Configuring VARS

Overview

VARS can be configured by setting properties in VARS_HOME\conf\vars.properties. Logging properties can be configured in VARS_HOME\conf\log4j.properties

VARS Properties

db.name

This is the name of the vars database. You should not need to change this.

castor.database

This points to the Castor database descirption file used by VARS to load the JDBC driver information and the database mappings. By default it should look like: 

castor.database=vars_database.xml
However, you can point it to any database mapping file you wish. For example, if you have several deployment locations you might want to maintain mappings for each location, such as vars_database.WESTERNFLYER.xml and vars_database.POINTLOBOS.xml. Also if you try to bundle the configuration files inside of a jar file you will need to change the line to: 
castor.database=conf/vars_database.xml

image.archive.dir and image.archive.url

When a VideoArchiveSet is closed in VARS, VARS will attempt to copy any framegrabs from the local machine to a mapped remote drive. Once the images are copied to the remote location VARS then updates the URLs in the database to be http URLs. In order for this to work we need to have both a file reference and an http reference to the same folder where the images will be stored. If the image archive does not exist the images will not be moved and the database will not be updated. For example: 

# This is the drive to move framgrabs to 
image.archive.dir=//Tornado.shore.mbari.org/framegrabs/

# This the the url that corresponds to the image.archive.dir
image.archive.url=http://search.mbari.org/ARCHIVE/frameGrabs/

ship.0, cameraplatform.0, ship1, cameraplatform.1 ...

These values are used to configure the cameraplatforms (i.e. The names of the ROV's, AUV's, etc, that the camera is mounted on) and the ships (The ship that is used for transporting the cameraplatform). They are matched by the number used in the postfix. So ship.0 is used to transport cameraplatform.0. If a ship is not provided for a cameraplatform, the camperaplatform value is used as both the ship and cameraplatform names.s