Best practices when using the XFE SDK API

How to obtain the initial local database

When you're designing an application that usually uses a local signature database you can either

• install the application with the default local database,
• integrate the download as part of your installation or
• use remote database access until a complete database download is complete

This chapter discusses these solutions and their advantages and disadvantages.

Options to obtain an initial local database

Using global variables

The next chapter discusses how to deal with global variables. This is an important topic, as the API is based on instances rather than pointers or interfaces.

Using global variables

Startup/Shutdown sequence

The next section describes how to instantiate and shut down SCA instances (dca::DcaInstance) safely.

Startup/Shutdown sequence

Shut down safely

When implementing the schedule and update tasks it is necessary to call additional functions to speed up the shutdown, and ensure that all files are saved before the SCA is unloaded.

For further details refer to Common shutdown functions - safely shut down

Additional settings

The next section describes some additional tuning settings NOT available as part of the SCA API.

Additional settings

Tracing & Logging

This section describes how to use tracing and logging with the SCA API.

Tracing & Logging

URL Classification - Cache Sizes and Frequent Updates

This section describes what to keep in mind when changing cache sizes and how that may interfere with the frequent update mechanism.

URL Classification - Cache sizes and Frequent Updates