RFS Synchronization

Synchronizing RFS and VFS

During development it is very useful to synchronize the VFS (the virtual file system of OpenCms, located in the database) with a directory in the RFS (real file system on your disk where you develop stuff).

You will probably not want to develop all files directly within the OpenCms Administration UI. Firstly, because the source editor does not support syntax highlighting. Secondly, because the files in the VFS are outside of your version control system.

Here is a forum post which describes how to set up synchronization.

That way you can develop files on your disk under version control, within your favourite IDE and use the synchronization function to update the changes within OpenCms. However, if you change Java code, library dependencies or classpath resources, you will have to reload the OpenCms web application or even restart your servlet engine.

A disadvantage of this method is that if you decide to synchronize a directory which is under version control OpenCms will also import any files or folders your SCM software uses to store metadata about your working directory, e.g. .svn and CVS. If that happens, be careful not to delete the folders in the VFS. Otherwise, the next time you start a synchronization, OpenCms will delete them from RFS and thus corrupt your working copy.