System File Layout and Use

This appendix is intended for any person responsible of maintaining the system hardware and installation. It describes various technical details of how the files for the CAN-8 system are organized on the server.

This description will assume that the system has been installed in the standard way and the drive and directory that contains the entire server based system is F:\SVSYS\ with the client side executables elsewhere.

There are two basic components to the directory structure of the system, the first is the registration and menu system components that effect the system in a global manner, the second component pertains to directories and files that get created due to authoring lessons or students working with lessons. Each will be described separately.

All system files are in Binary format and no attempt should be made to edit these files with any text based editor as it will corrupt them beyond repair.

Any of the files described could be in use by the server at any time. If files are being copied or moved around it is required that the NTSERVE program be stopped before doing so.

Registration and Menu system files

The following files are in the root of the system install directory. These files will be present on all systems.

F:\SVSYS                - Base System Directory
F:\SVSYS\NTSERVE.EXE    - Server Executable
F:\SVSYS\NTSVTASK.EXE   - Server Service Task (creates reports, etc)
F:\SVSYS\NTCOP.EXE      - Server License Manager Task
F:\SVSYS\SERVER.LOG     - Server log (created by server, may not exist)
F:\SVSYS\ID\            - Contains information about menu/registration
F:\SVSYS\SVI\           - Default directory for creation of lessons
F:\SVSYS\DELETED\       - Contains deleted student information

USERS.DAT               - System user database. Contains information
                          about all users of the system.
MAIN.DAT                - Menu file. Contains entire menu structure as          
                          seen by all users.
MAIN.1                  - Backup copy of MAIN.DAT as a result of editing
MAIN.2                    the menus.   There may be a total of 8 backups
 ...                      each in numeric order with the highest numbered
 ...                      one being the oldest.
MAIN.8                    These files may not all exist at any given time.
ATTRIB.DAT              - System attributes.  Maps attribute letters to 
                          names.
LOG.DAT                 - User activity log.  All user activity regarding
                          selections made from menus and the time spent
                          are recorded in this file.
LICENSE.DAT             - Connection License Information used by NTCOP.EXE.
CHECK.DAT		- Used to manage encrypted courseware 
DELSNLOG.DAT            - Record of users deleted from lesson trackers                
                          and placed in the ..\DELETED directory.
COURSES\		- Location to store course authorization files
			  provided by coursware vendors.
CLASS\                  - Directory of information about classes.
CLASS\1.DAT             - Each class created gets a file numbered from
CLASS\2.DAT               1 to 255.  There may be any number of files
   ...                    in this directory.
CLASS\255.DAT             Files in the CLASS directory should not be
                          modified or removed as they have linkages to
                          the USERS.DAT file, and assignments.
ASSIGN\                 - Directory of assignments.
ASSIGN\S2.DAT           - Assignment for Student number 2
ASSIGN\C5.DAT           - Assignment for Class number 5
                          There may be as many files as there are 
                          assignments in this directory.
TMP\                    - Directory contains temporary files.
TMP\S00001.DAT          - Temp file for user number 1
TMP\S03423.DAT          - Temp file for user number 3423
                          There may be any number of files in this 
                          directory.
GLOBAL\                 - Directory contains default keyboards for planner.
GLOBAL\KBD001.DAT       - Default keyboard 1
GLOBAL\KBD002.DAT       - Default keyboard 2
IMAGES\			- Directory of background images used for the menu
IMAGES\V001.DAT		  stored in CAN-8 lesson format.
....

Lesson Directories

Unless specified by the MASTER when creating menus, the lesson directories are created in the SVI\ directory. Each lesson gets its own directory (including Babilon) and the following files are then created by either course authors or students using the lesson.

PLAN.DAT                - The lesson plan, created by the planner.
LOG.DAT                 - Lesson user log, created by the planner, 
                          appended by the tracker and student users.
V001.DAT                - Recorded lesson item from planner.  Each
                          Vnnn.DAT file contains the contents of one 
                          lesson item from the planner.  These files
                          do NOT map to the numbers of the planner
                          cells. The files may be numbered from V001.DAT
                          to V255.DAT.
KBD001.DAT              - Planner defined keyboard map.
PLAN.001                - Backup PLAN.DAT file.
USERS\                  - Directory for users responses
USERS\S02345\           - Directory containing responses for user number
                          2345.  Each user that makes responses in the
                          lesson gets a directory created.  There may 
                          be any number of these directories.
USERS\S02345\R001.DAT   - Response file number 1 for student 2345.
                          There may be any number of response files.
USERS\S02345\I001.DAT   - Instruction file number 1 for student 2345.
                          There may be any number of instruction files.
USERS\S02345\FILL.DAT   - File containing information about fill in the
                          blank questions.  This file may be 0 bytes in
                          length.

Deleted Directory

The deleted directory contains a series of directories that contain responses that were recorded for students that have been deleted from the tracker screens or from the system in general. These files may be backed up to tape for archival purposes if desired. To free up disk space on the server, these files may be deleted at any time. The server does not have to be stopped to delete these files.

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