Setting Properties

This topic explains how to customize your VMware Tanzu GemFire configuration by setting properties.

Tanzu GemFire provides a default configuration for out-of-the-box systems. To use non-default configurations and to fine-tune your member communication, you can use a mix of various options to customize your configuration.

Tanzu GemFire properties are used to join a cluster and configure system member behavior. Configure your Tanzu GemFire properties through the gemfire.properties file, the Java API, or command-line input. Generally, you store all your properties in the gemfire.properties file, but you may need to provide properties through other means, for example, to pass in security properties for a username and password that you have received from keyboard input.

Note: Check with your Tanzu GemFire system administrator before changing properties through the API, including the gemfire.properties and gfsecurity.properties settings. The system administrator may need to set properties at the command line or in configuration files. Any change made through the API overrides those other settings.

Note: The product defaultConfigs directory has a sample gemfire.properties file with all default settings.

Set properties by any combination of the following. The system looks for the settings in the order listed:

java.lang.System property setting. Usually set at the command line. For applications, set these in your code or at the command line.

Naming: Specify these properties in the format gemfire.property-name, where property-name matches the name in the gemfire.properties file. To set the GemFire property file name, use gemfirePropertyFile by itself
- In the API, set the System properties before the cache creation call. Example:
```
System.setProperty("gemfirePropertyFile", "gfTest");

Cache cache = new CacheFactory().create();
```
- At the java command line, pass in System properties using the -D switch. Example:
```
java -DgemfirePropertyFile=gfTest test.Program
```
Entry in a Properties object.

Naming: Specify these properties using the names in the gemfire.properties file. To set the gemfire property file name, use gemfirePropertyFile.
- In the API, create a Properties object and pass it to the cache create method. Example:
```
Properties properties= new Properties();
properties.setProperty("log-level", "warning");
properties.setProperty("name", "testMember2");
ClientCache userCache = 
    new ClientCacheFactory(properties).create();
```
- For the cache server, pass the properties files on the gfsh command line as command-line options. Example:
```
gfsh>start server --name=server_name --properties-file=serverConfig/gemfire.properties --security-properties-file=gfsecurity.properties
```
  See Running Tanzu GemFire Server Processes for more information about running cache servers.
Entry in a gemfire.properties file. See Deploying Configuration Files without the Cluster Configuration Service. Example:
```
cache-xml-file=cache.xml
conserve-sockets=true
```
Default value. The default values are defined within the API for org.apache.geode.distributed.ConfigurationProperties.