Configuration

Configuring the server

Edit the config file: conf/config.ini.

Mandatory field

host Is the server's base URI. This is the URI on which the TimeGate is deployed. No default value.

Example:

• Suppose TimeGate is running at http://tg.example.com and URI-R refers to an Orignal Resource's URI.
• The program will respond to TimeGate requests at http://tg.example.com/timegate/URI-R
• The program will respond to TimeMap requests at http://tg.example.com/timemap/link/URI-R and http://tg.example.com/timemap/json/URI-R if the feature is enabled.

Important field

is_vcs The type of archive affects the best Memento selection algorithm. Default false.

• When false, the history is considered to be snapshots taken at some points in time, thus the best memento is the absolute closest to the requested date.
• When true, the history the handler returns is considered to be from a version control system. In other words, the history represents every change that was made to the Original Resource and the exact datetimes of the change. In this case, the best Memento for a requested datetime T will be the closest before T.

Other fields

• handler_class (Optional) Python module path to a handler class. This is useful if the handler is composed of several classes or to quickly switch between handlers. If this parameter is not provided, the program will search for handler classes in core.handler. For example: handler_class = core.handler_examples.wikipedia.WikipediaHandler
• api_time_out Time, in seconds, before a request to an API times out when using the Handler.request() function. Default 6 seconds
• base_uri (Optional) String that will be prepended to requested URI if missing. This can be used to shorten the request URI and to avoid repeating the base URI that is common to all resources. Default empty
  • For example, suppose the TimeGate is deployed at http://tg.example.com
  • Suppose every Original Resources URI-Ri has the following format http://resource.example.com/res/URI-Ri
  • Then, Setting base_uri = http://resource.example.com/res/ will allow short requests such as for example http://tg.example.com/timegate/URI-Ri instead of http://tg.example.com/timegate/http://resource.example.com/res/URI-Ri.
• use_timemap When true, the TimeGate adds TimeMaps links to its (non error) responses. Default false

Cache parameters:

• cache_activated When true, the cache stores the entire history of an Original Resource from handlers that allows batch get_all_mementos(uri_r) requests. It can then respond from cache if the value is fresh enough. If a requests contains the header Cache-Control: no-cache the server will not respond from cache. When false the cache files are not created. Default true.
• cache_refresh_time tolerance in seconds, for which it is assumed that a history didn't change. Any TimeGate request for a datetime past this (or any TimeMap request past this) will trigger a refresh of the cached history. Default 86400 seconds (one day).
• cache_directory Relative path for data files. Do not add any other file to this directory as they could be deleted. Each file represents an entire history of an Original Resource. Default cache/.
• cache_max_values Maximum number of URI-Rs for which its entire history is stored. This is then the number of files in the cache_directory. Default 250.