RPK200168: How to Disable History Tracking in PackBench 4.0

Disabling History Tracking in PackBench 4.0

Affected Version: PackBench 4.0

Summary:

PackBench 4.0 tracks all actions and writes a log of progress for each of them. The information is used to show a timeline of progress activities in the Run View. Some organizations might want to disable this feature, because may potentially be used to track the activities of users.

Details:

Each time a task or a run status changes, PackBench writes the history entry to the table RunHistory. The entry consists of 4 informations:

  • Identifier of the entry
  • Time stamp
  • Progress value (0 – 100)
  • Identifier of run

In order to disable populating this table, the following has to be done:

STANDALONE AND SERVER INSTALLATION

Go to the installation folder, by default C:\Program Files (x86)\RayPack\PackBench and edit file PackBenchService.exe.config.

Its content should look similar to:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

<configuration>

  <appSettings>

    <add key="IsHistoryDisabled" value="false" />

  </appSettings>

  <runtime>

    <assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">

      <probing privatePath="Libraries;Languages" />

    </assemblyBinding>

    <generatePublisherEvidence enabled="false" />

    <loadFromRemoteSources enabled="True" />

  </runtime>

  <startup>

    <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0" />

  </startup>

</configuration>

In order to disable the history, change the value of the parameter IsHistoryDisabled from false to true and save the file (administrative permissions may be necessary to be able to do this).

If the standalone mode is being used, restart PackBench to apply the change. When running a server installation, the Windows Service PackBenchService has to be restarted in order to pick up the changes.

CLIENT INSTALLATION

The setting cannot be changed per-client only. The administrator has to configure it on a per-server basis.

Results

As a result of this, the following changes apply:

  • Nothing is ever written to the table RunHistory
  • The Run overview does not show a details progress timeline, but only two points identifying the beginning of the work (0%) and the current progress without any points in between.

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