# Component Setup

A component setup uses a combination of IDOL components, such as Content, Community, View, and so on, rather than the unified IDOL Server. This more advanced setup is for administrators who are already familiar with IDOL architecture.

Micro Focus recommends that you use a component-based setup in most production environments.

The component setup is more flexible than a unified IDOL Server. It allows you to:

- use only the IDOL components that you need.
- configure each component separately, which can be useful for optimization and tuning, as well as troubleshooting.
- set the components up on separate hardware or with dedicated resources to enhance the performance for different operations, and to allow you to scale resources for different components in a more flexible way.
- simplify component management and maintenance. In particular, it is easier to start, stop, and reinitialize individual components.
- design highly scalable, fault tolerant IDOL systems.

In a component setup, you configure each component with its own configuration file. For example, you configure the `content.exe` in the `content.cfg` file, you configure the `category.exe` in the `category.cfg` and so on.

Each component installation must also include any extra files or modules that you require. These additional files are included as part of the installation for the component if you use the IDOL Server installer, or you can use the zip package downloads, which also include the required files and modules.

NOTE: There are also other dependencies between components, which you must configure in the component configuration files. For example, the Community and Category configuration files must contain the host and port details for the Agentstore component.

In general, Micro Focus does not recommend that you use the IDOL Proxy component in a component setup. However, if required, you can use a stand-alone IDOL Proxy to forward requests to the appropriate component. In this case, IDOL Proxy can only forward actions; it cannot perform any of the component maintenance (such as starting and stopping components).

If you use a stand-alone IDOL Proxy, the IDOL Proxy configuration file must contain the host IP address and ACI port for each of the IDOL components that you want it to forward requests to. It dynamically configures other ports (such as the index port) when the components start up.

Related Topics

- Distributed Setup

- Component Installation
- Component ZIP Packages

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