Harmony requires a configuration to retrieve shared database locations. This is done by creating a shortcuts.conf configuration file for Harmony, which will redirect requests to traditional database locations such as /USA_DB to a directory of your choosing on your filesystem.
The shortcuts.conf file must be located in the etc subfolder of the Harmony installation directory by default, but it can be located anywhere on your computer provided that you specify the location of this file in the USA_DB_CONFIG environment variable. This can allow users to change the location of the Harmony database server they are connecting to without needing administrator privileges.