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Administrating a Server
Administration involves maintaining one or more Tranche servers. The servers might be running on your computer, or they could be on different computers. Most commonly, administration involves setting up new servers, giving yourself rights to administer a server, or adding users to a server. If you only want to add data to, or download data from, existing servers, you can skip reading this page.
Click on any of the links below to jump to the related section.
- Setting up a new Tranche server
- Creating a new Tranche user
- Managing Administrators
- Configuration attributes
Setting up a new Tranche server
It is near trivial to start up a new tranche server. Tranche is coded in the Java programming language and uses Java WebStart, which requires no installation. You simply click the Tranche link and the latest code downloads and runs on your computer -- asking your permission first, of course.
You should be able to setup and use a new Tranche server in about 5-10 minutes. See the quickstart tutorial to get started.
Creating a new Tranche user
Tranche is designed to recognize X.509 certificates and associated private keys as users. Tranche also accepts these files in a ZIP archive, optionally AES encrypted. You can create these files manually or you can create them by using the create file tool included with the Tranche code. To launch the create file tool complete the following steps.
- Launch Tranche. A few seconds after clicking the link, the Advanced GUI will appear.
- Click on the "Create New User" button, located in the upper left hand corner. The Create a new Tranche User dialog box will appear.
The Advanced GUI
Create a new Tranche User
Each field represents a value that will be set in the associated X.509 certificate. You need not change any of the values. Click on 'Create User' to make a user file. You will be prompted for the location to save the file.
Entering a passphrase is a good idea. When you upload data to a Tranche network the data will be signed as coming from you. This is done using the private key that is saved in your Tranche user file. If you do not set a passphrase, anyone who has a copy of your user file can pretend to be you. Additionally, Tranche servers are set to trust people based on their X.509 certificates and associated private keys. If for any reason someone else gets a copy of your information they can edit any server you are able to edit. Setting a passphrase is an easy way to ensure that your user file stays reasonably safe.
Managing Administrators
Tranche is designed to let anyone with administrative rights remotely manage a server, including adding/modifying/deleting users; however, until you are set as an administrator you need to do a small work-around when adding a new administrator. Use the following steps.
- Launch a current version of Tranche (click to run).
- Click on the "Servers" button.
- You must then select and start the servers to which you would like to add the administrator - you must currently have administrator access on a server in order to add someone.
- Once the server has started click on the server address again and from the left hand menu - or by right clicking on the server - select "Add an Admin".
In order to do the above steps you must be at the computer that is running the Tranche server. If you do not have a user file, make one. Once you are set as an administrator you can remotely add or modify the administrators that the server trusts.
Normally you shouldn't add users as administrators. An administrator has the right to do anything they please to the server, including deleting files, deleting configuration information, and removing other administrators. Often it is advantageous to limit users access to simply being able to read, write, and/or update files on the server. You can do this by loading the user using the remote administration tools.
Configuration attributes
Attributes are dynamic name/value pairs that are added to Configuration for reasons such as monitoring server performance, providing information such as URLs, disabling certain features, etc.
For more information, please see the Server Configuration Attributes page.