Remote Control - Connecting to Server Managers

Connecting to Server Managers

The EDM Server Manager manages server processes on a single system. In addition, it allows administrators to gather process status and send administrative commands. This article describes how to connect to Server Managers using the Manager GUI.

Connecting to a Server

After starting the Manager GUI, you're presented with the following screen:

The menubar is at the top, followed by the toolbar. On the left is where each Server Manager appears, and the right is where you interact with specific components of a Server Manager. The statusbar is at the bottom.

The divider between the left and right sides of the screen can be adjusted to your preference.

Connecting to a Server Manager

Connecting to a remote Server Manager takes two steps: adding the server to the management list, and then clicking on the server in the list.

To add a server to the management list:

Open the "Connect to Server" dialog:
- Choose "Connect..." from the "Manager" menu; or
- Click the first icon on the toolbar.
In the "Server:" field, enter the URL to the Server Manager. For example, to connect to the Server Manager running on starbeast.jpl.nasa.gov on port 7577, enter
```
      
     http://starbest.jpl.nasa.gov:7577/
   
    
```
Note that Server Managers by default open port 7577.
In the "User name:" and password fields, enter the user name to use on the Server Manager, and the password that authenticates it.
If the Server Manager is behind a firewall that denies connections from your system, check the "Use Proxy" box and fill in the URL of the XML-RPC proxy that has access.
Click OK.

This adds the server to the list of Server Manager connections on the left side, as shown below:

Note that the Manager GUI hasn't yet connected to the Server Manager, though. To connect, click on the URL in the list on the left side. After a few moments, the connection will be established, and details of the connection will appear in the right side:

You should now expand the list of management components under the URL on the left side to see what components you can manipulate. Depending on the permissions assigned to your account, you may not see every management component. To expand the list, click the manipulator to the left of the URL, double-click the URL, or right-click the URL and choose "Expand".

The user in the above has full permissions on the server.

Connecting to Multiple Servers

You can connect to any practical number of Server Managers at the same time. To do so, just add each one to the list on the left. When you click on one, the network connection will be established at that time and you can then manipulate the servers with ease.

This feature is handy for comparing information amongst several servers. Note, though, that drag-and-drop to copy information between Server Managers is not yet implemented.

Restoring Server Manager Connections

Connecting to several (or even just one) Server Manager with the GUI can grow tiresome, especially when you're rushing to try to get a server process back up and running for an important demo. That's why the Server Manager lets you save the connection information in the list on the left side to disk for future use.

To save the list of current connections:

From the "Manager" menu, choose "Save current connections".

Connection information is saved to a file called .serverMgr in your home directory (on Windows, your home directory location varies depending on your installation). The information saved includes, for each Server Manager, the URL, user name, password, and proxy URL (if any).

In order to prevent casual observation, the file is encoded so that passwords aren't visible. Note that the encoding is trivial, though, and as a result, you should take precautions to guard the .serverMgr file.

To restore the list of saved connections:

From the "Manager" menu, choose "Restore connections"; or
Start the Manager GUI with the -restore command-line option.