IceGrid administration tool - Docs missing?!

[stephan]

Hi there,

while playing with the new IceGrid administration tool (btw, thanks for the new msi file, I was also failing on this jgoodies problem), the next questions came up:

What does one have to enter in the log-in dialog? Where does the user name and the IceGrid instance name about?

Furthermore, probably the biggest issue. What do I have to enter under 'IceGrid Registry Endpoint' ? When entering the endpoint ("tcp -h localhost -p 12000" in this case) I'm using with icegridadmin, the tool fails to log-in and an error message is only displayed sometimes.

Is there a documentation about this tool available?

Stephan

[bernard]

Hi Stephan,

Unfortunately there is not yet an online help for the IceGrid Admin GUI. There are however tool tips for most fields after the login screen.

Here is the description of the 4 fields on the Direct tab of the login screen:

Username - your username. It's used in error messages from the IceGrid Registry. When you update the registry with the GUI, you get exclusive write access to the IceGrid Registry.

Automatically log in a startup - check this box if you want to login automatically without this dialog.

IceGrid Instance Name - every service has now an InstanceName property (IceGrid.InstanceName, IceStorm.InstanceName, Glacier2.InstanceName etc). This string is used as the category for the objects created by this service instance. For example, the InstanceName for IceGrid service of the IceGrid/simple demo is DemoIceGrid.

IceGrid Registry Endpoints(s) - Corresponds to the the IceGrid.Client.Endpoints configuration property of your IceGrid Registry. That's also what you'd use in the Ice.Default.Locator property. I recommend to put a timeout in this endpoint, e.g. for the IceGrid/simple demo running on localhost you could use: tcp -p 12000 -t 10000

The Routed tab is used to administer an IceGrid Registry through a Glacier2 router (typically from outside the firewall). This Glacier2 router instance must be configured to use your IceGrid Registry as locator (with Ice.Default.Locator) and to use this IceGrid Registry's Session Manager (proxy : <IceGridInstanceName>/SessionManager).

Username/Password - the username/password accepted by your Glacier2 PermissionVerifier or the Glacier2 built-in "passwords-file" mechanism.

Glacier2 Instance Name - the Glacier2 instance name.

Glacier2 Router Endpoints - the client endpoint(s) of your Glacier2 router.

When a login fails, you should always get an error message. If in some situation this not the case, please post a bug with a description of how to reproduce it!

Thanks,
Bernard

[stephan]

Hi Bernard!

Thanks for the explanation. It helped a bit demystifying the UI The application now successfully connects to my IceGridRegistry instance!

Imho, the application will be really valuable to the Ice framework in the future!

However, I would like to add some comments about the Admin UI, I hope that it's ok in this thread, so I don't have to start a new one in the comments section.

You suggested to add a timeout value which makes perfect sense for me. Can't you do that automatically if the user doesn't specify one (parsing the endpoint entry should be simple)? I think that it's not _that_ clear to specify a time out value in the Endpoint edit field.

Currently, you can only view and edit applications that are registered to the registry. In case of my example, I'm using static servers registering to the IceGrid node. This might not be common but it's possible and makes sense for some applications. Thus I suggest to display those servers within the Admin Console as well.

Last but not least, would it make sense to enter an 'Update' entry to the 'View' menu?

Stephan

[bernard]

Hi Stephan,

Feel free to post your suggestions in this thread!

The IceGrid Registry pushes updates to the connected Admin GUIs, so there is no need for a View/Update entry. A good way to experiment with the GUI capabilities is to start two GUIs on your PC.

Cheers,
Bernard