Introduction

CAST publishes a variety of extensions to provide additional analysis and measurement capabilities (see What are extensions for more information) and in turn, Console provides an integrated GUI to manage the use of these extensions in each Application analysis. Out-of-the-box, Console contains few restrictions or settings with regard to extensions. While this provides flexibility for Application Owners or Analysis Managers, it can sometimes be problematic if specific extensions need to be avoided for whatever reason. To counter this, Console provides a set of Extension Strategy settings that can be used to control the extensions that can be installed both automatically and manually in the integrated GUI. For example, admins can choose to do any of the following:

• allow/prevent the use of specific extensions depending on their status (LTS, funcrel, beta, alpha etc.)
• allow only specific extensions to be used in all analyses - a white list
• force the installation/use of specific extensions in all analyses
• "lock" extensions to specific version numbers

The settings can be seen as controlling mechanisms to prevent or grant access to any official or custom extensions that have been published by CAST. It is not mandatory to make any changes to the default options, however, CAST does recommend that you evaluate the correct strategy for your own environment.

Out of the box settings

Out of the box, Console will have the following pre-defined settings:

Auto update

Auto update is not enabled, therefore extensions will not update to a new release when one becomes available.

Extension Version Range

The Extension Version Range is set to Funcrel and LTS. This means that Beta and Alpha releases will not be automatically installed.

Force installed extensions

A set of extensions (providing reporting capabilities) will be listed in the force install list out of the box (and also after upgrade). This means that these extensions will be installed for all Applications managed within Console during the next source code delivery:

• Application Information
• Automatic Links Validator
• Core Metrics
• ISO-5055 Index
• Module Definition Types
• Quality Standards Mapping

These extensions provide reports post analysis to help you validate your results. It is not mandatory to use them (they can be disabled), but they do provide additional insight. Some additional notes:

• If any of these extensions are already installed on your Applications, then nothing will happen, the version you are using will not be overridden.
• If you are using CAST Extend Offline or CAST Extend local server and you intend to use these extensions (i.e. leave them enabled) you must ensure that you update your service to include these extensions.

Changing the Extension Strategy settings

Log in to Console with any valid user that has been assigned the Administration role and depending on the release of CAST Console you are using: