Quiz Extreme is a powerful, yet very easy to use software package. While it is easy to setup and configure for the average home user, it also has a number of powerful features which businesses, schools, and universities will find useful and in many cases, mandatory.

Some of these powerful features include:

• The ability to use LDAP or Active Directory for user authentication instead of Quiz Extreme's built-in mechanism.

• The ability to configure the Quiz Server to automatically send any newly submitted learner results to an Online QX Repository as well as the local database.

• The ability to package one or more exams into a single installable Exam Package for distribution to learners (See Exam Packaging for complete details). With the server properly configured, notification including download instructions can be sent automatically to authorized users of the Exam Package.

preferences.ini

The preferences.ini file contains the configuration information to setup the server to use the features highlighted above. This file is located in the Quiz Extreme installation directory under “Quiz Server\server” directory. By default, this would be:

C:\Program Files\Excellentia Software\Quiz Extreme\Quiz Server\server\preferences.ini

To make configuration changes, use your favorite text editor to make changes to the name-value pairs in the file. The following shows an example of a properly configured file. Comment characters (#) can be placed in the file to comment out unnecessary lines, or to adds notes:

# Outgoing email settings

mail.from= This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

mail.transport.protocol=smtps

mail.smtps.auth=true

mail.smtps.host=smtp.gmail.com

mail.smtps.port=465

mail.smtps.socketFactory.port=465

mail.smtps.user= This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

mail.smtps.password=MyPassword123

mail.debug=false

# Online QX Repository auto-sync settings. Comment these

# lines or set QX_REPOSITORY_SYNC_RESULTS=false to disable this

# feature.

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.QX_REPOSITORY_SYNC_RESULTS=true

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.QX_ACCOUNT_ID=ABCDEFGHIJ

# LDAP / Active Directory user authentication settings. Remove or

# comment out these lines if you do not have an LDAP or Active

# Directory server in your organization.

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.AUTH_TYPE=normal

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_HOST=localhost

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_PORT=10389

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_ENCRYPTION=none

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_BIND_DN=uid\=?,ou\=system

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_USER_SEARCH_BASE_DN=ou\=system

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_USER_SEARCH_FILTER=(objectClass\=inetOrgPerson)

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_USER_SEARCH_SCOPE=ONE

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_USER_SEARCH_DEREF=NEVER

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_USER_SEARCH_SIZE_LIMIT=0

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_USER_SEARCH_TIME_LIMIT=0

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_QUIZ_MANAGER_USERS=jash,admin,jdoe

Outgoing Email Properties

The example preferences.ini file above shows how one would connect to send email through their Gmail account. If you are unsure of the settings for each property, contact your system administrator or internet provider for details.

mail.from	Email address who email messages sent from this server will come from.
mail.transport.protocol	Protocol required by your email server. Valid values are: smtp (non-secure), and smtps (secure)
mail.smtps|smtp.auth	true if connection requires user authentication, false otherwise.
mail.smtps|smtp.host	Host name or IP address of the outgoing mail server.
mail.smtps|smtp.port	Port on which the mail server is listening for connections.
mail.smtps|smtp.socketFactory	This should be the same value as mail.smtps|smtp.port.
mail.smtps|smtp.user	User name used to sign into the outgoing mail server. This may or may not be the same as the outgoing email address.
mail.smtps|smtp.password	Password used to sign into the outgoing mail server.

Online QX Repository Auto-Sync Properties

The Online QX Repository is a system which allows Quiz Extreme to make any of its information available to other Quiz Extreme users in other locations over the Internet. See Online QX Repository documentation for complete details. The following properties configure the Quiz Server to auto-synchronize newly submitted learner exam/quiz results with the online repository.

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.QX_REPOSITORY_SYNC_RESULTS	true to have all newly submitted exam/quiz results also submitted to an Online QX Repository, false otherwise.
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.QX_ACCOUNT_ID	The QX Repository account ID used to connect to the online repository. Only those user accounts that have been uploaded to the online repository will be able to have their results sent to the repository.

LDAP / Active Directory User Authentication Properties

Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and Microsoft ® Active Directory allow an administrator to maintain a single point for user authentication throughout the entire enterprise. This makes it much easier to maintain user accounts because there is a single place where new users are added, and users are removed.

Quiz Extreme supports the use of LDAP or Active Directory for user authentication instead of its built-in authentication mechanism. To use LDAP, you must configure the following properties (NOTE: Active Directory understands LDAP so the following information also applies to Active Directory).

com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.AUTH_TYPE	Type of authentication to use by Quiz Extreme. Legal values are: normal, or ldap.
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_HOST	Host name or IP address of your LDAP or Active Directory server.
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_PORT	Port on which the LDAP server is listening for connections.
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_ENCRYPTION	Type of encryption to use for the connection. Legal values are: ssl, and none.
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_BIND_DN	The bind DN used to lookup user accounts. ?'s will get replaced at login time by the actual user name.
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_USER_SEARCH_BASE_DN	Base DN where the search for user names will begin. Quiz Extreme uses the search information in this property and subsequent properties to retrieve a list of valid users.
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_SEARCH_FILTER	Use standard LDAP search query syntax to specify the filter criteria for user accounts. This filter should return only those items that you consider to be “user accounts”.
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_SEARCH_SCOPE
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_SEARCH_DEREF
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_SIZE_LIMIT	Maximum number of results that can be returned from the user query. A value of zero indicates no limit.
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_TIME_LIMIT	Amount of time in seconds that the system will allow for returning the LDAP user query results. If the value is zero, there is no time limit.
com.excellentiasoftware.quizextreme.LDAP_QUIZ_MANAGER_USERS	Comma separated list of those user accounts who should have access to the Quiz Manager. If a user is not in this list, they may take quizzes from the Quiz Player, but they will not be able to login to the Quiz Manager.