Note: If you are running the GLOBAL-SITE option on an EDGE-FX Cache, you can create only non-archived publications.

Remember that archived publications and non-archived publications are mutually exclusive. Archived publications have only archived sections. You can create non-archived sections only within a non-archived publication. You cannot change an archived publication to a non-archived publication, or the reverse, except by first recreating the publication with a new name, and then deleting the old one. For more details about non-archived publications, refer to Creating non-archived publications, on page 4-15 .

Defining publications

You want to take content from its source and get it to its destination. For the purposes of the GLOBAL-SITE Controller, content is divided into sections (sections can be thought of as directories that store your content), which make up a publication. The controller sends the publication to its destination, which is the controller's subscribers. To configure a GLOBAL-SITE Controller:

• Determine the content that you want to get to a subscriber
• Create publications with the appropriate sections to deliver to the subscribers

  For example, you want to publish your quarterly report to your intranet. This publication includes the following sections:

• Word from the CEO
• Company Mission Statement
• Goals
• Investors
• Customer Listing
• Investments this year
• Profits
• Projections

You also publish a monthly marketing update and a weekly recruiting listing. Some sections, such as Company Mission Statement and Goals, you use in more than one publication. So the sections that contain that content belong to more than one publication.

Although when creating a document you decide about the publication first (like the quarterly report), when using the GLOBAL-SITE Controller, it makes sense to group the content into workable sections first, and then define the publication with the sections. Before you proceed further, we recommend that you plan the overall organization of the sections and how the sections work in each publication.

Each publication defines two major relationships:

The publication is the umbrella for your defined sections. It is this publication that the controller delivers to subscribers. For example, a publication can be defined as your web site (www.yoursite.com), which is composed of many separate sections (www.yoursite.com/cgi-bin, www.yoursite.com/marketing, and so on).

This chapter deals primarily with archived publications. You can find more details about non-archived publications in Creating non-archived publications, on page 4-15 , and in the online help.

Creating the publication

A publication can be archived or non-archived. (If you use the EDGE-FX Cache's GLOBAL-SITE option you can only create non-archived publications.) You choose whether to make an archived or non-archived publication when you create the publication. Archived/non-archived status affects how the controller delivers the publication and whether or not versions are stored on the controller.

Note: The screens you work with while managing your publication have subtle differences based on the type of publication (archived or non-archived) you are working with.

You need to assign a unique name to each publication. This name identifies the publication in the various work screens throughout the browser interface.

There are boxes for the name of the publication and an optional description. To define how the publication delivery process works, you can set or change the publishing, scheduling, and error handling options now, or later.

To add a publication

1. In the navigation pane, click List Publications.
   The Publication List screen opens.
2. Click the Add a Publication button in the top right corner of the screen.
   The New Publication screen opens. (See figure 2.1 .)
3. Make the necessary changes as required. For further information regarding this screen, click the Help button found in the upper right corner of the screen.

Figure 2.1 The New Publication screen

Once you have created the new publication, you can click its name to open the Publication Editions screen (for archived publications) or the Publication Sections screen (for non-archived publications).

Note: You cannot change the archived/non-archived option once you create a publication. For all other options, you can set or change them at a later time from the Publication Options screen. For more information about publication options, click the Help button on the Publication Options screen.

Figure 2.2 The Publication Editions screen

Using the Publication detail screens

The Publication detail screens are the center of operations for nearly all configuration activities and content delivery for a publication. In our example, and for all archived publications, the Publication Editions screen is the first you see. There are four major tabs that correspond to the four main areas of information: Editions, Sections, Subscribers, and Pub. Options. For non-archived publications, you first see the Publication Sections screen and never see the Editions tab.

Click any tab to display a detail screen of the same name for that aspect of your publication.

• The Publication Editions screen shows details of your editions and is used to deliver content from sections to subscribers. This is the first screen you see for archived publications
• The Publication Sections screen shows section details for a specific publication, and is used to manage sections. This is the first screen you see for non-archived publications.
• The Publication Subscribers screen lists the subscribers for the publication. You use this screen to define where the controller delivers section content to.
• The Publication Options screen is where you set options for the delivery process including scheduling, error handling, and virtual server controls.
  
  

  

  Figure 2.3 The Publication Sections screen

Defining sections

You use the Publication Sections screen to create sections, which instruct the controller where to get the content it delivers.

A GLOBAL-SITE Controller section includes both content files and a path to the content files.

Before you set up the GLOBAL-SITE Controller, you should answer some basic questions. Start by working backwards:

• What content needs to be managed?
• How many sections do you need?
  Remember that different roots (/path1/part1, /path2/part2) must have different sections.
  A section contains all the files and directories in a given path (path, directory, and file names are all case sensitive). A section can exclude any specified subdirectories, known as exceptions. Exceptions are directories that are in the path, but are not included in the section. You can also include or exclude all files with specific file extensions, such as .cgi and .html.
• What will you name each section?
  Remember that in order to create a section, you must have a unique name for it. This name is unique among all sections. Be sure to distinguish names using characters, not just uppercase versus lowercase letters; not all operating systems are case-sensitive.
• What is the path to each section?
  You must identify the specific directory path on the server that is the source of the section's content. Note that some operating systems are case sensitive; be sure to get the paths exactly right.
• Do you have authority to access the information?
  You need to provide authorization access by specifying the user ID and password for access to the server where the content is stored.

Defining a simple section

Once you have created a publication, the next step is creating sections. Updating the content for a section is one of the most frequent tasks you perform on a GLOBAL-SITE Controller. To create a section, you:

• Give the section a name.
• Specify the server that contains the section content.
• Provide access settings: the user ID and password for the server.
• Define the location of the content with a path.
  
  

  The section you create can be archived or non-archived, depending on the publication it is part of. You do not have to specify this, but you should remember that a section carries the attribute of the publication it is created for, and cannot be shared between archived and non-archived publications.

  Once you have created the section, you have several options, including testing the connection, creating exceptions to the section, or creating an initial version of the section on the GLOBAL-SITE Controller. The following text in this section of the guide introduces all of these tasks.

Example

This example shows how to create a new section called sec1, which gets its content from the directory /home/webcontent/testsite on the system myserver.f5.com using the FTP account website.

To create a section

1. On the navigation pane, click List Publications.
   The Publication List screen opens.
2. Click the publication for which you want to create a section.
   The Publication detail screen opens.
3. From the Publication detail page select the Sections tab for your new publication.
   The Publication Sections screen, Figure 2.3 , opens.
4. Since there are no sections yet, you need to create one: click the Create New Section button.
   The Create a New Section screen, Figure 2.4 , opens.
5. Fill in the boxes to create your new section. For more information regarding this screen, click the Help button in the top right corner of the screen.

Figure 2.4 The Create a New Section screen

Once you create the section, if there are no errors, the Section Detail screen opens, showing the source detail for this section.

Note: Section names must be unique for the section that you want to add. The name can only consist of alphanumeric characters, spaces, dashes (-), and underscores (_). You cannot change the name of a section once you have created it.

Testing your section

Once you create the section, we recommend you test the connection to confirm that the GLOBAL-SITE Controller can connect to the server that stores the content using your access method. Testing the connection verifies that the user ID, password, and path information are valid by connecting to the specified system.

Note: The Test Connection button is found in the top right corner of many screens in the GLOBAL-SITE Controller. We highly recommend you use this button to test connections whenever you create or change parameters that affect connectivity (for example, paths, or transfer methods).

To test your section connection

From the Section Detail screen, click the Test Connection button.
The Connection Test screen opens.

The Connection Test screen displays the test results in a table. The table lists the name for the source server, the path for the section, and the success or failure of the test connection. The left side of the table shows what is being tested, the right side shows the results of that test. The Connection Test screen content changes, depending on what is being tested.

Modifying your section settings

Once you have created a section, you can return to the Section Detail screen at any time to change parameters.

To change your section parameters

1. From any Publication detail screen, click the Sections tab.
   The Publication Sections screen opens (see Figure 2.3 ).
   
   

   The Publication Sections screen lists all sections for the publication.

2. Click the name of the section you want to work on.
   The Section Detail screen, Figure 2.5 , for that section opens.
3. Make the necessary changes to any Section attributes.
   If you make a mistake or change your mind, click the Revert button to undo any changes you have made to this section.
4. Click Save to save your new settings.
   
   

   

   Figure 2.5 The Section Detail screen, Source tab

Loading initial content into sections

Now that you have created a section, you may also want to try creating an initial version of the section on the GLOBAL-SITE Controller.

Creating a section version

You use this procedure to create an initial version, or update an existing version.

To create a version

On the Section Detail screen, click the Get New Version button.

The GLOBAL-SITE Controller goes through the process of gathering content from the specified location and storing an initial version of it.

For more information, refer to Updating section content, on page 2-15 .

Warning: Disabling a section (clearing the Enabled check box) causes that section's contents to be removed from the next publication.

Creating editions

At this point in our example, or if you are working with an archived publication, you can update the content for a section from its source, or you can create an edition. In non-archived publications, the publishing process updates the sections each time you publish.

To update the content of a section

1. Start at the Publication Sections screen. You see your sections listed (see Figure 2.3 ).
2. Click the Get New Version of Selected Sections button to begin the process of gathering new files from those sections.
   The Publish Progress Display screen opens (Figure 2.6 ), allowing you to monitor the process.
   
   

   Publishing status is discussed in more detail in the section Displaying status, on page 2-19 , in this chapter. Remember, you cannot publish sections until you define subscribers.

Figure 2.6 The Publish Progress Display screen

Specifying subscribers

To the GLOBAL-SITE Controller, a subscriber is a target for delivering the content of a publication. There are two types of subscribers.

• Server subscribers are origin servers and can be either a server or a virtual server. (You can only create virtual server subscribers if you are using a BIG-IP in association with a GLOBAL-SITE Controller.) On the subscriber list on the Configuration utility, server and virtual server subscribers are listed separately. We discuss server subscribers in this chapter.
• Cache subscribers are used to prepopulate caches with content from origin servers. For more information on cache subscribers, see Working with the EDGE-FX Cache and cache subscribers, on page 4-10 .

Defining server subscribers

The GLOBAL-SITE Controller delivers your publication to a server subscriber. A server subscriber can be a server or a virtual server (see Setting up a virtual server subscriber, on page 4-8 ) if the BIG-IP is part of your network setup. (See Creating a BIG-IP on the GLOBAL-SITE Controller, on page 4-8 .) For the files to be delivered successfully, you must provide the controller with:

• The specific path (server and directory) where the controller delivers the content
• The transfer method by which the controller delivers the content

This is done when you add a subscriber, but can be changed at any time from the Subscriber Detail screen.

Example

In the example so far, you defined your web site as a group of sections and created a single publication to manage them as a group. Now you have to specify which servers you want to receive the publication.

Figure 2.7 The Add Subscriber screen

To add a subscriber

You can use this procedure to add any type of subscriber, however the following procedure specifically describes creating a server subscriber. To add a different type of subscriber, you choose a different type in step 2, following.

1. From any of the Publication detail screens, click the Subscribers tab.
   The Publication Subscribers screen opens.
2. In the Add subscriber type box, leave Server (the default).
3. Click the Add a Subscriber button.
   The Add Subscriber screen opens.
4. Make the necessary changes as required. For more information regarding this screen, click the Help button in the top right corner of the screen.
5. Once you create the subscriber, you can click the Test Connection button to verify that the GLOBAL-SITE Controller can successfully log into the specified server using the user account and locate the specified path(s). This is a good thing to do at this point, and at any time you make changes to the subscriber definition.

Defining a distributor

If you want to use a secondary GLOBAL-SITE Controller to distribute to remote subscribers, you need to set it up and add it to the primary GLOBAL-SITE Controller as a distributor. Secondary GLOBAL-SITE Controllers also need to be configured so that they are aware of, and can communicate with, the primary controller. To do this, you set up and add the primary controller as a distributor to the secondary controllers as well.

To add a distributor from the primary GLOBAL-SITE Controller

1. On the navigation panel, under Distribution, click Add a Distributor.
   The Add a Distributor screen opens.
2. Fill in the boxes as required. For more information regarding this screen, click the Help button in the top right corner of the screen.
3. Repeat these steps for each distributor you wish to add.

To add a distributor from the secondary GLOBAL-SITE Controller(s)

1. On the navigation panel, under Distribution, click Add a Distributor.
   The Add a Distributor screen opens.
2. Fill in the boxes as required using the primary controller's name and identifier. For more information regarding this process, click the Help button in the top right corner of the screen.
3. Repeat these steps on each secondary controller you added to the primary controller.
4. Once you create the distributor, you can click the Test Connection button to verify that the GLOBAL-SITE Controller can successfully log into the specified server using the user account and locate the specified path(s).

All the new distributors can be found on the GLOBAL-SITE Distribution List; new distributors are added at the bottom of the list.

Once you have both your primary and secondary distributors set up, you can easily specify a distributor for any existing or new subscriber. See To add a subscriber, on page 2-13 in this chapter for details on adding a subscriber.

To assign a distributor to a subscriber

You can assign a distributor when you create a new subscriber from the Add Subscriber screen, or to an existing subscriber from the Subscriber Detail screen.

1. Begin to add the subscriber as you would normally, (see To add a subscriber, on page 2-13 ) or click an existing subscriber name to open its Subscriber Detail screen.
2. In the GLOBAL-SITE Distributor box, select the distributor that you want to use for this subscriber.
3. Fill in or change the boxes as required, and click Add or Apply depending on which screen you are on.
   This adds the new subscriber or updates the distributor on an existing subscriber and opens the Subscriber Detail screen.
4. On the Subscriber Detail screen, click Test Connection to verify that the GLOBAL-SITE Controller can successfully log into the remote server.

Running a connection test verifies that access can be established with the distributor using the user ID, password, and path information that you provided.

Using the publishing cycle

So far, we have discussed how content is organized into sections, how sections are organized into publications, and where those publications go. Now we need to look at the process of capturing a consistent set of content to be published to one or more subscribers (servers).

Within the publication cycle, there are two independent activities:

• Updating the content of sections
• Delivering the content to subscribers

These two activities are typically executed together, but they do not have to be.

Updating section content

To gather new content for an archived publication, the GLOBAL-SITE Controller makes a copy of the content on the source server. The controller stores the copy as a version for the section on its hard drive. Versions are numbered, starting with 1 the first time a new section is updated.

For archived publications, there are four ways to update a section's content at any time. Each method opens the Publish Progress Display screen.

• From the Publication Sections screen, click the Get New Version of Selected Sections button.
• From the Section Detail screen, click the Get New Version button.
• From the Publication Editions screen, click Create Edition. On the Create a New Editions screen, select the Get a new version option from the version box and click the Create Edition button.
• From the Publication Editions screen, click the Deliver Edition button. On the Deliver screen, select Create new Edition from the Edition box, and click the Deliver Edition button. (This also publishes the newly retrieved files.)

For archived publications, the GLOBAL-SITE Controller examines the directory tree, which it identifies by the combination of the staging server name, user ID, and path. The GLOBAL-SITE Controller ignores any exception directories on the path, includes or excludes the specified file extensions, and compares the content to the most current version in its versioned section. This process gathers: any new files; any files with different (not necessarily newer) modified timestamps; and any files that are a different size, and stores them on the GLOBAL-SITE Controller. The number of new or changed files is displayed on the Publish Progress Display screen.

If the GLOBAL-SITE Controller determines that the set of files is identical to the latest version in the GLOBAL-SITE Controller's versioned section, it does not create a new version.

The Section History tab on the Section Detail screen lists all versions currently stored in the section. (This tab does not appear on the Section Detail screen for non-archived publications.)

Figure 2.8 The Section Detail screen, Section History tab

In the example, we have already stored two versions. You can view the contents of any version by clicking the number in the Version column.

Creating the very first version of a section may take some time, as all of the content from the source must be copied to the GLOBAL-SITE Controller and converted into its stored form in the section. However, subsequent updates should be faster, as they first compare the date and time of all the files on the staging server with those stored in the latest version in the section. Only new files, and those that have different timestamps or sizes, are copied into the section.

Tip: To make sure that the content being delivered is what you expect, update sections prior to delivery, so that the exact contents of that version are frozen and remain independent of any possible changes made to the files on the staging server for that section.

Delivering the content to subscribers

The publication process includes a number of distinct phases. The overall flow of the content distribution phase of the publishing cycle for archived publications can be seen like this:

• Create the edition
  Define an edition and establish the publication settings that control this specific distribution process.
• Deliver the edition
  Publish the specified edition to all subscribers.

There are two methods of creating a new edition. You can create a new edition automatically as part of a publication delivery, after you first check all section staging servers for new content. Alternatively, you can perform the section update and edition creation process separately. This method allows you to have more precise control over exactly what content the controller delivers.

For details of the non-archived publication process and the enhanced scheduling options, refer to the online help or to Scheduling the publishing process, on page 4-2 and Creating non-archived publications, on page 4-15 .

Creating an edition

The preparation phase involves defining exactly which version of each section in the publication is published. This set of section versions defines an edition.

Once an edition has been established, the GLOBAL-SITE Controller creates a snapshot of all the parameters necessary to complete the rest of the process.

You can create an edition using whichever section version you want. For instance, if you have a publication that uses three sections, and each section has four versions, you do not have to publish the most current version (version 4) of each. You can publish version 1 of the first section, version 3 of the second section, and version 4 of the third section, or any combination that suits your needs. So if one section has an error, you can republish the entire publication and revert only that section back a version.

To manually create a new edition

1. On the navigation pane, click List Publications.
   The Publication List screen opens.
2. Click the name of the publication for which you want to create an edition.
   The Publication Editions screen opens.
3. From the Publication Editions screen, click the Create Edition button.
   The Create a New Edition screen, Figure 2.9 , opens.
   
   

   The Create a New Edition screen displays all the sections in the publication, with a Version box that lists the each section's version. The latest existing version (with the highest version number) is displayed first in the Version box. You can click the arrow at the right of the box to view additional versions, create new versions, or remove the existing version. To accept the displayed version of all sections click the Create Edition button.

4. Select the action you want for each section and click the Create Edition button. To accept the default version for all sections, click the Create Edition button without modifying the version boxes.
   
   

   The Publication Editions screen opens with the newly created edition added to the list. The new edition in turn lists each section it contains and which version of that section it delivers.

   

   Figure 2.9 The Create a New Edition screen

   The GLOBAL-SITE Controller automatically assigns both version and edition number, and increments each to the next higher value whenever a new one is created. Most listings also display the date and time they were created.

   From the Publication Editions screen, you can click the section name in the edition listing to view the Section Detail screen for that section. Or click the version number and date for a section to view the Section File Listing screen for that version of that section.

Displaying status

Some of the publishing phases can be lengthy and are therefore designed as asynchronous processes. So that you can follow the process, the overall publication status is always displayed wherever the publication is listed. On any Publication detail screen you can see Status: Idle in the top left side of the screen just above the tabs. When the publication status is not Idle, you can click the Status message at the top of the screen to display the Publish Progress Display screen.

You can also access the Publish Progress Display screen at any time from any Publication detail screen by clicking the Show Details button.

During the Idle state, the screen refreshes itself infrequently. Once the delivery process has started, the screen automatically updates more frequently and provides more detailed delivery status.

Of course, you can use the Refresh or Reload button on your browser at any time to update the status on demand, or you can use the Stop button on your browser to stop the automatic updates.

Delivering the publication

Once you have set up all your sections and decided what versions of those sections you want to deliver to your subscribers, the final step is actually delivering the publication.

To deliver the publication to the subscribers

1. From the Publication Editions screen, click the Deliver Edition button.
   The Deliver screen opens.
   The Edition box defaults to the last edition selected in the Publish Editions screen. Consequently, you should double-check the Edition box before delivering, to ensure that you have the right edition selected. If necessary, you can change the edition displayed in the Editions box.
2. For each subscriber, select the sections you want to include in this edition by checking or clearing the check box in the Include column next to each listed section.

   Note: If there are two (or more) sections with the same path, and any of these sections is included for this delivery, then all of these sections are delivered to the subscriber(s) even if you cleared the Include check box.

3. From the Start Delivery list, select Now or select the time you want to start delivering the edition.
4. From the Activate New Content list, select when you want the content to be available to end users on the subscriber.
5. From the Publish Option list, select:
   • Normal to publish as usual.
   • Verify Without Delivery to check the delivered files against the GLOBAL-SITE database.
   • Republish All Content to republish all files regardless of what the subscriber has.
6. Click the Deliver Edition button.
   The Publish Progress Display screen opens.

   

   Figure 2.10 The Deliver screen for archived publications

To deliver a non-archived publication to the subscribers

1. From the Publication Sections screen, click the Deliver button.
   The Deliver screen opens.
2. In the Action column, select the action to take for each section. Options are Deliver, Ignore, and Remove. Repeat this for each subscriber/each section listed on the screen.
   
   

   Note: If you have two (or more) sections for the same subscriber with the same path, you must select the same Action for all of them. You get an error message if two sections with the same path have different actions.

3. From the Start Delivery list, select Now or select the time you want to start delivering the edition.
4. From the Activate New Content list, select when you want the content to be available to end users on the subscriber.
5. From the Publish Option list, select:
   
   
   • Normal to publish as usual.
   • Verify Without Delivery to check the delivered files against the GLOBAL-SITE database.
   • Republish All Content to republish all files regardless of what the subscriber has.
6. Click the Deliver button.
   The Publish Progress Display screen opens.
   
   

   

   Figure 2.11 Publication Progress Display, status: Getting New Content

   On the Publish Progress Display screen, you can observe the overall publication status change through multiple states, reflecting the individual subscriber path states in the detail list.

   Note that Figure 2.11 shows details from an early phase in the process, and the details are about the sections. For details on all publishing phases and status messages, see Interpreting phases in the status line, on page 5-17 and Using the Phases of Publication table, on page 5-18 of this guide.

Using the Cancel button

Sometimes either the section update process (getting new content) or publication delivery process needs to be stopped before it is complete. Perhaps a section source or subscriber becomes unavailable during the process and there is no point in proceeding further until the problem is corrected.

Whenever the publication state is in the Idle state, various control buttons are displayed on the detail status screens.

The behavior of the Cancel button depends on how you have set up Error Handling on the New Publication or Publication Options page. If you set up the publication to Pause publishing, log the error and wait for user input, then clicking Cancel pauses the process at whatever point it is at. You can restart the process at that point by clicking the Restart button.

If the publication is not set to pause publishing, clicking Cancel stops all processing activity. If the publication has not yet reached the Copying Updates phase, this resets the publication to Idle.

If the publishing cycle stops without any error indication and without having been manually stopped, clicking the Continue button should complete the publication cycle for any subscribers that have already had all section files copied to them.

You can also try delivering again for the subscriber sections that failed, by clicking the Retry button . You can stop the publishing cycle with the Reset button , which restores the previously published edition and returns the publication status to Idle.

During transitions of the publishing cycle, you may need to know what is going on, what the status of the publication is, or how to tell if something has stalled or if it is still progressing. Table 5.1, on page 5-19 , lists the various activities or transition states, gives information about what should be happening, and includes suggestions on how to proceed if it is stalled and when to start over.