Most of the GeoNetwork’s configuration parameters can be changed using the web interface. Those parameters that cannot be changed through the web interface can be usually changed using the GAST application. To reach this web interface, you must be logged in as an Administrator. The page’s link is located into the administration page (Figure 8.1, “How to reach the configuration page”. The link is surrounded with a red rectangle).
Clicking the page’s link you will get the set of parameters that you can change (Figure 8.2, “The configuration options”). Here follows a detailed description of them:
Site General site parameters.
name The name of the GeoNetwork’s installation. This name will be used to identify the node in operations like the harvesting. organization The organization the node belongs to. Just for informative reasons. Server Here you have to enter the address of your GeoNetwork’s node. This address is important because it will be used to access the node.
host The node’s address or IP number. If your node is publicly accessible from the Internet, you have to use the machine’s domain/address. If your node is hidden into your private network and you have a firewall or web server that redirects incoming calls to the node, you have to enter the public address of the firewall or web server. A typical configuration is to have an Apache web server on address A that is publicly accessible and redirects the requests to a Tomcat server on a private address B. In this case you have to enter A in the host parameter. port The node’s port (usually 80 or 8080). If the node is hidden, you have to enter the port on the public firewall or web server. Intranet A common need for an organization is to discriminate between internal anonymous users (users that access the node from within the organization) and external ones (users from the Internet). Node’s administrators can specify different privileges for internal and external anonymous users and, in order to do so, they have to specify the parameters of the internal network.
network The internal network’s address in IP form. netmask The network’s mask. Z39.50 GeoNetwork can act as a Z39.50 server, which is an OGC communication protocol to query and retrieve metadata.
enable check this option to start the Z39.50 submodule. Please, notice that GeoNetwork must be restarted in order to make this change active. port This is the port on which GeoNetwork will be listening for incoming Z39.50 requests. Usually, the value of 2100 is a standard one, but to have multiple GeoNetwork nodes on the same machine you have to change this value in order to avoid port conflicts between the different nodes. Proxy In some occasions (like harvesting) GeoNetwork must be able to connect to remote sites and this may be denied if an organization uses proxy servers. In this cases, GeoNetwork must be configured to use the proxy server in order to route outgoing requests.
host The proxy’s name or address to use (usually an IP address). port The proxy’s port to use. Feedback GeoNetwork can provide some feedback to the administrator if some events happen, for example a metadata is downloaded or some feedback is provided using the online form. You have to configure GeoNetwork with proper parameters to send an email.
email This is the email address that will be used to send feedback to the administrator. SMTP host Organization’s mail server to use when sending emails SMTP port Mail server’s SMTP port (usually 25).
At the bottom of the page there are some buttons with the following purpose:
Back Simply returns to the main administration page. Save Saves the current options. If some options are invalid, the system will show a dialog with the wrong parameter and will focus its textfield on the page. Once the configuration is saved a success dialog will be shown. Refresh This button simply refreshes the displayed options taking the new values from the server. This can be usefull if some options get changed dynamically (for example by another user).
Public host and port usage
Up to now, the server’s host and port are used in these cases:
During an editing session, when adding data links to a metadata. The host and port will be used to build download links to store inside the metadata.
During CSW requests. The GetCapabilities operation returns an XML document with HTTP links to the CSW services. These links are dynamically built using the host and port values.