Site configurations

If the Multisite module is licensed, Site configurations can be defined, with the help of which a Lobster Data Platform system can be presented to different user groups with a specific appearance depending on the URL used for the call.

The Site configurations menu item (administration/designer/siteConfig) opens a view that combines an overview for entities of the 'Site configuration' type (core:SiteConfig) with the associated default input form for accessing a selected site configuration:

What is the purpose of site configurations?
Styles and Style templates offer extensive possibilities for defining the appearance of Lobster Data Platform.
Each Lobster Data Platform login refers to a specific company account, which can optionally refer to a specific 'style' for display within a session (see Input forms for company accounts).
Site configurations also offer the possibility to assign a specific 'style' (and some other features) before the actual login takes place, i.e. when the Company of session is not yet defined.
The assignment is always based on an evaluation of the URL used to access Lobster Data Platform. Specifically, the domain name or an alternatively used IP address is evaluated.
Examples: The section of the URL relevant for the assignment of site configurations is highlighted by monospaced font in each case.
https://www.domain.net/portal
https://portal.doma.in:9443/test
https://32.168.123.45:443

Operating principle

Although Site configurations are not assigned via Association criteria, a kind of 'assignment' according to the all-matching principle (see Association criteria) is relevant when the URL is evaluated:

The Site pattern to be specified for each site configuration defines a regular expression that is applied to the domain name (or IP address) from the URL to decide whether this configuration is potentially relevant for the given context.
- The relevant section from the URL (domain name or IP address) must be completely characterized by the Site pattern:
  - Therefore, a Site pattern like portal does not address all domain names that contain the string portal.
  - For this purpose, the Site pattern .*portal.* would be more appropriate instead. Each .* string in the pattern defines an indefinite number (≥0) of arbitrary characters.
- Without specification for the Site pattern, a site configuration is always considered potentially relevant without any check.
Based on the properties of the potentially relevant Site configurations, the characteristics for all features of a session that can be directly influenced via Site configurations (see second section in the following table) are determined according to the following rules:
- Among all potentially relevant Site configurations that specify a specific value for a given feature at all, the one with the highest value for Priority is considered.
- If several Site configurations with the same Priority provide conflicting specifications for the same feature, the last configuration created (with the highest ID value) determines the specification for the feature in question.
- If none of the potentially relevant Site configurations defines a specific characteristic, the Lobster Data Platform default applies.

NOTE The characteristics of a session can therefore be determined by overlaying specifications in different Site configurations (and default values, if applicable). As the example (below) demonstrates, different configurations can result in the same 'experience' for users.

Properties

Each ‘Site configuration’ (SiteConfig) uses the following properties:

Properties	Field	Contents	Description	Example
... to control the relevance of a site configuration depending on the URL used for access
Site pattern	`sitePattern`	Regular expression	A regular expression that decides whether the site configuration is considered potentially relevant when Lobster Data Platform is accessed via a given URL. This is exactly the case if the domain name (possibly also an IP address) specified in the URL corresponds completely to this regular expression.	`^myportal\.my-company\.com$` for a URL like `https://myportal.my-company.com:443`
Priority	`priority`	Integer	If the Site pattern qualifies multiple site configurations as potentially relevant to the URL in use, Priority determines their precedence with respect to the expression of the following characteristics.	`-5` for a site configuration to be given priority over competing site configurations with lower priority values than -5 when influencing a particular feature.
... to control the appearance of the session
Default style	`defaultStyle`	Style (`Style`)	The Default style defines the default 'style' (see Styles), which determines the appearance of /var until the successful login of a session, for which after the login, depending on the Company of session, a style different from the Default style may take effect.
Site name	`siteName`	Text	The Site name defines the text for the HTML tag `<title>` that, for example, determines the text in the browser tab of the Lobster Data Platform session.	`Custom site name`
Favicon	`favIcon`	Text	The Favicon property optionally defines a relative path to an image file for the icon that appears, for example, in the browser tab of the Lobster Data Platform session in conjunction with the Site name.	`assets/ammap/flags/in.png`
Favicon	`favIcon`	Text	IMPORTANT The string entered for Favicon must reference a public image resource. It does not work with Font awesome icon, although the ‘Asset Manager’, which can be opened via the ‘Select’ button in the user interface, my suggest this. Font awesome icons even show in the preview below the Text field, but they cannot appear as a Favicon in the browser tab of the Lobster Data Platform client. As shown in the example above, real images available under `assets` can be used as Favicons (see ‘Assets’ tab in ‘Asset Manager’). It is also possible to upload own images (see File manager) into a public folder (below `./web`) and type a relative link (with `web` as root).
Startup logo	`startupLogo`	Text	This is a legacy property with no immediate effect in current versions.
... to control availability of SSO providers in login dialog
External identity providers	`externalIdentityProviders`	Multiple choice of ‘Alias’ for SSO-configurations	The Multiselect combobox for External identity providers can be used to optionally select ‘Alias’ names for ‘SSO System preferences’ configured for the Lobster Data Platform (see SSO (Single Sign-On) for details). If a site configuration specifies External identity providers, the list specifies a whitelist, so the login dialog will only feature active providers that are active and listed. As long as the list of External identity providers is empty, any active SSO configurations should appear in the login dialog. However, this only is effective as long as there is no other site configuration applicable for the same context (according to its Site pattern) that provides a whitelist for External identity providers. If multiple site configurations with whitelists are applicable for the same context, only the one with the highest Priority is relevant. NOTE Since it is not possible to specify that a site configuration should not feature any SSO options in the login dialog by not defining any External identity providers at all, the only way to achieve this is to provide a whitelist with an invalid ‘Alias’ name. A name like ‘none’ may be entered into the Multiselect combobox and is accepted if the [+] symbol is clicked or Enter is pressed afterwards.

►IMPORTANT◄ The Site pattern often targets (sub-)strings for domain names that contain the period (.) as a separator character. Since the string specified as the Site pattern is interpreted as a regular expression, the period is by default a placeholder for any character. For a period character to be 'interpreted' as literal text in a regular expression, either (see 'Example' below) a backslash must precede it (\.) or the dot must be enclosed in square brackets ([.]).

A Site pattern like loc.lh.st is therefore not only effective for the domain name loc.lh.st but also, for example, when the Lobster Data Platform server is accessed 'locally' via the domain name localhost. The Site patterns loc[.]lh[.]st or loc\.lh\.st on the other hand, strictly and precisely address only the domain name (loc.lh.st).
A Site pattern like .*.et is valid for all domain names that refer to the Top Level Domain (TLD) et (for Ethiopia). Since in this Site pattern not only the first but also the second dot is interpreted as a wildcard, this site configuration is also potentially relevant for all domain names with the TLD net. The Site pattern .*\.et, on the other hand, applies exclusively to Ethiopian domain names.

Examples

For a Lobster Data Platform implementation, the following Site configurations are defined:
Priority	Site pattern	**... URL condition**	Favicon	Site name	Default style	External identity providers
10	`.*\.de`	Domain name ends with '.de'	empty	Mein Portal	DE	none
5	`.*\.eu`	Domain name ends with '.eu'		empty	EUROPE	['azure']
0	`myportal\.company\..*`	Domain name starts with 'myportal.company.'		My Portal	GLOBAL	['none'] (see Note above)
For accesses with the specified URLs, this effectively results in the following feature combinations:
*URL used for access*		potentially relevant Site configurations (with descending priority)	Effective characteristic (per URL)
*URL used for access*			Favicon	Site name	Default style	External identity providers
`https:/myportal.company.com`		'green'		My Portal	GLOBAL	none
`https:/myportal.company.eu:8443`		'blue' > 'green'		My Portal	EUROPE
`htpps:/myportal.company.de`		'red' > 'green'		Mein Portal	DE	none
Alternative Configuration:The same effective expressions can also be achieved (for the mentioned URLs) with the following Site configurations:
Priority	Site pattern	*...URL condition*	Favicon	Site name	Default style
0	`myportal\.company\.de`	Domain name is exactly "myportal.company.de"		Mein Portal	DE	['none'] (s. note above)
0	`myportal\.company\.eu`	Domain name is exactly "myportal.company.eu"		My Portal	EUROPE	['azure']
-1	empty	Any domain name		My Portal	GLOBAL	['none'] (see note above)

With the 'alternative configuration', all Site configurations define all properties explicitly, but partly in agreement. This creates transparency, because exactly one configuration is always used completely.
The regular expressions for the Site pattern of the configurations 'red' and 'blue' are mutually exclusive. Therefore, the matching priority (0) is not a problem.
The omission of a Site pattern for the 'green' configuration makes it the 'default configuration', which is always potentially relevant, but with a priority value of -1 becomes effective exactly when no Site pattern for one of the higher-priority Site configurations takes effect.