Installing Assets Agent

Using Assets, files can be automatically opened in their native application, edited in some way and saved back to Assets Server.

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

This article describes how to install Assets Agent.

Before you start

Before you start, please be aware of the following:

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

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

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

• SSL. Assets Agent needs a full chain SSL certificate; a Self signed SSL certificate will not work with Assets Agent. For details about how to set up a HTTPS connection with Assets Server, see Setting up HTTPS in Assets 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 Assets Server

Step 2. Downloading Assets Agent

Step 3. Installing Assets Agent

Step 4. Making sure that Assets Agent is running

Step 5. (Optional) Changing preferences

Step 6. (Optional) Configuring Web browsers

1. Configuring Assets Server

Step 1. Add the following option:

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

webSocketEnabled=true

Step 2. Save the changes and restart Assets Server.

2. Downloading Assets Agent

Assets Agent can be downloaded from within Assets.

Step 1. Access the Installation clients page of Assets.

Show me how to access this

From the Avatar menu, choose Install clients.

Step 2. Download the required installer.

3. Installing Assets Agent

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

4. Making sure that Assets Agent is running

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

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

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

Tip: Configure your system in such a way that Assets 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 Assets Agent is running.

Step 2. Access the Assets 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 Assets in combination with Assets 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 Assets Server

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 Assets 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.