Shadow Folders

The Shadow Folders page allows you to determine which folders in your repository will be shadowed.

A shadow folder is a local folder that contains the contents of a repository folder, and is kept up-to-date in the shadow folder by the Vault Standard server as changes are applied to repository folder.

A special Shadow Folder Web Service is installed with the Vault Standard server that is notified of changes as they happen, and the Shadow Folder Service keeps the local disk up to date. A shadow folder must be accessible from the machine the Shadow Folder Web Service is located on.

Note

The Shadow Folder Web Service is configured to run under the Vault Standard Admin user account. If you change the Admin user’s password, you must do it from the Vault Standard Admin Web Client, and not from another Vault Standard client. Otherwise, the Shadow Folder configuration data will not get updated to reflect the password change, and Shadow Folders will not be updated until the password is corrected.

Note on UNC paths: If you want to shadow files to a UNC path (e.g., one that you specify as //machinename/folder, rather than one that is local to the Vault Standard server), there are also additional configuration steps required. See a knowledge base article at http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?t=188 for more information.

Shadow Folders

The Shadow Folders Table contains all the associations between repository folders and the shadow folder targets. It also shows read-only status, speed optimization, and file date setting for each shadow folder.

New Shadow Folder

You may encounter a configuration error when you first click on the Shadow Folders link. See this knowledge base article at http://support.sourcegear.com/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=11576 for more information.

To create a new shadow folder, the following fields must be filled in:

Folder in Repository

The Folder in Repository field contains the folder you want to shadow in the given repository.

Shadow Directory

The Shadow Directory field contains the path to the directory where the Shadow Folder Web Service will place repository files and keep them up to date. Verify that the account used by the Shadow Folder Service has read/write permissions on the Shadow Directory.

Set read-only flag for all files

This drop-down menu determines the read-write flag for any files that are placed in the shadow folder.  The default is "Don’t set read-only flags for all files."

Synchronization Options

Synchronized with Repository - The Shadow Folder service maintains an exact copy of the repository folder.  If changes are made to any of the files within the file system of the Shadow Folder's target, these changes are overwritten on the next Shadow Folder update.

Optimized for Speed - After the Shadow Folder target has been retrieved to the file system, only changes within monitored transactions are reflected on disk. The Shadow Folder target will not be fully synchronized with the Shadow Folder's repository folder if changes are made to items on the file system. Only the change set items committed to the repository will be synchronized in the Shadow Folder target.  This is the default setting for new shadow folders.

File Dates

This option allows you to establish a default for the timestamp of the files retrieved to the shadow folder.

Current

the time the file was downloaded from the server.  This is the default setting.

Modification

the time the file was last modified on a client machine.

Checkin

the server time at the time this version was checked in.

Add

Press Add to add the repository/shadow folder association to the database, and to begin shadowing the folder.

Edit

Click on the Edit icon to modify the selected shadow folder association.

Delete

Press the Delete icon to delete the selected shadow folder association from the Shadow Folders list. Note that this does not delete the files from the disk, but merely deletes the association.