Administrator Guide

Introduction

 

The SysAid Administrator Guide was written to assist you in making system level changes to SysAid that do not involve the GUI. The changes described below should only be performed by an administrator who is familiar with both the workings of his network and with SysAid.

 

For your reference, the default installation directory for SysAid is C:\Program Files\SysAidServer\.

Terms in orange are variables that you must replace with the appropriate value.

 

Changing the SysAid Login URL

 

By default, the SysAid server login URL is taken from the hostname of your local machine. In order to change the SysAid server URL to another (e.g. external) hostname / IP address, please do the following:

1. Access the computer on which the SysAid Server is installed.
2. Open the serverConf.xml file located at ...\SysAidServer\root\WEB-INF\conf.
3. Check to see if you have the tag <serverURL>SysAidServerURL:PortNumber</serverURL> on the line below the tag <externalLoginClass>none<externalLoginClass>.

If you do not have the above tag, then insert it on the line immediately after <externalLoginClass>.

4. Replace SysAidServerURL with the desired hostname / IP address for your SysAid server. Make sure not to change the listening port.

Example: http://www.sysaid.com:8080

5. Save your changes and restart the SysAid Server service.
6. Log in to SysAid and check that a) the SysAid server URL under Preferences --> Downloads has changed, and that b) if you send a notification about a new password to a user, the login link in the e-mail includes the correct hostname / IP address.

 

Note: After changing the SysAid login URL, you must redeploy the SysAid Agent with the new URL.

 

Changing the SysAid Listening Port

 

When you first install SysAid, you choose the listening port for Tomcat. The listening port becomes part of the SysAid URL:

SysAidServerURL:PortNumber

Example: http://SysAidServer:8080

 

In order to change the port which tomcat listens on, please do the following:

1. Access the computer on which the SysAid Server is installed.
2. Open the server.xml file located at ...\SysAidServer\tomcat\conf.
3. Locate the line:

<Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1"

(Note that if you chose a different port during SysAid installation, that port number will be shown here instead of 8080.)

4. Change the value port="8080" to another convenient port (e.g. port="8180").
5. Save changes.
6. Open the serverConf.xml file located at ...\SysAidServer\root\WEB-INF\conf.
7. Check to see if you have the tag <serverURL>SysAidServerURL:PortNumber</serverURL> on the line below the tag <externalLoginClass>none<externalLoginClass>.

If you do not have this line, go to step 8.

If you do have this line, change PortNumber to the new port number you chose in step 4 above.

8. Save your changes and restart the SysAid Server service.

 

You must now use the new port number whenever you log in to SysAid.

 

Changing the SysAid Session Timeout

 

If you find that you frequently need to log back into SysAid because your session times out, you might want to lengthen the SysAid session timeout. In order to increase the session timeout interval in SysAid, please do the following:

1. Stop the SysAid Server service.
2. Open the serverConf.xml file located at ...\SysAidServer\root\WEB-INF\conf.
3. Find the line <webServerUser>false</webServerUser>, and add a new line after it.
4. On the new line, add <maxInactiveInterval>XXXX</maxInactiveInterval>, where XXXX is the desired session timeout in seconds. The maximum supported value is 99999.
   
5. Save your changes and restart the SysAid Server service.

 

If you choose a timeout interval of greater than 30 minutes, you must also update the timeout interval for the Tomcat web server.

1. Open the web.xml file located at ...\SysAidServer\tomcat\conf.
2. Find the <session-timeout> paramenter.
3. Modify the value <session-timeout>XXXX</session-timeout> as you see fit, where XXXX is the desired session timeout in minutes.
4. Save your changes and restart the SysAid Server service.

 

Reseting the Main Administrator Password

 

The SysAid login page allows you to reset your password if you've forgotten it. This is true for any password stored in SysAid except for the main administrator password (the main administrator is the administrator you created during SysAid installation). If you forget this password, you must use the SysAid password reset utility as described below. This utility is also useful if you've forgotten the username of the main administrator.

 

For Windows

If you have forgotten the main administrator's username or if you need to reset the main administrator's password, please do the following:

1. If your database type is Derby, please go to Windows Services (services.msc) and stop the SysAid Server service. If you are using another DB type, this step is not necessary.
2. Open the command prompt (Run --> CMD).

Note: On windows Vista, you need to run CMD as an administrator. Go to Start --> All programs --> Accessories --> right click on Command Prompt and select "Run as Administrator".

3. Change the directory to C:\Program Files\SysAidServer\util.
4. Type ResetPassword.exe and press Enter. Your account name should then be listed.
5. Type ResetPassword.exe "ACCOUNT NAME" (with the quotes) and press Enter.
6. The main administrator password has been reset. You will now see the username and new password ("changeit") for the main administrator.
7. If you stopped the SysAid Server service in Step 1, restart it now.

 

For Linux

The script to reset the main administrator password is located at http://webdist.sysaid.com/resetpassword.sh. The script should be run with the following two parameters:

Note: You need to stop Tomcat before running the script. Your terminal environment also needs to support Java commands. If you can run "java -version" from the terminal, then the script should work.

1. The path to the root SysAid folder. In Linux, it is usually the SysAid folder under the Tomcat webapps (e.g. /var/tomcat/webapps/sysaid).
2. The account name (e.g. Acme).

 

Example: ./resetpassword.sh /var/tomcat/webapps/sysaid Acme

 

The script will show you the administrator username and the new password (which is "changeit").

 

Restoring the Derby Database from a Backup

 

There may be times when you need to restore a backup of an earlier version of your database. If you are using an external database, such as MS SQL, MySQL, or Oracle, please consult your DB documentation. If you are using the embedded Derby Database, please follow the instructions below.

 

In order to restore the Derby database from a backup, please do the following:

1. Before you begin, please note the Derby Database backup folder. This folder is specified in SysAid under Preferences --> Integration --> Backup.

2. Stop the SysAid Server service.
3. Go to ...\SysAidServer\root\WEB-INF\db and rename the "default" folder to something like "default-current".
4. Go to the Derby Database backup folder.
5. In the backup folder are numbered sub-folders. Each sub-folder represents one backup from one day of the week. Go to the latest backup folder and copy the “default” folder to ...\SysAidServer\root\WEB-INF\db.
6. Restart the SysAid Server service.

 

Storing Attachments in the File System Instead of the DB

 

By default, attachments in SysAid are stored in the database. If you store very large attachments in SysAid, you may find that the database size grows very quickly, and that backups take a long time. For this reason, you may want to store attachments in the file system instead. Please note that if you use this option, you will need to back up the attachments seperately.

 

In order for SysAid to store attachments in the file system:

1. Stop the SysAid Server service.
2. Open the serverConf.xml file located at ...\SysAidServer\root\WEB-INF\conf.
3. Find the line <onlineHelpPageURL>http://www.sysaid.com/help-page.htm</onlineHelpPageURL>, and add a new line after it.
4. On the new line, add <saveAttachmentsOnFileSystem>true</saveAttachmentsOnFileSystem>.
5. Save your changes and restart the SysAid Server service.

 

From now on, any time you save an attachment in SysAid, it will be saved on the SysAid Server under ..\SysAidServer\root\WEB-INF\attachments\. Please make sure to back up this folder on a regular basis.

 

Contact Us

 

SysAid welcomes your questions and suggestions. We can be reached via phone and e-mail:

Toll Free phone center (U.S): 800-686-7047

Tel (U.S): +1 617-231-0124

Fax (U.S): +1 617 507 2559

Tel (Israel): +972 3 533 3675

Fax (Israel): +972 3 761 7205

E-mail: helpdesk@sysaid.com

SysAid community: http://www.sysaid.com/Sysforums/forums/home.page

You can also view our full support page at http://www.sysaid.com/contact_support.htm.