Currently the only secondary database supported by the
system is "mysqlmessagedatabase".
- SecondaryDatabaseName:
See PrimaryDatabaseName.
- SecondaryDatabasePassword:
See PrimaryDatabasePassword.
- SecondaryDatabaseUserName:
See PrimaryDatabaseUserName.
- ServerBindInterface:
By default this is set to "" so that the server will listen for
connection on all network interfaces in a multi-homed server.
You can set this to just
one specific interface (usually the one facing the LAN) to improve the
security of the system.
- ShowThreadPrintDebug:
Set to 1 to see more debugging messages on the server console.
- UseRC4:
Set to 1 to use the 128-bit RC4 rather than the default 192-bit 3DES
encryption. RC4 is many times faster than 3DES so this could be
useful on heavily loaded servers. Please note that older versions of
the clients which only support 3DES will no longer be able to
access the system.
To change the password of "Admin" account:
- Select “File -> Preferences...”.
- This will pop up the “Preferences Dialog”, then choose "General".
- Then press the "Change Password" button and it will pop up the “Change
Password Dialog”.
