The Properties tab defines the properties that will be available on the appliances of this class. Properties are named configuration parameters for the appliance.
CA AppLogic® for System z supports three property types: string, integer, and IP_owned. You can make a property mandatory, requiring that its value be explicitly set on each instance. Alternatively, you can define a default value for the property and that value will be used, if no special value is configured on an appliance instance.
Note: The IP_owned property type may be specified for any appliance with an external interface. CA AppLogic® for System z supports up to 4 such properties per appliance. For properties that use the IP_owned property type, CA AppLogic® for System z enforces that the property value is within the application IP range(s) configured for the grid (this is enforced at application build time when the application is started). In addition, CA AppLogic® for System z enforces that the incoming/outgoing network traffic is limited to the specified IP address assigned to the appliance's external interface (as specified through the IP_owned property). CA AppLogic® for System z will only enforce IPs that are specified through an IP_owned property defined on an appliance's boundary. IPs that are specified through either string or IP address based properties are not enforced.
The set of properties on an appliance class reflects the specific needs of the class. CA AppLogic® for System z passes the property values to the appliance without interpretation. You are free to define whatever properties you like.
Name for the property. The property name uniquely identifies a property within the appliance. The property names are used to set property values in the Instance Settings property sheet. The property names are also used inside the appliance to match the property values to configuration parameters (see Appliance Creation Guide for details).
Type of the property. CA AppLogic® for System z supports three property types: string, integer, IP address, and IP_owned The type constraints the possible property values (for other constraints options, see below).
Default value for the property. This value will be used if no value is specifically defined for the property in an appliance instance. Most properties should have defaults. You can leave the default value empty, in which case the default is an empty string. You can also disable the default value by making the property mandatory (see below).
Optional property attributes include the following:
The mandatory attribute marks the property as required to be set specifically on each appliance instance, making it so that the property has no defaults. Having a lot of mandatory properties makes it hard to use the appliance, so keep them to a minimum. Mandatory properties should be used only in cases where no default can be defined (for example, the target host name in output gateways).
The constraints button opens a separate window, shown below that allows you to define value constraints for the property.
The lowercase attribute makes the property values not case sensitive. No matter what letter case is used in for property values in the instances, the values will be lowercased by CA AppLogic® for System z when provided to the appliance. This attribute is useful for things like DNS names and for properties that have pre-defined list of values (see below).
In addition, pressing the info button provides a summary of the property attributes. This is a quick way to see any constraints without opening the constraints window.
Note: You can arrange the property order in the list by using the up and down buttons on the right side of the list. We recommend using the property order to make configuration more intuitive: Group the more important properties at the top; arrange the properties in the order in which it will make sense to configure them (for example, IP address, netmask and then gateway).
If you want to define value constraints for a property, press the constraints button 
. This will open the constraints setup window:
CA AppLogic® for System z supports three types of constraints:
The min-max (range) constraint allows setting a minimum and a maximum value for integer properties. To limit only on one side of the range, leave the other side empty (that is, specify only the minimum or only the maximum).
The filter constraint allows setting a regular expression for validating the property value. Regular expressions are fickle (very error prone), so use this constraint with care -- or simply use the values constraint instead. The syntax of the filter is the same as the Perl regular expression pattern matching (http://perldoc.perl.org/perlre.html). CA AppLogic® for System z performs the match on the entire property value - that is as if /^filter$/ was used in a Perl statement to check for a match (where filter is the value of the filter attribute). You can use the filter constraint with any property type.
The values constraint allows you to define an enumerated set of values for the property, limiting the possible property values. The syntax is regular expression-like: literal values separated with vertical bar (|). For example, any|tcp|udp allows only any, tcp or udp as values for the property. You can use the filter constraint with any property type. For string properties, you can use the values constraint together with the lowercase property attribute to make the value set not case sensitive.
Important: If a mandatory property is not set or a property value constraints are not met, the application will not start. This helps ensure that configuration constraints are met and prevents many configuration errors from happening. CA AppLogic® for System z will report the name of the appliance and the property that failed the constraint check, so that you can easily locate and fix it.
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