Created by James Hurrell on Apr 16, 2021

Preferences - Platform Settings

The Platform Settings options are described below. The options define the location of the folders required by the CAST Management Studio to function:

Note that:

- the paths chosen in the CAST Management Studio Startup Wizard will be reflected in this window
- the folders are set on a "per Management Service schema basis". This means that the folders should be used only for the Management Service schema that you connect to. If you connect to a different Management Service schema, you will be required to set new folder locations - and these should NOT be set to the same location.

Source Management

In order to function correctly, the CAST Delivery Manager Tool requires two folders that are used to store Source Code:

  • Source Code Delivery Folder - a central location for storing successive and compressed versions of an application's source code as packaged by the Delivery Manager(s).
  • Source Code Deployment Folder - a location used exclusively by the CAST Management Studio to store the most recent version of the application's source code for analysis in uncompressed format

The following table lists each folder and where it should be located:

Folder Accessed by Location Where are they used?
Source Code Delivery Folder CAST Management Studio and CAST AIC Portal A storage location that can be accessed by all that require it:
  • If the CAST AIC Portal and the CAST Management Studio are deployed on the same workstation, then the folder can also be defined on the same machine (a "local" folder). You can use the following syntax:

    D:\CAST\DELIVERY (folder local to the host machine) - please use this syntax when the CAST AIC Portal and the CAST Management Studio are located on the SAME machine. In this situation, always enter an absolute path to the local drive containing the Delivery folder (for example D:\ CAST\DELIVERY). Please DO NOT use a mapped drive path (created using the Windows GUI or the subst Windows command) that points to a folder on the local machine or to a remote network share - doing so can cause an error that will prevent the CAST AIC Portal/CAST Management Studio from functioning.
  • If the CAST AIC Portal and the CAST Management Studio are deployed on different workstations, then the folder must be available to both - i.e.:
    • a network drive
    • a folder "local" to the CAST Management Studio that can be shared and accessed by the CAST AIC Portal 
    • a folder "local" to the CAST AIC Portal that can be shared and accessed by the CAST Management Studio

    You can use the following syntax: \\HOST\CAST\DELIVERY (folder on a remote network share) - note that forward slashes will also function. Please use this syntax only when the CAST AIC Portal and the CAST Management Studio are located on different machines.

  • If you use the the default settings in the Startup Wizard, then the path will be set to:
    • %SystemDrive%\CASTMS\Delivery
 CAST Management Studio and web.xml of the CAST AIC Portal.
Source Code Deployment Folder CAST Management Studio A storage location that is only accessed by the CAST Management Studio, as such CAST recommends the use of a "local" folder on the CAST Administration workstation (i.e. the machine on which the CAST Management is installed).
  • If you use the the default settings in the Startup Wizard, then the path will be set to:
    • %SystemDrive%\CASTMS\Deploy
 CAST Management Studio only

Notes - The folders must be capable of receiving large amounts of data (i.e. source code packaged by the CAST Delivery Manager Tool and any associated configuration files).

- Both folders can only store data for one CAST Management Service schema. In other words, if you connect to a different Management Service and attempt to use the data in the folders, you will be prevented from doing so.

- When you launch the CAST Management Studio for the first time following the installation of the CAST AIP storage items (Analysis/Dashboard/Management Services), you will be prompted for the location of these folders.

Job generation

A location used to store logs of all interaction with the Analysis or Dashboard Services:

Log Root Directory Use this option to define a log directory in which to store logs of all interaction with the Analysis or Dashboard Services. Once defined, the following log files are generated (see CAST Management Studio logging for more information):
  • one folder (named with a unique ID) per Application will be generated when you use the CAST Delivery Manager Tool, run an analysis or generate a Snapshot. Its contents include the analysis logs and Delivery Manager Tool specific logs (such as Validation/Selection/Discovery):

  • a log file called "CAST_MainTask_SummaryLog_<date>.txt" will be generated when you interact with the Analysis/Dashboard Service (i.e. run an analysis or generate a Snapshot)
  • a log file called "DssEngine.<date>.log.txt" will be generated when you generate a Snapshot - this logs the snapshot generation process
  • a log file called "RunCSV-<date>.castlog" will be generated when you generate a Snapshot - this logs the update of the CAST System Views

Notes

  • If you use the the default settings in the Startup Wizard, then log files will be stored in:
    • %PROGRAMDATA%\CAST\CAST\Logs
  • If this field is changed to blank, the Log Root Directory will default to:
    • %TEMP%\CAST\CAST\<version_number>
  • Changes made here will not affect the location of the specific CAST Management Studio log (CAST-MSXX.log.txt), which is displayed in the Log view (click for more information). Please also see CAST Management Studio logging for an overview of logging features.
Include Date in Log file name Use this option to date stamp the name of all log files generated by the CAST Management Studio.

CAST recommends activating this option to make it easier to identify the specific log files you need - each action you carry out (analysis, snapshot generation etc.) will generate a new log file.

When the option is inactive, all log files function in append mode, so messages are sent to the same log file over multiple CAST Management Studio sessions.
Storage

LISA (Large intermediate storage area) / LTSA (Large temporary storage area) - locations to store temporary files generated during the analysis process:

Large intermediate storage area This option enables you to define a location (i.e. a folder) on your local hard drive that can be designated for use by the CAST Management Studio to store miscellaneous files generated during the analysis process. These files will still exist once the analysis is complete.

Once a location is selected using the browse option, a sub-folder called LISA will automatically be created. Generated files will then be stored in the LISA folder.

Notes

  • If you use the the default settings in the Startup Wizard, then the path will be set to:
    • %PROGRAMDATA%\CAST\CAST\CASTMS\LISA
  • If this field is left blank, the CAST temporary folder will be used, i.e.:
    • %TEMP%\CAST\CAST\<version_number>\LISA
  • This feature is used more particularly in the J2EE and .NET technologies to store data generated when the User Input Data Flow Security Analysis feature is activated.
  • Note that the location must be capable of receiving a large amount of data (several hundred MB).
  • This folder stores miscellaneous files - it is similar in nature to a browser cache.
Large temporary storage area This option enables you to define a location (i.e. a folder) on your local hard drive that can be designated for use by the CAST Management Studio to store temporary files generated during the analysis process. These files will be removed once the analysis is complete.

Once a location is selected using the browse option, a sub-folder called LTSA will automatically be created. Generated files will then be stored in the LTSA folder.

Notes

  • If you use the the default settings in the Startup Wizard, then the path will be set to:
    • %PROGRAMDATA%\CAST\CAST\CASTMS\LTSA
  • If this field is left blank, the CAST temporary folder will be used, i.e.:
    • %TEMP%\CAST\CAST\<version_number>\LTSA
  • This folder stores temporary files - it is similar in nature to the Windows %TEMP% folder.
Notes about LISA and LTSA:
  • The CAST Management Studio will automatically manage the contents of both folders, as such no user interaction is necessary.
  • Under normal circumstances, CAST does not recommend manually cleaning or deleting the contents of the LISA and LTSA folders - however, if you find that the sizes of the LISA/LTSA folders are becoming very large and unmanageable, it is possible to delete the contents on the condition that the CAST Management Studio is not open or running. Note however that subsequent analyses of the same source code may have a performance reduction as the data will need to be regenerated from scratch and this can take some time to reconstruct.
Changing the folder locations

It is possible to change the location of the folders even once they have been defined in the CAST Management Studio Startup Wizard, however this operation should be approached with caution as, in the case of the Source Code Delivery Folder it will impact the functioning of the CAST AIC Portal.

All folders
- Only new applications or new packages will be affected.
- Keep the folder path length as short as possible (lower than 30 characters if possible)

Source Code Delivery Folder
Before changing the location of the Source Code Delivery Folder, please STOP your CAST AIC Portal (i.e. stop the web application on the JEE web application server):

- to prevent the change in location action failing - to prevent Delivery Managers attempting to deliver source code while the change is being executed Source Code Deployment Folder
- For existing applications, the old path will be used in order to keep the history. To change the path of an option for an already deployed package, "Set as current version" (see the Delivery tab for more information) must be used and a new path must be explicitly entered for each package.

  • Click the Change button to modify the location of the folder:

  • A dialog box will be displayed enabling you to define the location of the new folder:

  • Enter the path to the new location of the folder (taking into account the requirements listed above)
  • On completion new Applications and/or new Packages (even those in existing Applications) will use the new folder location.
  • Finally, in the case of the Source Code Delivery Folder you must now:
    • update the CAST AIC Portal web.xml file to take into account the new location of the Source Code Delivery Folder (see the documentation in doc.castsoftware.com for more information about this.
    • restart the CAST AIC Portal web application on the J2EE web application server

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