UNICOS CMWServer User Manual  9.0.3
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CMWServer configuration

Configuration menu & panel

Before running CMW server, the CMWSerevr manager must be added to the project and properly configured. Configuration is started by selecting Configuration -> CMWServer from UNCIOS application menu:

config_menu.png
UNICOS application menu
Note
In order to access configuration one shall login as user with 'admin' privileges.

The following panel will shown up after selecting this item from the menu:

config_panel_empty.png
The main panel for CMWServer managers configuration

The main elements of this panel are:

Element Description
Spin button labeled New manager number select the number for new manager that will be added to the project>
config_add_manager_button.png
Creates internal DP for manager configuration and fills that DP with default settings for new manager. Note that CMWServer manager is not added to the project
Local CMW Servers list List of all CMWServer managers which are already added to the local project
config_del_manager_button.png
Delete all internal DPs for this manager (manager configuration, plus system integrity if this was configured for manager). Note that CMWServer manager is not deleted from the project if it was added
Internal configuration View/edit default settings which will be applied to all new CMWServer managers in the project
Status visualization Open the panel where one can see online the status of all CMWServer managers in the project (both in local project and in other projects forming distributed system)

Default configuration

Let's consider default settings before adding new CMWServer manager to the project, the following panel is opened by clicking Internal configuration button shown on previous picture:

config_default.png
Default settings for new CMWServer managers

The following table describes default settings for CMWServer manager which can be edited:

Value Description
Configuration path The path to file with CMW server configuration (DPEs and corresponding CMW devices/properties). Note that file must lie in proj_path/data directory. The name of file can be any arbitrary name.
CMW Server The name of CMW server. This name will be registered in CMW name server(s), this name will be used by CMW clients to connect to server. Hence, the name of specific CMW server must be CERN-wide unique. The default name, shown in this panel, can be any name.
Integrity period When CMWSErver manager is running, it must periodically write the value to one of internal DPEs (heartbeat). In particular, system integrity uses this heartbeat DPE to check if CMWServer manager is alive or not.
This value specifies heartbeat period.
Note
It is not recommended to set this interval shorter than 1000 msec.
CMW data tag name Each property of device in this CMW server may contain two tags:
  • tag with DPE value (data tag)
  • tag with DPE timestamp (time tag, optional)
All data tags in all propeties of all CMW devices have the same name (this is limitation of CMWServer manager, not of CMW itself).
This is a common data tag name for all properties of all devices.
CMW time tag name All time tags in all propeties of all CMW devices have the same name (this is limitation of CMWServer manager, not of CMW itself).
This is a common time tag name for all properties of all devices.
EV response timeout When SET request arrives from CMW client, this CMW server sends dpSet() request to Event Manager and waits for response from Event Manager. The response can be either 'success' or 'error', and only after receiving the EV response this CMW server sends response to client's SET request.
This value is a time interval this CMW server waits for response from event manager.
Note
It is not recommended to change the default value of 30000 msec.
Min. alarm duration During operation of CMW server manager, some failures can occur; they must be reported by manager as alarms. One evident example of such events is overflow of internal queue(s) such that values from/to DPEs are lost.
Usually such 'failure events' have relatively short duration: the queue is full right now, but just in fraction of millisecond next item from queue can be processed, and queue is not full again.
This value determines minimum duration of 'bad' state of such alarm DPEs. With example of 1000 msec: even if 'queue full' condition only occured for franction of millisecond, the alarm DPE will have 'bad' state for at least 1000 msec.
Disable partial setting This flag determines how CMW server will react to 'partial' SET requests. If device property has two tags (data and time) and partial sets are disabled, then only client's SET requests, containing both data and time tags, will be accepted.

These default settings are stored in dedicated internal DP in the project. The 'reload' button

config_reload_button.png
can be used to re-read content of that DP, thus overriding unsaved changes in this panel with current default values.

Configuration for specific manager

If there are already some CMWServer managers configurations in the system, or after adding new one, the list of 'Local CMW Server' on the picture is not empty. Selecting the item in this list displays configuration for selected manager in the bottom part of panel:

config.png
Configuration for selected manager

Upper part of this panel was already considered before, let's consider now the bottom part of this panel. The numbered items on the picture above are:

  1. Set of controls to display the current state of CMWServer manager in the project and to modify that state (add/remove manager, start/stop/kill, set auto/manual start mode)
  2. The field displaying current state of CMW server in selected CMWServer manager; the following states are possible:
    • STOP CMWServer manager is not started
    • IDLE CMWServer manager is running, but CMW server was not created/started
    • RUN CMWServer manager is running and CMW server is also running. Note that in this state cofiguration can't be edited.
    • RUN, no RBAC CMWServer manager is running and CMW server is also running, but RBAC is disabled. Note that in this state cofiguration can't be edited. This state is not considered to be 'normal' state because RBAC shall always be enabled on production projects
    • LOCK CMWServer manager is running, but its heartbeat is missing
  3. The field with the name of WinCC OA system (plus word 'local' if this is local system). The panel accessed the way described here is always for local system, but the same panel can also be used to view/edit configuration in remote system, see list of manager
  4. Set of fields for displaying/editing configuration of selected server. This part is very similar to the panel with default settings, differences will be exaplened below
  5. Set of extra buttons:
    • Similar to default configuration, the configuration for specific manager is stored in dedicated internal DP. Reload button

      config_reload_button.png
      can be used to re-read content of that DP, thus overriding unsaved changes in this panel with current values for this manager

    • Diagnostics button is used to open panel with running server diagnostics
    • Set all defaults button is used to set all configuration parameters to their default values, except for file name and CMW server name

The part of panel for editing settings has the following major differences from the panel for editing default settings:

  • There are a number of buttons next to file name field; the functionality of these buttons is explained in the description of operations with configuration file
  • There are special buttons
    config_default_button.png
    next to every editable field, these buttons are used to set the default value in corresponding field

List of CMWServer managers

Clicking on Status visualiation button in 'main' configuration panel opens the following panel:

status_list.png
List of CMWServer managers

Here all CMWServer managers in selected system are shown together with their statuses. The table contains one row per CMWServer manager, each row shows all critical status information for this manager:

  • PVSS column displays the state of CMWServer manager in the ptoject, the 'normal' state is: manager is running, heartbeats ar sent regularly.
  • Managers column displays the 'name' of manager. In fact, this is a name of internal DP containing manager's configuration
  • CMW column displays the state of CMW server, the 'normal' state is: CMW server is running. The column only makes sense if CMWServer manager is running
  • Next 3 columns display the state of 3 internal queues, see diagnostics panel for more information on these queues. These columns make sense if CMW server is running
  • RBAC column shows Disabled if RBAC is disabled for this manager
  • DPE lost column displays the state of 'DPE connection lost' alarm condition. This condition can occur when created and running server loses connection to DPE. In practice, the most visible reason for loosing DPE connection is: DP was deleted after CMW server was started
  • Config file column displays the state of another very special alarm condition: the configuration file for running CMW server is not valid. This can happen (typically) if content of file was modified while CMW server is running. The CMWServer manager only reads file once, when starting. So, modification of file does not affect already started CMW server. But invalid file will prevent from successful restarting of running CMW server.
    Note
    This condition is checked not by CMWServer manager itself, but rather by system intergity CTRL script. Hence, the validity of config file is only checked if system integrity is configured for this CMWServer manager.
  • Time column displays the time of last state change. To be more precise, this is the time of last state change calculated by this panel
  • Finally, the very first column # displays overall state of this manager for system integrity: if this manager was added to system integrity then resulting alarm state for manager would be the same as state shown in this column. The criteria for 'good' overall state is simple: good state in all columns. Note that on piture above the overall state for manager #5 is bad, the reason is: RBAC is disabled for this manager


Pressing right mouse button on the table pops up menu for manager in this table row:

status_list_menu.png
Popup menu for row in table

Using this menu, usual commands for manager can be executed (start/stop etc.), plus settings for selected manager can be shown - the panel equal to the bottom part of this panel:

config_selected.png
Configuration of selected manager

What is the reason for opening the configuration panel from this menu 'once more'? The answer is simple: in this panel one can select any system of distributed system, then opening configuration panel from the popup menu will show configuration of selected manager in selected system. There are some limitations for editing configuration of CMWServer manager in remote system: part of configuration related to the configuration file can't be edited.