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Administer the Statista EZProxy Test Instance

This guide covers the administration and configuration of Statista's hosted EZProxy test instance.

Instance Overview

Managing Users (Patron Administration)

Users for EZProxy authentication are managed via a file called patron.txt.

User File Format

user:password
cpe:Eir8aim0

The first line must be the header user:password, followed by one user per line in user:password format.

Upload Process

  1. Create or update the patron.txt file with users in user:password format
  2. Upload to sftp://scp.oclc.org/statistanav using the statistanav account (password in Bitwarden)
  3. Wait for the server to check for this file (every 15 minutes) and update the user database
  4. Users can authenticate once the update completes

Currently Configured Users

  • statistanav - admin account
  • cpe - regular user (password: Eir8aim0)

Web Administration Interface

Access the admin panel at https://statista.idm.oclc.org using the statistanav account. This interface provides access to logs and basic monitoring, but most configuration is done via SFTP.

Configuration via SFTP

Connecting to SFTP

Connect to sftp://scp.oclc.org/statistanav with the statistanav username and password from Bitwarden.

Important Directories and Files

  • /expert/docs - Contains HTML files and the /public subfolder for customizing EZProxy webpages (images, CSS, etc.)
  • /expert/ezproxy.cfg - Main configuration file (equivalent to config.txt in documentation). Contains database stanzas and non-authentication configurations
  • /expert/ezproxy.usr - User/authentication configuration file (equivalent to user.txt in documentation). Contains authentication settings
  • /expert/shibuser.txt - Shibboleth/SAML authentication configuration (only present if using SAML/Shibboleth)

Working with Preproduction Environment (Staging)

The test environment runs on ports 9080 (HTTP) and 9443 (HTTPS):

Purpose: Test configuration changes before deploying to production without impacting users.

Deploying Configuration Changes

To Staging/Preproduction

  1. Create an empty file called flag.txt in the /expert folder (within statistanav/expert)
  2. Wait for the preproduction environment to pick up changes (every 30 minutes)
  3. The flag.txt file will disappear after pickup
  4. Test your changes at the staging URLs (ports 9080/9443)

To Production

  1. After successful testing in staging, create a new flag.txt file
  2. Put the word prod on the first line of the file
  3. Upload to the /expert folder
  4. Changes will be deployed to production on the next pickup cycle (every 30 minutes)

See Also

Last updated: March 24, 2026 at 10:39
By: Axel Tetzlaff