System configuration screen

Enter the name for the system. This name is shown in the header section of the HTML source code created for the site and displayed at the bottom of all emails sent to Matrix editors and administrators. By default, the name of the system is The system.

Enter the owner of the system. This owner name is then shown in the header section of the HTML source code created for the site. It is also displayed at the bottom of all emails sent to Matrix editors and administrators, so they know whom to contact for assistance. By default, the owner of the system is blank.

Enter the suffix to be appended to the URL of the site to access the administration interface of Matrix. By default, this is set to _admin.

Enter the suffix to be appended to the URL of the site to access the inline edit mode of Matrix. By default, this is set to _edit.

Enter the suffix to be appended to the URL of a page so that you can sign in. Using this suffix will mean that the Matrix sign-in box will appear where you can enter your username and password. Instead of going to the administration or inline edit mode, you will be returned to the page you were currently viewing.

Enter the suffix to be appended to the URL of the site to access the matrix-uncached version of the page. Using this suffix forces Matrix to serve the most recent version of the page to the user. By default, this is set to _nocache.

Enter the suffix to be appended to the URL of the site to access the proxy-uncached version of the page. Using this suffix forces Matrix to ignore any Send cacheable headers settings and will not send relevant headers (such as Cache-control, expires, and last-modified) when serving the page to the user. By default, this is set to _noproxycache.

Enter the suffix to be appended to the URL of the site to clear and re-populate the Matrix cache for the page.

Enter the suffix to be appended to the URL of the site to access Matrix performance mode. By default, this is set to _performance.

Enter the time zone for the system. By default, this is set to Australia/Sydney.

Select Yes to disable the 'running Matrix' attribution from your site’s design source.

If Matrix is nested in the frame of a page, enabling this option will select that both the page and your system are hosted on the same domain. If they are not, the browser will block the loading of the page. By default, this option is enabled. It is recommended that you keep this option enabled for added security.

This field allows you to define the list of URLs that can be used to access Matrix. All site assets created within Matrix must have a URL applied based on a URL listed in this field. You can enter as many URLs as you would like, with each URL being defined on a new line. The protocol (that is, http:// or https://) should not be specified.

This field allows you to define a list of parent domains for setting session cookies. Parent domains are useful if several system root URLs have a common parent domain. If the current URL ends with one of the parent domains, then the cookie will be set on the parent domain instead, with the result being that the user’s session will persist across the parent domain and all its subdomains. For example, syd.example.com and mel.example.com are defined as the system root URLs, and example.com is defined as the system parent domain. When a user visits syd.example.com, the cookie will be created for example.com. When they visit mel.example.com, the cookie created for example.com will be used.

By default, Matrix rewrites URLs for publicly accessible and live file-based assets to an apache readable directory on the same server on which Matrix is installed. By entering a system static URL, you can tell Matrix to rewrite those URLs to an alternative location, which could be a different (and lightweight) piece of web server software on the same machine as the Matrix install or a completely different machine. Leave this field blank to use the default Matrix behavior. This is an advanced configuration option and should only be used if instructed by Squiz.

This field allows you to set the file extension types (comma-separated) that will not be served through your system’s static URL, as specified in the above system static URL field. This means that any specified file types will not use the system’s static root domain (that is, \www.example.com) instead of using the Matrix system root URL. Any file types not specified in this field will be served through the static URL.

Specify whether the static files can be served using the http:// protocol.

Specify whether the static files can be served using the https:// protocol.

This field allows you to define the character to replace the spaces in the assets' names when automatically generating URLs. For example, an asset with the name Contact us would have automatically generated URLs of contact-us, where the URL separator has replaced the space. By default, the URL separator is -.

Enabling this option will strip trailing slashes off frontend requested URLs and redirect them. This will mean that Matrix will log just one cache entry for the URL content, where it would otherwise treat URLs with trailing slashes as a separate cache entry.

Specify the default email address for the system. This is the email address that Matrix will use to send emails to if it has not been supplied with an email address for the message. For example, if a custom form has to send emails, but the To address is empty, the email will be sent to the address specified in this field. This email address should be for the owner of the Matrix installation. By default, this field is blank.

Specify the tech email address for the system. This is the email address that Matrix will use to send technical emails to, such as error reports and system configuration changes. This email address should be for a user to diagnose and fix technical problems with the Matrix installation. By default, this field is blank.

This field allows you to select which system root URLs will attempt to display the sign-in box using the https protocol regardless of other protocol settings on the site.

Enter the maximum number of times a user may incorrectly enter this password before their account is locked. Enter zero (0) to allow an unlimited number of attempts.

By default, if a user’s IP address changed while they are using Matrix, they will be signed out to ensure their account is not being used by someone else at the same time. Proxy settings in some companies may change the user’s IP address each time they view a Matrix page, effectively logging out the user each time they try and navigate to a new page. Enabling this setting will tell Matrix to allow a user’s IP address to change throughout their session.

If a user has previously entered their username and password in a standard HTTP authentication form, Matrix will be provided with the username and password they entered. If this setting is enabled, Matrix will attempt to sign the user into the system using the username and password combination provided without requiring them to retype their username and password. The password stored within Matrix must match the password entered during the initial HTTP authentication.

If this option is enabled, Matrix will generate an HTTP authentication dialogue box instead of showing the standard sign-in design. This then allows external tools to sign into Matrix by appending use_http_login=1 to the URL.

This setting controls whether Matrix should use a user name sent from an external authentication mechanism (for example, an authentication system provided by a web server or a proxy) to automatically sign in a user, without them having to enter their password directly into the system. Matrix will assume the user has been successfully authenticated from the external system and does not check the password entered during the original authentication against their Matrix password.

This setting controls the PHP server variable used to authenticate external users if the Accept HTTP authentication setting is turned on.

This setting controls whether external authentication systems (LDAP and IPD bridges) are enabled when authenticating a user. When this option is disabled, only the default authentication asset will be returned from the authentication systems folder under the system management folder. This allows a system administrator to temporarily disable external authentication in certain circumstances, for example, if an external system is compromised.

This setting allows you to choose whether to use the default PHP session file save path (as specified in the php.ini configuration file), or let Matrix set it to the cache folder of the system. The former may be required when using shared storage, that is, with multiple servers, while the latter is required for site networks to operate.

Enter the time (in seconds) for how long a lock is held before expiring. For example, if a user locks an asset and then decides they do not want to edit it further, the lock will be released automatically after the number of seconds entered into this field has elapsed.

Enter the time (in seconds) for how often the lock automatically refreshes in the administration and simple edit interfaces.

Enter the time (in seconds) for how long a lock is held before it expires (in seconds) due to inactivity on the current screen, in the administration, and simple edit interfaces. The refreshing of this frame reacquires locks that the user still needs.

Enter the maximum amount of memory used by the Matrix web system. By default, this is set to 64MB. However, on larger and more complex systems, this limit will probably need to be increased.

Enter the maximum amount of memory used by the Matrix cron system. By default, this is set to 64MB. However, on larger and more complex systems, this limit will probably need to be increased.

Select whether to log all errors generated on the frontend and editing interfaces to the error log. It is highly recommended that you do not alter this field’s default value, which is Yes.

Select whether to log system errors to the operating system log. If this field is set to Yes, the system name will be used as the system log identifier. If no name is specified, the default string squiz mysource [version] (matrix) will be used. By default, this field is set to No.

Select the facility used for logging errors to the operating system log. This will determine where in the system log the errors will be filed.

The following options can be set for the formatting of error messages:

The language is set to English (United States) and can not be changed.

Select whether to use character conversion for URLs based on the international settings.
If this field is set to Yes, accented characters in newly-created asset URLs are converted to the character map of the selected Web path character replacement language.

This setting defaults to English and should not be changed.
This setting is not a page translation setting. It only affects how accented characters are translated to valid characters in URLs.

This field allows you to change the text displayed on the Save button at the bottom of the administration and simple edit interfaces.

This field allows you to set whether the warning appears if the user has not clicked Save. By default, this is set to Yes.

Enter the number of child assets displayed for an asset in the asset tree. If there is more than this number of child assets, the Next and Previous buttons will be provided. By default, this option is set to 50. For more information on the Next and Previous buttons, refer to the Concepts documentation.

This field allows you to specify what information to show for each asset in the asset tree. By default, the short name is shown; however, this can be modified to display other information such as asset ID and the number of children. The following keyword replacements can be used, along with other characters:

Set this to Yes to enable the sending of cacheable cache-control and pragma headers for all public live pages it serves to users who are not signed in. This allows the web browser to cache pages for faster browsing. If set to No, matrix will send Cache-Control: No-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, POST-check=0, pre-check=0 and Pragma: No-cache headers.

Set this field to Yes to send a last-modified header for all publicly cached pages it serves to users who are not signed in.

Set this field to Yes to send a 304 not modified status code if requested to do so by a proxy. The 304 code will only be sent for publicly cached pages and for users who are not signed in.

Set this field to Yes to send a no-cache Cache-control header for file asset types. This option can be disabled to resolve inline file display issues involving PDF documents in internet explorer.

Set this field to Yes to allow pages returning a 404 Not Found response to be cached by a caching proxy server. This option is separate from the send cacheable header option. The cache expiry setting determines the cached response’s expiry time on the Details screen of the cache manager.

Select whether to enable the x-forwarded-for HTTP header. This header allows parent servers to discern client IPS when behind reverse proxies. This means that IP restrictions within Matrix can be used in conjunction with squid and other reverse proxies specified in the available input fields.

Select whether to enable HttpOnly cookies. An HttpOnly cookie will only be used when transmitting HTTP or HTTPS requests. Additionally, a web browser will not allow client-side scripts (such as javascript) access to the cookie. This can help mitigate the effects of cross-site scripting attacks.

Specify whether to transmit the secure cookie flag when a connection is made over https. Enabling this will cause browsers to not share the session cookie between HTTP and HTTPS.

Specify whether to send the X-UA-compatible header for Internet Explorer browsers. Enabling this option will send the IE=edge,chrome=1 X-UA-compatible header, meaning that the webpage will be displayed in 'edge mode', the highest standards mode supported by the IE version being used.

This field allows you to enable permission roles in the system. By default, this is set to No. Leaving roles disabled will increase the performance of the system.

This field allows you to enable workflow roles in the system. By default, this is set to No. Leaving roles disabled will increase the performance of the system.

This field allows you to enable global roles in the system. By default, this is set to No. Leaving global roles disabled will increase the performance of the system.

Specify the maximum number of visited URL entries to store in the current session. These visited URL entries and asset IDs can be accessed using the global session variables visited_urls and visited_assets.

Select whether to strip out code using the Matrix comment syntax in your site’s output. By default, this option is enabled, meaning that comments will not be displayed on the frontend.