Administrator manual

Main Page > Development > Administrator Manual

Installation

• Instructions for installing the latest build of Archivematica on your server

Upgrading

• Currently, Archivematica does not support upgrading from one version to the next. A re-install is required.

Users

User management

The dashboard provides a simple cookie-based user authentication system using the Django authentication framework. Access to the dashboard is limited only to logged-in users and a login page will be shown when the user is not recognized.

If the application can't find any user in the database, the user creation page will be shown instead in order to create a new account. Users can be also created, modified and deleted from the Administration tab. Also, an user can be temporary disabled in case that you want to block its access but keep its data.

Archivematica uses PBKDF2 as the default algorithm to store passwords. This should be sufficient for most users: it's quite secure, requiring massive amounts of computing time to break. However, other algorithms could be used as the following document explains: How Django stores passwords.

Our plan is to extend this functionality in the future adding groups and granular permissions support: see issue 922 to read more about it.

User manual

• Instructions importing of data into Archivematica

Dashboard administration tab

The Archivematica administration pages allow you to configure application components and manage users.

AtoM DIP upload

Archivematica can upload DIPs directly to an AtoM website so the contents can be accessed online. The AtoM DIP upload configuration page is where you specify the details of the AtoM installation you'd like the DIPs uploaded to (and, if using Rsync to transfer the DIP files, Rsync transfer details).

The parameters that you'll most likely want to set are url, email, and password. These parameters, respectively, specify the destination AtoM website's URL, the email address used to log in to the website, and the password used to log in to the website.

AtoM DIP upload can also use Rsync as a transfer mechanism. Rsync is an open source utility for efficiently transferring files. The rsync-target parameter is used to specify an Rsync-style target host/directory pairing, "foobar.com:~/dips/" for example. The rsync-command parameter is used to specify rsync connection options, "ssh -p 22222 -l user" for example.

To set any parameters for AtoM DIP upload change the values, preserving the existing format they're specified in, in the "Command arguments" field then click "Save".

ContentDM DIP upload

Archivematica can also upload DIPs to ContentDM websites. Multiple ContentDM destinations may be configured.

For each possible ContentDM DIP upload destination, you'll specify a brief description and configuration parameters appropriate for the destination. Possible paramters include %ContentdmServer%, %ContentdmUser%, and %ContentdmGroup%.

Processing configuration

This is the default 'processingMCP.xml' that is included, in the root directory, when processing a SIP or Transfer. If a SIP or transfer is submitted with a 'processingMCP.xml' file processing decisions will be made with the included file. Pre-configured choices made here, are based off the choices that appear in the dashboard.

The format is:

        <preconfiguredChoice>
            <appliesTo>Workflow decision - send transfer to quarantine</appliesTo>
            <goToChain>Skip quarantine</goToChain>
        </preconfiguredChoice>

Where appliesTo is the name of the job presented in the dashboard, and goToChain is the desired selection. Note: these are case sensitive.

Importing

• See the user manual
• Also note the ability to include a processingMCP.xml file See dashboard.

Customization

• Workflow processing decisions can be made in the processingMCP.xml file. See here.
• Workflows are currently created at the development level. See MCP for more details.
• Normalization commands can be viewed in the presveration planning tab.
• Normalization paths and commands are currently edited/created at the development level. See transcoder for more details.

Data backup

• How to protect your data from disaster.

Security

• We highly recomend changing the default passwords.

[LIST OF DEFAULT PASSWORD LOCATIONS]

• Database

• The database user
• /etc/archivematica/archivematicaCommon/dbsettings
• The dashboard config file?

• Content DM
• ICA-AtoM

• Archivematica does not presently support secured sockets. See Issue 990, Issue 690 Because of this, it's highly recommended to run Archivematica on a secure, isolated network.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

• Solutions to common questions

Discussion group

• For questions not on the FAQ