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Reloading Changes

The CAS spring cloud configuration server is able to consume properties and settings via the profiles outlined here. The server is constantly monitoring changes to the underlying property sources automatically, but has no way to broadcast those changes to its own clients, such as the CAS server itself, which would act as a client of the configuration server expecting change notifications to quietly reload its configuration.

Therefor, in order to broadcast such change events CAS presents various endpoints that allow the adopter to refresh the configuration as needed. This means that an adopter would simply change a required CAS settings and then would submit a request to CAS to refresh its current state. All CAS internal components that are affected by the external change are quietly reloaded and the setting takes immediate effect, completely removing the need for container restarts or CAS redeployments.

Do Not Discriminate!

Most if not all CAS settings are eligible candidates for reloads. CAS should be smart enough to reload the appropriate configuration, regardless of setting/module that ends up using that setting. All is fair game, as the entire CAS web application inclusive of all modules and all relevant settings may be completely and utterly reloadable. If you find an instance where this statement does not hold, please speak up.

To see the relevant list of CAS properties, please review this guide.

Reload Strategy

CAS uses Spring Cloud to manage the internal state of the configuration. The configuration server that is provided by Spring Cloud embedded in CAS is constantly monitoring sources that house CAS settings and upon changes will auto-refresh itself.

Standalone

In the event that the standalone configuration profile is used to control and direct settings and Spring Cloud configuration server is disabled, CAS will begin to automatically watch and monitor the configuration files indicated by the profile and will auto-reload the state of the runtime application context automatically. You may also attempt to refresh settings manually via the CAS admin screens.

Spring Cloud

Any changes you make to the externally-defined [application|cas].[properties|yml] file MUST be refreshed manually. If you are using the CAS admin screens to update and edit properties, the configuration state of the CAS server is refreshed seamlessly and automatically without your resorting to manual and forceful refresh.

Clients of the configuration server (i.e. CAS server web application) do also expose a /refresh endpoint that allow one to refresh the configuration based on the current state of the configuration server and reconfigure the application runtime without the need to restart the JVM.

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curl -X POST https://cas.server.url/cas/status/refresh

See this guide to learn more about various monitoring endpoints, etc.