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.
For that, you will need to go to the page 'cas/status/dashboard' and click on Refresh button, or to go directly to 'cas/status/refresh' (POST request).
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.
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.
Tip: If you find that changes to cas.properties are not taking immediate effect (i.e. manually editing on the server), you can easily force detection of changes by touching the file:
# touch /etc/cas/config/cas.properties
INFO [org.apereo.cas.support.events.listener.CasConfigurationEventListener] - <Received event [org.apereo.cas.support.events.config.CasConfigurationModifiedEvent@353ebd1c[],/etc/cas/config/cas.properties,false]. Refreshing CAS configuration...>
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.
curl -X POST https://cas.server.url/cas/status/refresh
See this guide to learn more about various monitoring endpoints, etc.