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3.4.9. Deploying the CoreMedia Fragment Connector

The CoreMedia Fragment Connector is the component that connects with CoreMedia CAE in order to integrate CoreMedia content fragments in store pages. In order to perform a fragment request, the LiveContextEnvironment has to be configured in the WCDE_installdir/workspace/Stores/WebContent/WEBINF/web.xml configuration file, as described below.

Changing the web.xml file

There are different approaches to configure the loading mechanism for properties for the fragment connector. The LiveContextEnvironment can load its configuration directly from web.xml, from a properties file and from the STORECONF table. The default implementation is PropertiesBasedIBMLiveContextEnvironmentFactory.

The PropertiesBasedIBMLiveContextEnvironmentFactory extends the IBMLiveContextEnvironmentFactory and in addition loads properties from a resource file on the classpath. If the resource file cannot be found - or the resource cannot be loaded, it will throw RuntimeExceptions. The location of the properties resource must be given in a servlet context parameter named livecontext.properties.location In the first place this factory tries to get a parameter from STORECONF table, in the second place from the properties file and if not found as fallback from web.xml.

Other approaches are the following:

  • The DefaultLiveContextEnvironmentFactory reads the connector properties directly as context parameters directly from the web.xml.

  • The IBMLiveContextEnvironmentFactory extends the DefaultLiveContextEnvironmentFactory and can be configured via the STORECONF table. If properties are not available in the STORECONF table the factory reads directly from the web.xml configuration.

The fragment connector is the central component in the commerce-led integration scenario (see Section 5.1, “Commerce-led Integration Scenario”). Configure the fragment connector for example as follows:

  1. Add the LiveContextEnvironment configuration as shown in WCDE-INSTALL/workspace/Stores/WebContent/WEB-INF/web.xml to the corresponding file in the WCS RAD workspace.

  2. In the file WCDE-INSTALL/workspace/Stores/WebContent/WEB-INF/coremedia-connector.properties configure at least the parameter com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.liveCaeHost with the host URL of your Content Application Engine (CAE). If you use a single WCS that should be able to connect to both, preview and production CAE, you also need to set com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.previewCaeHost with the host URL of the preview CAE. In case you have a dedicated Staging WCS with separate Production System, you only need to configure one CAE host, each. Find the meaning of all parameters in the list below.

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.cookieDomain

The cookieDomain is used when a fragment request is created. All accessible cookies are copied and added to this request using the specified cookie domain. This way it is ensured that the CAE session cookie is detected by the CAE and fragments can be rendered depending on the logged on user. The cookieDomain can contain multiple cookieDomains separated by comma.

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.environment

The optional parameter is used to identify the WCS that is requesting a fragment from a CAE. It may be used to serve different sites for each WCS that is connected to a single CMS. The strategy for resolving this parameter is implemented in the class LiveContextSiteResolver. The method findSiteFor(@Nonnull FragmentParameters fragmentParameters) checks if the environment parameters has been passed as request matrix parameter. If set (for example:site:PerfectChef), a lookup is made if a site with a matching name and locale exists. If no site is found with the given name, the default lookup strategy, implemented in findSiteFor(@Nonnull String storeId, @Nonnull Locale locale) is used.

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.liveCaeHost

The liveCaeHost identifies the Live CAE, to be precise, the Varnish, Apache or any other proxy in front of the Live CAE. Each request made by the fragment connector will be prefixed with the urlPrefix.

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.previewCaeHost

The previewCaeHost identifies the Preview CAE, to be precise, the Varnish, Apache or any other proxy in front of the Preview CAE. Each request made by the fragment connector will be prefixed with the urlPrefix. The previewCaeHost is only required if you want a single WCS instance being able to access the preview CAE in case of WCS preview and the live CAE in all other cases. Additionally, the preview mode can be invoked through an HTTP header as described in Section 3.5.4, “Developing with Apache (optional for e-Commerce)”. If you have a dedicated WCS instance for staging and separate production WCS, you do not need to set this property. If this parameter is not set, the parameter liveCaeHost will be used instead.

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.urlPrefix

This prefix identifies the web application, the servlet context and the fragment handler to handle fragment requests. The default request mapping of all the handlers within CoreMedia Blueprint that are able to handle fragment requests start with service/fragment.

com.coremedia.widget.templates

Configures the template lookup path that is used when rendering CoreMedia Widget includes. Default is /Widgets-CoreMedia/com.coremedia.commerce.store.widgets.CoreMediaContentWidget/impl/templates/

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.defaultLocale

Every fragment request needs to contain the tuple (storeId, locale) because it is needed to map a request to the correct site. Using defaultLocale you can set a default that is used for every request that does not contain a custom locale. You will see how it is used later, when you see the IncludeTag in action.

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.contextProvidersCSV

Every fragment request can be enriched with shop context specific data. It will be most likely user session related info, that is available in the IBM WCS and can be provided to the back-end CAE via a ContextProvider implementation. See Section 5.1.3, “Extending the Shop Context in Commerce-led Integration Scenario” for details.

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.isDevelopment

The fragment connector will return error messages that occur in the CAE while rendering a fragment if the isDevelopment parameter is set to true. For production environments you should set this option to false. Errors are logged than but do not appear on the commerce page so that the end user will not recognize the errors.

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.disabled

Turn this flag to true if you want to disable the fragment connector. Disabled means that the fragment connector always delivers an empty fragment. This property is not mandatory. If this property is not set the default is false.

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.connectionTimeout

The connection timeout in milliseconds used by the fragment connector; that is the time to establish a connection. A value of "0" means "infinite". Default is "10000".

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.socketTimeout

The socket read timeout in milliseconds used by the fragment connector; that is the time to wait for a response after a connection has successfully been established. A value of "0" means "infinite". Default is "30000".

com.coremedia.fragmentConnector.connectionPoolSize

Maximum number of connections used by the fragment connector. Default is 200.

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