Installing Elvis Agent

Using the Pro client of Elvis, files can be automatically opened in their native application, edited in some way and saved back to Elvis.

Communication between the Pro client and the application in which the file is opened is handled by a separate application named Elvis Agent. It needs to be installed on the system on which the Pro client is used.

This article describes how to install Elvis Agent.

Before you start

Before you start, please be aware of the following:

• Compatibility of Elvis Agent with operating systems. For more information, see the Compatibility Matrix.

• Load balancers. Using Elvis Agent with a load balancer requires WebSocket support, the technology that is used by Elvis Agent.

Note: WebSocket support is available in Application Load Balancers (ALB), not in Elastic Load Balancers (ELB).

• Amazon CloudFront. Using Elvis Agent in combination with Amazon CloudFront integrated in Elvis requires Elvis 6.17 or higher.

• SSL. Elvis Agent needs a full chain SSL certificate; a Self signed SSL certificate will not work with Elvis Agent. For details about how to set up a HTTPS connection with Elvis, see Setting up HTTPS in Elvis 6 Server. You might also need to add your domain to the security.accessControlAllowOrigin in the cluster-config.properties.txt file and then restart the cluster.

Installation

The installation process involves the following steps:

Step 1. Configuring Elvis Server

Step 2. Downloading Elvis Agent

Step 3. Installing Elvis Agent

Step 4. Making sure that Elvis Agent is running

Step 5. (Optional) Changing preferences

Step 6. (Optional) Configuring Web browsers

1. Configuring Elvis Server

Step 1. Add one of the following options, depending on the version of Elvis Server that is used:

• For Elvis 6.13 and higher:

• File: cluster-config.properties.txt file
• Name of option: webSocketEnabled
• Default value: false
• Example:

webSocketEnabled=true

• For Elvis 6.12 or lower:

• File: cluster-config.properties.txt file
• Name of option: stompPort
• Possible values: a free server port between 1024 and 65535
• Default setting: 0 (zero, communication with the Elvis Agent is disabled)
• Example:

stompPort=1200

Step 2. Save the changes and restart Elvis Server.

2. Downloading Elvis Agent

Elvis Agent can be downloaded from within the Pro client.

Step 1. Access the Installation clients page of the Pro client.

Show me how to access this

From the Avatar menu, choose Install clients.

Step 2. Download the required installer.

3. Installing Elvis Agent

Extract the downloaded file, double-click it to start the installation and follow the instructions on screen.

4. Making sure that Elvis Agent is running

After installation, Elvis Agent is automatically started on Windows, but needs to be started manually on MacOS.

When Elvis Agent is running, an icon is shown in the notification area (Windows system tray) or in the menu bar (MacOS).

Figure: Elvis Agent in the notification area of Windows (left) and in the menu on MacOS (right).

Tip: Configure your system in such a way that Elvis Agent is automatically started when the system itself is started.

5. (Optional) Changing preferences

By default, files that are checked-out are stored in the following location:

• MacOS: users/<user folder>/Documents/Elvis Checkouts/<user folder>
• Windows: users\<user folder>\My Documents\Elvis Checkouts\<user folder>

To change this location, do the following;

Step 1. Make sure that Elvis Agent is running.

Step 2. Access Elvis Agent menu:

• MacOS: Click the icon in the menu bar
• Windows: Right-click the icon in the notification area (system tray).

Step 3. From the menu, choose Change Checkouts folder.

Step 4. Select the folder in which the checked-out files should be stored.

6. (Optional) Configuring Web browsers

Various Web browsers put non-active tabs into sleep mode to prevent the processes that are running in those tabs from negatively impacting the performance of the browser and / or the system on which it is run. This process is known as 'Background Tab Throttling' or 'Background Timer Throttling'.

In the case of using the Pro client in combination with Elvis Agent, the throttling process results in a lost connection between the two. Some of the check-in and check-out functionality will then not be available anymore.

For information about preventing this from happening, see Preventing the Elvis 6 Pro client from losing its connection to Elvis Agent.

Troubleshooting

'Lost connection' error when checking-in or checking-out a file in Elvis

This can occur when using an ELB load balancer. These are not supported; please use an ALB load balancer instead.

'Lost connection' error when running the Pro client in a non-active tab

This can occur when the Web browser puts non-active tabs into sleep mode. For more information, see Preventing the Elvis 6 Pro client from losing its connection to Elvis Agent.