This document describes the layout of the POSServer files on a Windows or Mac OS X server.
On a Microsoft Windows computer, the POS software is comprised of three different components.
- POSServer – The server installation.
- DesktopPOS – The operator-facing interface.
- POSPrinter – An optional USB printer server.
Each component is installed into its own directory. For an installation managed by Soft Panda PTY LTD, these are typically installed under “C:\Soft Panda\POSServer”, “C:\Soft Panda\DesktopPOS” and “C:\Soft Panda\POSPrinter” respectively, however following this naming is not mandatory. The remainder of this document will assume these default locations are in use, and you should adapt the description to suit your own installation.
A server-only computers only requires the “C:\Soft Panda\POSServer” directory. Small sites may opt to avoid a dedicated server and have a Windows operator terminal perform the server functionality as well; this doesn’t require any changes to the server layout but will add the DesktopPOS and/or POSPrinter software in separate folders. The rest of this document describes only the server functionality.
Within the POSServer folder, the following files and folders should be present:
- POSServer.exe – The server software. (Required.)
- data/poscloud.crt – A certificate file required for communication with the Soft Panda cloud services. (Required.)
- data/server-license.txt – Your server’s license file, provided by Soft Panda PTY LTD. (Required.)
- data/files – A folder containing files (eg. images) that have been uploaded to the server. Do not attempt to modify or add files in this folder directly.
- data/files/import – A folder where you may place files in order to have them automatically imported at server startup. Files placed here will be automatically deleted after import. If you intend to make use of this functionality, you may wish to share this folder using Windows Sharing. It is not recommended to share other areas of the POSServer installation.
- data/pos-server-db – A folder where the current version of the server database is stored. You should not attempt to modify files in this folder directly. You may manually backup or restore this folder in its entirety after first shutting down the server.
- data/pos-server-db-previous – A folder where the immediately previous version of the server database is stored, which is typically only seconds or minutes behind the current database version. You should not attempt to modify files in this folder directly. If the server is unable to read its database from “data/pos-server-db” on startup, it will attempt to fallback to this backup folder.
- posserver.log – A log file of server actions, for emergency diagnostic purposes only. You may delete this file if it is growing undesirably large, after first shutting down the server.
- daily-backups – A folder of automatic daily database snapshots. This is intended to allow recovery to a specific historical database snapshot in the event of catastrophic data loss. You may delete any or all of these snapshots if the folder is growing undesirably large. You should not attempt to modify files in the individual pos-server-db backups, but you may restore the server’s main “pos-server-db” folder from any snapshot.