Default values

For the latest default values of general properties, see properties-base.xml.

URL rewriting

oxf.url-rewriting.service.base-uri

Usually Orbeon Forms uses the host, port, and context name as seen by the browser, such as:

http://www.mycompany.com/orbeon

to infer how to reach itself when calling some service URLs (see below for which URLs apply depending on the Orbeon Forms version). But in some cases, Orbeon Forms cannot reach to itself this way and an explicit base URL must be specified with this property.

Such cases include:

• accessing the server through different host names (like https://foo/orbeon and https://bar/orbeon reaching the same Orbeon Forms instance)

• accessing the embedded eXist database (for demo purposes) when the request goes through a reverse proxy

When you are in such configurations, please make sure to set oxf.url-rewriting.service.base-uri to point to the local servlet container instance, for example:

<property
    as="xs:anyURI"  
    name="oxf.url-rewriting.service.base-uri"              
    value="http://localhost:8080/orbeon"/>

Orbeon Forms 4.7 and newer

Since Orbeon Forms 4.7, this property is only used for the following:

• access to the embedded eXist database

• access to custom services located in the Orbeon web app (there are none by default)

You don't need to set this property if:

• you do not use the embedded eXist or custom services

• or you use the embedded eXist database or a custom service and

  • you are running your servlet container on a local computer for testing or deployment

  • or your external server name and port are accessible from the servlet container

When things don't work out of the box, typically when the network setup contains a front-end web server and/or prevents a network connection from the servlet container to itself, setting it to the following is usually enough:

<property
    as="xs:anyURI"
    name="oxf.url-rewriting.service.base-uri"
    value="http://localhost:8080/orbeon"/>

Make sure to adjust the port and prefix as needed.

Orbeon Forms 4.6.x and earlier

Up to and including Orbeon Forms 4.6.x, this property was used for all service calls, including calls to internal services used by Form Runner and Form Builder, such as loading i18n resources and accessing the persistence implementation.

With 4.6.x and earlier, you don't need to set this property if:

• you are running your servlet container on a local computer for testing or deployment

• or your external server name and port are accessible from the servlet container

When things don't work out of the box, typically when the network setup contains a front-end web server and/or prevents a network connection from the servlet container to itself, setting it to the following is usually enough:

<property
    as="xs:anyURI"
    name="oxf.url-rewriting.service.base-uri"
    value="http://localhost:8080/orbeon"/>

Make sure to adjust the port and prefix as needed.

Encryption properties

oxf.crypto.password

This property is used to create a private key used for encryption. It is recommended to change the default value of the password, even though a random seed is used.

<property
  as="xs:string"
  name="oxf.crypto.password"
  value="CHANGE THIS PASSWORD"/>

Orbeon forms uses encryption in a few cases, including:

• to send confidential XForms events to the browser

• for the client state mode of the XForms engine (which is not the default)

NOTE: If the backwards compatibility property oxf.xforms.password is defined, then it is used first.

oxf.crypto.key-length

This property specifies the length of the AES encryption key. The default is 128 bits.

<property
  as="xs:integer"
  name="oxf.crypto.key-length"
  value="128"/>

Higher strength encryption is usually not enabled by default in the JVM. See Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files. When higher strength encryption is available, this value can be changed to 256, for example.

oxf.crypto.hash-algorithm

This property specifies the default hash algorithm. The default is SHA1. Higher strength encryption is usually not enabled by default in the JVM.

<property
  as="xs:string"
  name="oxf.crypto.hash-algorithm"
  value="SHA1"/

Higher strength encryption is usually not enabled by default in the JVM. See Java Cryptography Extension (JCE) Unlimited Strength Jurisdiction Policy Files. When higher strength encryption is available, this value can be changed to 256, for example.

Orbeon forms uses hash algorithms in at least the following cases:

• to encode random identifiers, such as document ids in Form Runner

• for internal caching purposes

• XForms

  • keys for client-side scripts

  • keys for aggregated JavaScript and CSS resources

  • keys for dynamic xf:output resources

  • HMAC for server-side uploaded files

Global properties

oxf.cache.size

Orbeon Forms uses an efficient caching system. Orbeon Forms automatically determines what can be cached and when to expire objects. The cache has a default size of 200, meaning that it can hold 200 objects. This size is reasonable for most applications. A bigger cache tends to make the application faster, but it uses more memory. To tune the cache size, see the suggestions in the Performance and Tuning section.

oxf.cache.xpath.size

This property configures the maximum number of compiled XPath expressions to keep in the XPath cache. To tune the cache size, see the suggestions in the Performance and Tuning section.

NOTE: A profiler run shows that 2000 cache entries takes, for fairly typical XPath expressions, about 5 MB of memory.

Showing the Orbeon Forms version number

[SINCE Orbeon Forms 4.6.1]

This property controls whether Orbeon Forms outputs its version number to the client web browser:

• at the bottom of pages, in particular with Form Runner

• in the <xh:meta name="generator" content="…"> element

• in combined JavaScript and CSS resource files built by the XForms engine

<property
  as="xs:boolean"
  name="oxf.show-version"
  value="false"/>

Default:

• prod mode: false

• dev mode: true

XSLT output location mode

During development, the following XSLT transformer configuration helps with line number errors. The following values are allowed:

• none: no XSLT output line number information provided. This is recommended for deployment.

• dumb: minimal XSLT output line number information provided.

• smart: maximal XSLT output line number information provided. This is recommended for development.

<property
    as="xs:string"
    processor-name="oxf:builtin-saxon"
    name="location-mode"
    value="none"/>
​
<property
    as="xs:string"
    processor-name="oxf:unsafe-builtin-saxon"
    name="location-mode"
    value="none"/>

Default:

• prod mode: none

• dev mode: smart

HTTP Server

Errors and exceptions

The following property specifies whether the server is allowed to send detailed error and exceptions messages to the browser:

<property
    as="xs:boolean"
    name="oxf.http.exceptions"
    value="false"/>

Default:

• prod mode: exceptions are not sent to the browser

• dev mode: exceptions are sent to the browser

HTTP Client

See HTTP client configuration properties.

Epilogue and theme properties

oxf.epilogue.theme

This can be overwritten for a given app by placing a file theme.xsl inside the app directory.

oxf.epilogue.theme.embeddable

This can be overwritten for a given app by placing a file theme-embeddable.xslinside the app directory.

oxf.epilogue.theme.renderer

oxf.epilogue.theme.error

oxf.epilogue.use-theme

oxf.epilogue.output-xhtml

oxf.epilogue.renderer-rewrite

oxf.epilogue.process-svg

Email processor properties

Global SMTP host

Configure the SMTP host for all email processors. This global property can be overridden by local processor configurations.

<property
    as="xs:string"
    processor-name="oxf:email"
    name="smtp-host"
    value="mail.example.org"/>

Global SMTP port

Configure the SMTP port for all email processors. This global property can be overridden by local processor configurations.

<property
    as="xs:string"
    processor-name="oxf:email"
    name="smtp-port"
    value="25"/>

Global SMTP username

Configure the SMTP username for all email processors. This global property can be overridden by local processor configurations.

<property
    as="xs:string"
    processor-name="oxf:email"
    name="username"
    value="john"/>

Global SMTP password

Configure the SMTP password for all email processors. This global property can be overridden by local processor configurations.

<property
    as="xs:string"
    processor-name="oxf:email"
    name="password"
    value="secret"/>

Global SMTP encryption

Configure the SMTP encryption for all email processors. This global property can be overridden by local processor configurations.

<property
    as="xs:string"
    processor-name="oxf:email"
    name="encryption"
    value="tls"/>

Test SMTP host

Configure a test SMTP host for all email processors. This global property when specified overrides all the other SMTP host configurations for all email processors, whether in the processor configuration or using the smtp-host property.

<property
    as="xs:string"
    processor-name="oxf:email"
    name="test-to"
    value="joe@example.org"/>

This property can easily be commented out for deployment, or placed in properties-local-dev.xml (see also Run Modes).

Test recipient

Configure a test recipient email address for all email processors. This global property when specified overrides all the other SMTP recipient configurations for all email processors.

<property
    as="xs:string"
    processor-name="oxf:email"
    name="test-to"
    value="joe@example.org"/>

This property can easily be commented out for deployment, or placed in properties-local-dev.xml (see also Run Modes).

Rarely used properties

oxf.log4j-config

Orbeon Forms uses the log4j logging framework. In Orbeon Forms, log4j is configured with an XML file. Here is the default Orbeon Forms log4j configuration.

If this property is not set, the log4j initialization is skipped. This is useful if another subsystem of your application has already initialized log4j prior to the loading of Orbeon Forms.

NOTE: You don't usually need to modify this property.

oxf.pipeline.processors

NOTE: You don't usually need to modify this property.

oxf.validation.processor

Many processors validate their configuration input with a schema. This validation is automatic and allows meaningful error reporting. To potentially improve the performance of the application, validation can be disabled in production environments.

NOTE: It is strongly discouraged to disable validation, as validation can highly contribute to the robustness of the application.

oxf.validation.user

User-defined validation is activated in the XML Pipeline Definition Language with the attributes schema-href and schema-uri. To potentially improve the performance of the application, validation can be disabled in production environments.

NOTE: It is strongly discouraged to disable validation, as validation can highly contribute to the robustness of the application.

sax.inspection

SAX is the underlying mechanism in Orbeon Forms by which processors receive and generate XML data. Given only the constraints of the SAX API, it is possible for a processor to generate an invalid sequence of SAX events. Another processor that receives that invalid sequence of events may or may not be able to deal with it without throwing an exception. Some processors try to process invalid SAX events, while others throw exceptions. This means that when a processor generating an invalid sequence of SAX events is used in a pipeline, the problem might go unnoticed, or it might cause some other processor downstream to throw an exception.

To deal more efficiently with those cases, the sax.inspection property can be set to true. When it is set to true, the pipeline engine checks the outputs of every processor at runtime and makes sure that valid SAX events are generated. When an error is detected, an exception is thrown right away, with information about the processor that generated the invalid SAX events.

There is a performance penalty for enabling SAX events inspection. So this property should not be enabled on a production system.

NOTE: You don't usually need to enable this property.