Since RCE uses the profile directory to load its configuration at startup, it is not possible to change the profile directory at runtime. Instead, when running RCE via the commandline, you can use the commandline switch -p to change the profile at startup. Currently, there is no way to select the profile via the graphical interface of RCE.

You can temporarily (i.e., for a single execution of RCE) change the profile directory by supplying its path as a parameter for the commandline switch -p. If you supply a relative path (i.e., one not starting with /), RCE resolves that path relative to its main directory, i.e., to ~/.rce. If you supply an absolute path, RCE treats that path as the path to its profile directory.

In either case, RCE creates the profile directory and its parents if they do not exist. The range of valid profile names is mainly restricted by your OS's range of valid directory names. We strongly recommend to restrict your profile names to the range of printable ASCII characters. Furthermore, the profile name common is reserved for internal use of RCE.

If you want to change the profile location permanently, you can do so by supplying the commandline switch -p without a parameter. In this case, RCE starts with a text-based profile selection UI which allows you to set a new location of the default profile. We show this profile selection UI in the following figure.

Choosing the second option ("Select the default profile for future runs") will present a list of available profiles. On selection of one of these profiles, RCE will not be started using this profile, but instead the selected profile will be marked as the default profile for future runs. This selection is only stored for the current user and for the current installation location of RCE. Different users on the same machine can therefore configure different default profiles. Furthermore, different installations of RCE can have different default profiles configured.

No two instances of RCE may use the same profile simultaneously. Upon startup, RCE checks whether some other instance of RCE is already running which uses the given profile. In this case, RCE displays an error message stating that it "failed to lock profile directory" and shuts down. If you want to start multiple instances of RCE simultaneously on the same machine, you have to specify a different profile for each instance.

As stated above, each profile contains the static configuration of RCE as well as its integrated tools. The former is defined via the JSON-file configuration.json. For an in-depth introduction to the JSON file format, please refer to https://www.json.org/. The file configuration.json is located in the root of the profile directory, while the integrated tools are defined in the directory integration and its subdirectories.

To change the static configuration of RCE, change the contents of the file configuration.json and restart RCE. You can either change the contents of this file manually using your favorite text editor, or from the GUI of RCE via the toolbar or the menu entry Configuration.

Configuration parameters are grouped within the configuration file. The configuration parameters are listed below. There is one list per JSON configuration group. Some example snippets are given as well. The complete example configurations can be found in the installation data directory in the sub-directory examples/configuration or by opening the configuration information in RCE.

Network Server Sample:

"network" : {
		"serverPorts" : {
			"relayPort1" : {
				"ip" : "127.0.0.1",
				"port" : 21000
			}
		}, 
		"ipFilter" : {
			"enabled" : false,
			"allowedIPs" : [
				"127.0.0.1",
				"127.0.0.2"
			]
		}
	}
	

Network Client Sample:

"network" : {
		"connections" : {
			"exampleConnection1" : {
				"host" : "127.0.0.1",
				"port" : 21000,
				"connectOnStartup": false,
				"autoRetryInitialDelay" : 5,
				"autoRetryMaximumDelay" : 300,
				"autoRetryDelayMultiplier" : 1.5
			}
		}
	}

Third Party integration Python path example:

"thirdPartyIntegration": {
			"python":{
			"binaryPath": "/path/to/python/executable"
					}
			}
		

SSH Server Sample:

"sshServer" : {
		"enabled" : true,
		"ip" : "127.0.0.1",
		"port" : 31005,
		"accounts" : {
			"ra_demo" : {
				// hashed form of the "ra_demo" test password; DO NOT reuse this for live accounts!
				"passwordHash" : "$2a$10$qxCBuEvq0xWoOlox2dVbCu8zCYsyxQMBe5SAnS2HId0uaEp59aAu2",
				"role" : "remote_access_user",
				"enabled" : true
			}
		}
	}

Uplink Connection Sample:

"uplink" : {
		"uplinkConnections" : {
			"exampleUplinkConnectionID" : {
				"displayName" : "example",
				"clientID": "client1",
				"host" : "127.0.0.1",
				"port" : 31005,
				"connectOnStartup": false,
				"autoRetry" : false,
				"isGateway" : false,
				"loginName" : "ra_demo"
				//The passphrase is not stored here, it has to be entered when connecting.
			}
		}
	}

Remote Access Connection Sample

"sshRemoteAccess" : {
				"sshConnections" : {
					"exampleSSHConnection" : {
						"displayName" : "example",
						"host" : "127.0.0.1",
						"port" : 31005,
						"connectOnStartup": false,
						"autoRetry" : false,
						"loginName" : "ra_demo"
						//The passphrase is not stored here, it has to be entered when connecting.
					}
				}
			}

If you want to configure SSH accounts with passphrases or you want to configure e-mail support for the instance, you need to use the Configuration UI. You can access the interactive tool by executing RCE from the command line with the option "rce --configure" or by using the "Launch Configuration UI" script in the "extras" folder of your RCE installation directory.

There are currently two categories of authorization data that should not be simply written into configuration files for security reasons: SSH login passwords and keyfile passphrases, and RCE authorization group keys (the "export/import" strings). To support scenarios where interactive entry is not possible, for example daemon/service installations, a file-based import mechanism is provided as well.

The general usage is the same for all kinds of import data: