The 100Custom.xml file and configuration

Some configurations in IBM® Process Server or IBM Process Center configuration are saved in a set of XML files. You can modify many of these settings for your server environment to, for example, modify the SMTP server address and tune the event manager. You update security configuration properties, database configuration properties, and URLs by using wsadmin commands.

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The following example shows the structure of a 100Custom.xml file:
<properties>
   <element1>
      <element2>
         <element3 merge="replace">smtp.mycompany.com</element3>
      </element2>
   </element1>
</properties>

Default configuration settings are distributed across multiple configuration XML files, which all have a prefix of less than 100: 00Static.xml through 99Local.xml. These files are shipped with your product version. They might automatically be updated after a fix pack or interim fix is installed. To override default configurations, you must create a 100Custom.xml file if it does not yet exist. Then you can update the server configuration properties in the 100Custom.xml file to override the default configurations.

Important:
  • Apply customizations and modifications only to the 100Custom.xml file or additional files added to the same directory as the 100Custom.xml file.
  • How elements are nested is important. If you add <timeout> in the wrong parent element, such as <server>, the value will not change. The property must be in the correct location in the XML document for the Process Server to read and update the values during run time.
IBM Business Process Manager merges the changes you make in the 100Custom.xml file with the original configuration based on the value of the merge attribute. Use one of the following values, depending on how you want to merge updated elements between the 100Custom.xml file and the original configuration. Attribute values must be in quotation marks (for example, "mergeChildren").
Table 1. Merge attributes for the 100Custom.xml file
Value for merge attribute Description
append Appends the new element after any existing elements.
mergeChildren Merges the new element with the first of the existing elements. This is the default behavior, which means that the attribute merge="mergeChildren" is implied and does not actually need to be specified on an element.
Note: If the new element has child elements and the existing element has the same child elements, then child elements of the new element will not overwrite the child elements of the existing element unless you specify the merge="replace" attribute for the child elements of the new element. Therefore, it is a best practice to set merge="replace" on all leaf elements. See also the Caution note in the row for the merge="replace" attribute below.
replace Replaces all existing elements and their child elements with the new element.
Note: When you set the merge="replace" attribute for an element that has nested child elements, any existing child elements from the product's default configuration will be deleted and only the child elements that are specified in your customization will be set. Therefore, only use the merge="replace" attribute with elements that have a list of nested child elements with the same name. For other cases, only specify the merge="replace" attribute for the individual child elements.
Note: For new elements to correctly append, merge children, or replace existing elements, the names of the new elements must match the names of the existing elements. Also, all attributes of the new elements must exactly match the attributes of the existing elements. This mean that the new elements must have the same number of attributes (which can be zero) and must have the same attribute names and values as the attributes for the existing elements (excluding the merge and match attributes, which are not considered).