The configuration of the xBus consists of several files:

• standard.conf
  - composed of all files named standard*.conf
  - containing information about:

  . Interfaces, e.g. the names of definition files, names of data files, names of mapping files.

  . Routing information, i.e. which messages must be transferred to which targets.

  . Connections, e.g. to databases or an AS/400

  . Extend of tracing and journaling

• mapping.conf
  - composed of all files named mapping*.conf
  - the mapping table that makes it possible to exchange values of fields. For example in one interface definition a status has the values {1, 2, 3} and in another interface it is {A, B, C}
• xbus.conf - a more technical file containing Java class names, used by the Factory-classes
• scheduler configuration
• XML/XSLT Files - interface definitions and scripts for transformation of data

Select one of the links from the navigation menu (to the left) for usage information, default values, and examples of each particular component of the configuration files.

All configuration entries are listed in a MS Excel file.

In addition, HowTo topics describe details how configurations are put together to perform specific tasks.

Several examples of configuration files are included as well.

Read the section below to understand a format of the configuration files and some syntax rules, as they will be referred to throughout the documentation.

The format of the configuration files is quite simple. Except the crontab file, the configuration files all have the same syntax: text files composed of comments, blank lines, and configuration entries.

• On any line, an unquoted # character introduces a comment. The remainder of that line is ignored.
• All blank lines are ignored.
• Each configuration entry consists of the keyword-value pairs (like Windows ini files keyword = value). To get a better structure for the keywords, every keyword consists of three parts: chapter, section and key. In other words the syntax for each configuration entry is:

	Chapter_Section_Key = Value

• The chapter is the top level.
• Every chapter contains one or more sections
• Keys are at the bottom of the hierarchy, beyond the sections.

• Multiply entries are not permitted. If multiple entries with the same keyword (Chapter_Section_Key) exist, "earlier" value will be overridden by "later" ones (the last one is used).
• The entries in the configuration files are grouped by their chapter. This serves only for facilitating reading the files and searching for specific information. For the processing, grouping and entry order are irrelevant.

The *.conf files are not just single files, like for example one XBUS_HOME/etc/standard.conf. Instead of it the standard or any other configuration can be split into multiple files. E.g. when loading the configuration, all files named XBUS_HOME/etc/standard*.conf and XBUS_HOME/plugin/etc/standard*.conf are loaded and merged together as the standard configuration.

You should be aware, that the configuration files that are merged together, must not have any entries with duplicate keys. The xBus will be terminated with an error message, if duplicate keys are found when merging the files.

In this documentation the entries are identified with their purpose. They can be global or system specific and required or optional in same time. In the description of each entry you will find always some keywords, which mean:

• A global entry affects the behavior of the xBus in general and must be defined and configured only once.
• A system-specific entry affects only one interface. As a rule, the name of the system is contained in the section or key of the entry.
• A required entry is necessary for the proper processing of the xBus and it must be defined.
• An optional entry must not be defined. The xBus will know, how to work without the entry.
• The classification of required or optional can be relative to a preceeding entry. For example, the Filename is required for FileReceiver or FileSender but not for HTTPSender.