Appendix C - Web.config parameters

The system settings include appSettings keys and other settings, such as a connection string placed in appropriate sections of the web.config file. AppSettings keys are stored in the /configuration/appSettings section.

The following setting categories are available:

•	General settings

•	Assembly settings

•	Forbidden character settings in user and role names

•	Content staging settings

•	WYSIWYG editor settings

•	E-commerce settings

•	Event log settings

•	File export settings

•	Item listing settings

•	Query string parameter name settings

•	Transaction isolation settings

•	Scheduler settings

•	Security settings

•	UI culture settings

•	Web farm synchronization settings

General settings

Key

Description

Sample Value

CMSProgrammingLanguage

Indicates the programming language used in transformations and in custom code added to web parts.

The default value is C#.

CMSTrialKey

Contains a temporary trial license key. You can remove this value after installation.

The default value is "" (empty string).

CMSUseCustomHandlers

Indicates if custom handlers should be executed to process system events. See the Global events and their handling chapter for more details.

The default value is false.

CMSUseVirtualPathProvider

Indicates if the virtual path provider should be used (true by default). Before you switch off the virtual path provider, please read the Pre-compilation (Publish function) chapter.

The default value is true.

CMSShowWebPartCodeTab

Indicates if the Code tab is displayed in web part properties dialog in CMS Desk. This parameter can be used for backward compatibility purposes. Otherwise, using the Code tab is now obsolete.

The default value is false.

CMSShowWebPartBindingTab

Indicates if the Binding tab is displayed in web part properties dialog in CMS Desk. This parameter can be used for backward compatibility purposes. Otherwise, using the Binding tab is now obsolete.

The dafault value is false.

CMSFullClientCache

Indicates if full client cache is enabled. If enabled, CSS styles and images will be cached in the client's browser. It is not recommended to use this option in non-live-site mode, as changes made to the pages would not be displayed due to the caching.

The default value is false.

CMSRenderGeneratorName

Indicates if the 'generator' meta tag stating that the page was generated by Kentico CMS is generated in the header of each page.

The default value is false.

CMSClearFieldEditor

Determines field editor behavior when creating new fields. If true, new fields will have empty values of attributes. If false, new fields will have pre-defined values, the same as the previously selected field.

The default value is true.

CMSShowTemplateASPXTab

Indicates if ASPX code tab is displayed when editing a page template. Using this tab, ASPX code of a page template created using the Portal engine can be exported.

The default value is false.

CMSDatabaseCulture

Specifies the default culture of the system's database.

The default value is en-us.

CMSDisposeConnectionAfterClose

If true, database connection is automatically disposed (allocated resources released) when a database connection is closed.

The default value is false.

CMSUseSessionCookies

Indicates if session cookies are used or not.

The default value is true.

CMSImportWindowsRoles

When Windows authentication is used and this key set to true, roles available in the Active Directory will be imported into the system.

The default value is true.

CMSFileScriptTimeout

The maximum number of seconds a script can run before the server terminates it.

The default value is 7200.

CMSUseExtensionOnPostback

When using friendly URL extensions, postback doesn't work in some cases. If you enable this setting, .aspx extension is attached to the URL in the form tag, which prevents the postback problems.

The default value is true.

CMSUseSQLResourceManager

If true, SQL Resource manager is used to retrieve strings used in the user interface.

The default value is true.

CMSAllowCheckIOPermissions

If true, write permissions on the site folder are checked when necessary and produce an error message when they are insufficient.

The default value is true.

CMSEmailTransferEncoding

Specifies the type of encoding used for e-mails sent from the CMS.

The default value is TransferEncoding.Base64.

CMSWorkflowSendEmailToModerator

If true, workflow notification e-mails will be sent to the user who is performing the current workflow step along with other users involved in the workflow.

The default value is false.

CMSControlElement

If present in the web.config, the tag entered in the value will be used instead of the SPAN tag when generating pages.

The default value is span.

CMSUseParsedSelfClose

Indicates if parsed self closing tags operations (faster) are used instead of standard self close filter.

The default value is true.

CMSGetFileEndRequest

If true, ApplicationInstance.CompleteRequest() is used instead of Response.End() in the CompleteRequest method.

The default value is true.

CMSDefaultUserID

Specifies default user ID.

The default value is 0.

ImportFilesDiskPath

Specifies path to attachments that should be attached to documents imported via the SQL Import windows application.

The default value is "" (empty string).

CMSDeleteTemporaryAttachmentsOlderThan

Specifies how old should be attachments deleted by the 'Delete old temporary attachments' scheduled task. The value is entered in hours. Attachments older than the entered value will be deleted when the scheduled task is executed.

The default value is 24.

CMSAllowGZip

Enables Gzip compression of output HTML code.

The default value is false.

CMSDisableAdministrationInterface

Disables the administration interface. The 'Access denied' screen is displayed on each attempt to access CMS Desk or Site Manager.

The default value is false.

CMSMaxNodeAliasLength

Maximal length of a document's node alias. The default value is 50 characters and larger names are trimmed. This key can be used to increase the length - useful for long node aliases. If you use the key, you also need to set the size of the 'NodeAlias' column in the 'CMS_Tree' database table to the same value. However, the maximal length of 'Node alias path' is 450 characters, so documents deep in the tree will have the 'Node alias path' trimmed anyway.

The default value is 50.

CMSMaxNodeNameLength

Maximal length of a document's node name. The default value is 100 characters and larger names are trimmed. This key can be used to increase the length - useful for long node names. If you use the key, you also need to set the size of the 'NodeName' column in the 'CMS_Tree' database table to the same value.

The default value is 100.

CMSWebAnalyticsSlidingIPExpiration

This key is used when the Site Manager -> Settings -> Web Analytics -> Remember visitors by IP (minutes) key has a value higher than 0.

If enabled (by default), users who are active on the site but have disabled cookies are not logged as new visitors after the set time. If disabled, even an active user with disabled cookies is logged as a new site visitor after the set time.

CMSAuthenticationType

This key overrides the values returned by the IsFormsAuthentication and IsWindowsAuhentication methods in CMS.GlobalHelper.RequestHelper.

You will typically use this if you are using a custom authentication provider whose authentication type is a non-standard one (e.g. Federated authentication) to make Kentico CMS handle it as if it was windows or forms authentication.

The following values are available:

•	default: standard behavior

•	forms: IsFormsAuthentication always returns true, IsWindowsAuthentication always returns false

•	windows: IsFormsAuthentication always returns false, IsWindowsAuthentication always returns true

•	both: IsFormsAuthentication always returns true, IsWindowsAuthentication always returns true

The default value is default.

Special settings for assemblies

You can use the following keys to specify which assemblies are used:

Key

Description

Sample Value

CMSDirectoryProviderAssembly

Name of the assembly that should be used for operations in the file system. You can choose from the following options:

•	CMS.DirectoryProviderDotNet - this is a managed code library that uses System.IO methods for disk operations. It is useful for environment that allows only managed code.

•	CMS.DirectoryProviderWin32 - this is an unmanaged code library that uses Win32 API for disk operations. It is useful for environment that requires Win32 API calls.

The default assembly is CMS.DirectoryProviderDotNet.

CMSSearchProviderAssembly

Name of the assembly that is used for full-text search.

The default assembly is CMS.SearchProviderSQL.

CMSDataProviderAssembly

Specifies custom data provider assembly used as the database connector for the CMS. See this topic for more details.

The default assembly is CMS.DataProviderSQL.

CMSEmailProviderAssembly

Specifies custom email provider assembly. Read this topic for more information.

The default assembly is CMS.EmailProvider.

CMSCustomHandlersAssembly

Specifies custom event handler assembly. Read this topic for more information.

The default assembly is CMS.CustomEventHandler.

CMSVirtualPathProviderAssembly

Specifies the Custom virtual path provider assembly. See this topic for more details.

The default assembly is CMS.VirtualPathProvider.

CMSCustomEcommerceProviderAssembly

Specifies the custom e-commerce provider assembly. See this topic for more details.

The default assembly is CMS.EcommerceProvider.

Special settings for forbidden characters in user and role names

You can use the following keys to configure forbidden characters in user and role names:

Key	Description	Sample Value
CMSEnsureSafeUserNames	Indicates if forbidden characters in user names imported from AD should be replaced. If turned off by setting the value to false, you may experience problems when editing users imported with forbidden characters. Therefore, it is NOT RECOMMENDED to turn it off. The default value is true.	<add key="CMSEnsureSafeUserNames" value="false" />
CMSEnsureSafeRoleNames	Indicates if forbidden characters in role names imported from AD should be replaced. If turned off by setting the value to false, you may experience problems when editing roles imported with forbidden characters. Therefore, it is NOT RECOMMENDED to turn it off. The default value is true.	<add key="CMSEnsureSafeRoleNames" value="false" />
CMSForbiddenUserNameCharactersReplacement	Sets the character by which forbidden characters in user names imported from AD should be replaced. If not set, value from Site Manager -> Settings -> URLs -> Forbidden characters replacement is used.	<add key="CMSForbiddenUserNameCharactersReplacement" value="-" />
CMSForbiddenRoleNameCharactersReplacement	Sets the character by which forbidden characters in role names imported from AD should be replaced. If not set, value from Site Manager -> Settings -> URLs -> Forbidden characters replacement is used.	<add key="CMSForbiddenRoleNameCharactersReplacement" value="-" />

Special settings for Content staging

You can use the following keys to achieve specific behavior of the Content staging module:

Key	Description	Sample Value
CMSStagingAcceptAllCertificates	Causes all certificates will be accepted when performing content staging tasks through SSL (X.509). If false, only certificates generated by a certification authority will be accepted. The default value is false.	<add key="CMSStagingAcceptAllCertificates" value="true" />
CMSStagingUseTreeCustomHandlers	Ensures that events will be raised in CustomTreeNodeHandler when performing content staging synchronization. The CMSUseCustomHandlers key needs to be enabled too for this to work. The default value is false.	<add key="CMSStagingUseTreeCustomHandlers" value="true" />
CMSMediaFileMaxStagingSize	Sets the maximal file size of synchronized media files in kiloBytes. Files in media libraries that are larger than the entered value will not be synchronized using the Content staging module. The default value is 2147483647 (int.MaxValue).	<add key="CMSMediaFileMaxStagingSize" value="1024" />
CMSStagingTreatServerNamesAsInstances	Global metadata changes such as changes to document types, custom tables and system tables produce staging tasks for all staging servers of all sites. In such case, it is recommended to synchronize such changes to all servers of all sites at the same time to prevent overwriting of such metadata and loosing the data by synchronizing the older tasks later. You can use this key to make sure that once the global task is synchronized, it is deleted from all other servers with the same name to prevent such possibility. The default value is false since staging can use multiple target instances targeted with the same names.	<add key="CMSStagingTreatServerNamesAsInstances" value="true" />

Special settings for the WYSIWYG editor

You can use the following keys to configure the WYSIWYG editor:

Key	Description	Sample Value
CMSWYSIWYGFixXHTML	Indicates if the WYSIWYG editor should automatically try to fix XHTML incompatibilities in the code it generates. Supported values are true and false. The default value is true.	<add key="CMSWYSIWYGFixXHTML" value="true" />
CMSLoadHTMLEditorByIFrame	If true, the WYSIWYG editor is loaded in an iFrame.	<add key="CMSLoadHTMLEditorByIFrame" value="true"/>
FCKeditor:BasePath	Specifies the location of the WYSIWYG editor (FCK editor). By default, it is located in ~/CMSAdminControls/FCKeditor.	<add key="FCKeditor:BasePath" value="/FCKeditor/"/>
FCKEditor:UserFilesPath	Specifies path to user files. The default path is /UserFiles/.	<add key="FCKEditor:UserFilesPath" value="/UserFiles/"/>
FCKEditor:PersonalizeToolbarOnLiveSite	Indicates if the FCK toolbar can be personalized on the live site. See this topic for more details. Supported values are true and false. The default value is false.	<add key="FCKEditor:PersonalizeToolbarOnLiveSite" value="true" />

Special settings for E-commerce

You can use the following keys when you need to achieve specific behavior of the E-commerce module. The keys are also explained in E-commerce guide -> Configuration settings -> Web.config settings.

Key	Description	Sample Value
CMSShoppingCartExpirationPeriod	Number of days after which E-commerce shopping cart content is deleted from the database. It's used for deleting unused shopping carts of anonymous users that are stored in the database with ID stored in the browser cookie. The default value is 30.	<add key="CMSShoppingCartExpirationPeriod" value="60" />
CMSUseCurrentSKUData	Indicates if the E-commerce module should use the price from the existing order items or from the current SKU data when re-calculating the order. The default value is false.	<add key="CMSUseCurrentSKUData" value="true"/>
CMSEnableOrderItemEditing	If true, order item parameters, such as order item name and order item unit price, can be modified when editing an existing order. The default value is false.	<add key="CMSEnableOrderItemEditing" value="true"/>
CMSUseMetaFileForProductImage	Indicates if meta files should be used for product images in E-commerce. The default value is true.	<add key="CMSUseMetaFileForProductImage" value="true"/>
CMSUseCustomEcommerceProviders	Specifies whether to use custom E-commerce provider handlers. See this topic for more details. The default value is false.	<add key="CMSUseCustomEcommerceProviders" value="true"/>

Special settings for event logging

You can use the following keys when you need to achieve specific behavior of the Event log:

Key	Description	Sample Value
CMSLogEvents	Indicates if logging events in the Event log is enabled. The default value is true.	<add key="CMSLogEvents" value="true"/>
CMSLogMetadata	Indicates if logging of metadata events in the Event log is enabled. The default value is false.	<add key="CMSLogMetadata" value="true"/>
CMSLogKeepPercent	Coefficient for Event log deletion, keeps the specified percentage of log items alive and deletes the log by batch when the set percentage is exceeded. The default value is 10.	<add key="CMSLogKeepPercent" value="15"/>
CMSLogEventsToFile	If true, events are also logged into the ~\App_data\logevents.log file. The default value is false.	<add key="CMSLogEventsToFile" value="true"/>
CMSLogFieldChanges	If true, details about particular object changes are logged with the changes in Event log. The default value is false.	<add key="CMSLogFieldChanges" value="true"/>
CMSLogDocumentFieldChanges	If true, details about particular document changes are logged with the changes in Event log. The default value is false.	<add key="CMSLogDocumentFieldChanges" value="true"/>

Special settings for file exporting

You can use the following keys when you want to configure file exporting:

Key

Description

Sample Value

CMSExportExcludedFolders

Specifies which folders will be filtered from being included in Files folder of the export package.

.svn folders are excluded by default, even without this key added. More info here.

CMSExportExcludedFiles

Specifies which files will be filtered from being included in the Files folder of the export package.

.scc files are excluded by default, even without this key added. More info here.

Special settings for item listing

You can use the following keys when you want to configure item listing:

Key	Description	Sample Value
CMSDefaultListingFilterLimit	Required number of items listed in a listing across the whole UI for a filter to be displayed. If the number of listed items is lower than this value, the filter is not displayed. If it is larger, the filter is displayed. The default value is 25.	<add key="CMSDefaultListingFilterLimit" value="40" />
CMSDefaultListingPageSize	Initial page size (the Items per page setting) of listings across the whole UI. The default value is 25.	<add key="CMSDefaultListingPageSize" value="50" />
ShowFirstLastButtons	If enabled, the first and last page buttons are included in pagers of listings with large numbers of items in the UI. If disabled, the control is hidden in the listings. If both this and the ShowDirectPageControl keys are disabled, only TopN items are loaded, while TopN = PageSize * (currentPageIndex + CurrentPagesGroupSize). The default value is true.	<add key="ShowFirstLastButtons" value="false" />
ShowDirectPageControl	If enabled, direct page control is included in pagers of listings with large numbers of items in the UI. If disabled, the control is hidden in the listings. If both this and the ShowFirstLastButtons keys are disabled, only TopN items are loaded, while TopN = PageSize * (currentPageIndex + CurrentPagesGroupSize). The default value is true.	<add key="ShowDirectPageControl" value="false" />

Special settings for query string parameter names

You can use the following keys to change certain query string parameter names:

Key

Description

Sample Value

CMSLanguageParameterName

Changes the name of the lang query string parameter so that you get Home?sprache=de-de instead of the default Home?lang=de-de.

The default value is lang.

CMSAliasPathParameterName

Changes the name of the aliaspath query string parameter so that you get products.aspx?ap=/products/myproduct instead of the default products.aspx?aliaspath=/products/myproduct.

The default value is aliaspath.

Special settings for transaction isolation

You will use the following settings only in special cases when you encounter problems with deadlocks when updating a document:

Key	Description	Sample Value
CMSTransactionIsolationLevel	Isolation level for explicit transactions. The default value is ReadUncommitted.	<add key="CMSTransactionIsolationLevel" value="ReadCommitted" />
CMSDefaultIsolationLevel	Isolation level for all queries, even without transactions. The default value is ReadUncommitted.	<add key="CMSDefaultIsolationLevel" value="ReadUncommitted" />
CMSUseDefaultIsolationLevelOnlyWithOpenTransactions	If true, the default isolation level is used only when some transaction is already running. The default value is true.	<add key="CMSUseDefaultIsolationLevelOnlyWithOpenTransactions" value="true" />
CMSAllowSimultaneousTransactions	If false, there can be only one transaction running at the same time. The default value is true.	<add key="CMSAllowSimultaneousTransactions" value="true" />
CMSMaxTransactionWaitTimeout	Indicates how many seconds a transaction should wait for completion of another running transaction if simultaneous transactions are not allowed. The default value is 1.	<add key="CMSMaxTransactionWaitTimeout" value="5" />

Special settings for the scheduler

By adding the following keys to your web.config, you can configure the Scheduler:

Key	Description	Sample Value
CMSUseAutomaticScheduler	Indicates if automatic scheduling should be used. Automatic scheduler periodically requests the cmspages/scheduler.aspx page which ensures that scheduled tasks are processed automatically. If turned off (false - by default), the tasks are processed at the end of page requests. If it's true, the cmspages/scheduler.aspx page is requested periodically.	<add key="CMSUseAutomaticScheduler" value="false" />
CMSRunSchedulerWithinRequest	If true (the default value), the scheduler is executed within the standard EndRequest of a page. If false, the scheduler is executed via the cmspages/scheduler.aspx page.	<add key="CMSRunSchedulerWithinRequest " value="false" />
CMSSchedulerURL	URL of the physical location of the scheduler.aspx page. The default value is ~/cmspages/scheduler.aspx	<add key="CMSSchedulerURL" value="https://domain/cmspages/scheduler.aspx" />
CMSSchedulerAcceptAllCertificates	If true, all security certificates (including not valid ones) will be accepted when accessing the scheduler.aspx page via a secured protocol. The default value is false.	<add key="CMSSchedulerAcceptAllCertificates" value="true" />
CMSSchedulerUserName	User name under which scheduler.aspx should be accessed (e.g. when using windows authentication). The default value is "" (blank username).	<add key="CMSSchedulerUserName" value="office\myname" />
CMSSchedulerPassword	Password for the user name under which scheduler.aspx should be accessed. The default value is "" (blank password).	<add key="CMSSchedulerPassword" value="mypassword123" />

Special settings for security

By adding the following keys to your web.config, you can configure certain Security options:

Key

Description

Sample Value

CMSCheckParameters

Indicates if parameter checking is allowed. Read this topic for more details.

The default value is false.

CMSReportCheckParameters

If true, an exception reporting the parameters is thrown when the parameters do not match. Read this topic for more details.

The default value is false.

Special settings for user interface cultures

By adding the following keys to your web.config, you can configure UI cultures:

Key

Description

Sample Value

CMSDefaultSpellCheckerCulture

Specifies the default culture of the built-in spell-checker. This culture is used when the dictionary for the currently selected content culture is not found.

The default value is en-us.

CMSShowLogonCultureSelector

Indicates if the user interface logon page should display a drop-down list with available user interface languages.

The default value is true.

CMSDefaultUICulture

Specifies the default UI culture. If you use this key, you also need to rename the ~\CMSResources\CMS.resx file to CMS.en-us.resx and the CMS.en-nz.resx file to CMS.resx. This is needed because the CMS.resx file is used when the (default) option is selected in users' Preferred user interface culture.

The default value is en-us.

CMSUseSQLResourceManagerAsPrimary

Changes the priority of used localization resource strings to:

1.	custom.resx

cms.resx

3.	database (Site Manager -> Development -> UI Cultures)

The default value is true.

UICulture

Specifies the default user interface culture.

The default value is en-us.

Special settings for file synchronization on web farms

By adding the following keys to your web.config, you can enable or disable web farm synchronization of certain kind of files stored in the file system:

Key

Description

Sample Value

CMSWebFarmEnabled

Indicates if Web farms are enabled (true) or not (false).

The default value is false.

CMSWebFarmServerName

Code name of the web farm server. This value is used for native web farm synchronization support.

The default value is "" (empty string).

CMSWebFarmSynchronizeFiles

General key determining if files should be synchronized (true) or not (false). This key enables synchronization of:

•	Attachments

•	Meta files

•	Media files

•	BizForm files

•

Avatars

•	Forum attachments

The default value is true.

CMSWebFarmSynchronizeAttachments

Enables/disables synchronization of atachments.

The default value is true.

CMSWebFarmSynchronizeMetaFiles

Enables/disables synchronization of meta files.

The default value is true.

CMSWebFarmSynchronizeMediaFiles

Enables/disables synchronization of media files.

The default value is true.

CMSWebFarmSynchronizeBizFormFiles

Enables/disables synchronization of BizForm files.

The default value is true.

CMSWebFarmSynchronizeAvatars

Enables/disables synchronization of Avatars.

The default value is true.

CMSWebFarmSynchronizeForumAttachments

Enables/disables synchronization of forum attachments.

The default value is true.

CMSWebFarmSynchronizeDeleteFiles

Enables/disables synchronization of deleted files.

The default value is true.

CMSWebFarmMaxFileSize

If the CMSWebFarmSynchronizeFiles key is enabled, you can limit the maximal size of synchronized files using this key. The value is entered in kiloBytes and files larger than this value will not be synchronized.

The default value is 2147483647 (int.MaxValue).

CMSWebFarmUpdateWithinRequest

If true, web farm servers are updated with changes made on the other servers once per request. If false, web farm servers will be updated based on the Synchronize web farm changes scheduled task - recommended for high-traffic sites.

The default value is true.

Connection string

The database used by Kentico CMS engine is specified by the connection string CMSConnectionString in the /configuration/connectionStrings section. Here's an example of such connection string:

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