Accendia Inc

JNetStart Administration and Development Guide

The Administration Console

The JNetStart Administration Console is a Swing application and can be started from a remote location or from a local JNetStart installation.

To start from a remote location using a web browser:

Browse to http://remotehost, where remotehost is a computer where the JNetStart Server is running;
Click on the console icon.

To start from a remote location using the Accendia Browser:

Browse to http://remotehost;
Enter the administrator password in the console form and submit.

When starting from a remote location you can perform administration tasks only for the server from which the console was started.

To start the console from a local JNetStart installation:

Change directory to JNS_ROOT/console;
Run the startup script for your platform.

The Login screen provides the interface for user login.

Hostname: The computer name where the JNetStart Server is running. The hostname field is read only if the hostname is provided as startup argument. This is the case when the console is started from a remote location and the console may only connect to the remote server.
Port: JNetStart Server application port.
Secure: Check this box if desiring a secure connection. Secure connections are possible only if a security certificate was installed on the server side.
User Name: The server user name.
Password: The user password.

Applications Administration

The Application Administration Screen displays the list of installed applications on the server. It allows the user to select applications in order to change the application status and to access the application edit screen.

The application list displays the following application properties:

Name: The name of the application provided when the application was created. There can be more applications with the same name but only one may be active;
Timestamp: This is the time when the application was created. The timestamp is used to differentiate applications with the same name;
Status: The status of the application. An application can be Stopped, Active or Retired;
Description: Application description provided when the application is created. The description can be changed in the application edit screen.

The application status can be changed by selecting the application in the list and clicking one of the status change buttons at the bottom of the screen:

Start: Starts the application changing the status from Stopped to Active;
Stop: The application can be stopped if it is Active or Retired;
Activate: Activates a retired application.
Retire: Retires an active application. Users that launched this application still have access to this application until the application is stopped but new launches are not accepted. The label for the retired state is Running.

Edit Application

The Edit Application screen can be accessed by selecting an application in the Applications Administration screen and clicking the Edit button.

You can perform the following administration tasks in this screen:

Save: Saves the description property of the application;
Add Jar: Opens a file dialog allowing the user to select multiple jars or zip files. All the selected files will be uploaded to the server and will be added to the classpath of the application after the next application restart;
Delete Jars: Deletes the selected jar files from the application. If the application is started the jar files may be opened on the server side and the operation will fail;
Remove: Unregisters the application and removes all the application files from the server.

Users Administration

The Users Administration Screen displays the list of users. The users belong to the server instance rather than the installed applications. Because there can be thousands of users the screen displays a page at a time with the user names sorted in alphabetical order. The user list can be browsed using the Previous and Next buttons.

The following operations are available for the selected users:

Edit: Opens the Edit User screen for the selected user;
Reset Password: Opens the Reset Password screen for the selected user;
Edit Grants: Opens the Edit Grants screen for the selected user;
Delete: Removes the selected users.

Edit User

The Edit User screen can be accessed selecting a user in the User Administration screen and clicking the Edit button. The users administrator can update user's grants related to launching applications, changing the password and administration.

The user can be granted the following privileges:

Launch Privileges: The user may launch applications deployed on the server;
Change Password: The user may change its own password. Accounts that are shared by many users should not be granted this privilege.
Applications Administrator: The user may create, edit and delete applications and perform application administrative tasks in the Applications Administration screen;
Users Administrator: The user may create, edit and delete users and perform users administrative tasks in Users Administration screen;
Server Administrator: The user may shutdown the server.

Reset Password

The Reset Password screen can be accessed selecting a user in the User Administration screen and clicking the Reset Password button.

Edit Grants

The Edit Grants screen can be accessed selecting a user in the User Administration screen and clicking the Edit Grants button. The screen allows the administrator to edit the user grants for all the applications deployed on the Iris Server. The Edit User screen is a simplified interface for granting the user privileges related to using the server only for deploying and launching Swing clients.

To edit the user grants for an application select the application name from the Application list. The Application Roles list displays the roles not assigned to the user. To grant the user a role select the role from the list and click the Grant button. The User Grants list displays the roles assigned to the user. To revoke a user grant select a role from the list and click the revoke button. Click the Save button to commit the changes.

Create Application

To deploy an application on the server you must create an application entry. Provide the application name and an optional description and click the Create button. The server will associate a timestamp to the application entry and save the information into the applications registry.

You can create multiple applications with the same name the application entries being differentiated by the timestamp. Only one of these applications can be active at any time.

Create User

To create a new user provide the user name, initial password and user grants.

View Grants

The View Grants screen displays the grants assigned to the logged in user for all the applications deployed on the Iris Server.

Client Connections

The Client Connections screen allows the administrator to browse the active sessions and terminate client connections. The screen displays the user name, the client IP address and the time the connection was establised. Enter the user name in the search text field to filter only a certain user or leave blank to view all active connections:

Change Password

The user accounts that are dedicated to an individual user should be granted the privilege to change the login password.

Shutdown Server

Server administration privileges are required to shutdown the server. The operation will stop the remote JNetStart server.