Last Updated on Tuesday, August 19, 2014 at 15:45:20. by Author: Bolek Wyslouch
Phobos Portal has been designed to provide single point access to information needed by people on shift that can be made available on the Web. Portal web page is constructed dynamically on each refresh. There are two main versions: Read Only, available to all Phobos collaborators and Read/Write that should be used only on the counting house computers. Access to portal web page is protected by the usual web password, the Read/Write version usually needs additional password entry.
Portal web page has three general regions:
In addition Portal displays time and date in the counting house at the moment of last refresh/reload.
Portal has many links leading to other web pages. To avoid going back and forth between pages all links on the portal page open new browser windows. This allows Portal web page to always stay on the screen. After you are done inspecting the outside links (e.g. reading this page) you can simply close the window. The portal will stay put.
The software governing opening of windows is a bit tricky and is certainly not perfect now. There are many differences between browsers that affect window management. Portal is optimized to work best in Internet Explorer 5, I try to make sure that it also works in Netscape but this has been quite difficult to achieve. Having the latest version of these programs is highly encouraged.
One enters Portal via web link: http://www.bnl.gov/phobos/Detectors/ASP/Counting_House/Portal.asp The .asp at the end stands for Active Server Pages. The *.asp web pages are prepared on the web server via quite elaborate MS Visual Basic Scripts that can access database and many system parameters. Once the web page is prepared it is sent to the client. There is almost no processing done on the client machine with exception of management of browser windows which is done via Javascript.
Portal.asp is a simple page that defines three frames:
Portal.asp is set to refresh itself every 10 minutes. On the free running web page the displayed information may be as old as 10 minutes. You can look at the time and date to see when it was last refreshed. You can always refresh the portal page by yourself by clicking refresh/reload button on your web browser.
In case of problems with the http://www.bnl.gov/phobos server we have a backup mirror that can be accessed by replacing server name with http://phobosdb.chm.bnl.gov. This allows counting house operations to proceed smoothly during network problems or server reboots. There are some imperfections in the mirror, some less important functions may not work.
The phobos web pages are served from several computers:
During each web page refresh the Index.asp page accesses Oracle database and checks the last update time of several tables that contain slow monitoring information. If the information is older than a specified time interval a word (Old) appears near the relevant link.
At this moment the portal is checking the following measurements:
| System | Maximum time without writes [min] |
| Temperature and Humidity | 15 |
| Silicon LV Power | 15 |
| Si Hybrids | 15 |
| Magnet | 60 |
| Si Cooling | 60 |
| Lecroy HV | 360 |
| BLM | 15 |
| UPS | 60 |
| RHIC Parameters | 15 |
Also, since all portal web pages access the database they do not work if database is not available. An Oracle error message "database is not available" is displayed on the browser screen.
During shift period the Portal will display the names of people nominally on shift. In addition, during regular datataking and during first 30 minutes of shift the portal will automatically pop up a window containing "What to do on shift?" information on each refresh of portal page. After 30 minutes the portal will stop insisting on the window being open and you can close it.
Netscape and Internet Explorer use different mechanism for transmitting passwords to the web server. Netscape is simpler but not secure, In IE you need to specify windows domain in addition to the user name but the password transmission is more secure.
Remember to always use full IP address of the server (www.bnl.gov/phobos and not phobos-srv), passwords are specified for each address separately. Phobos web has only very few "explicit" links that use full name (being continuously removed).
Begin in the same way as for the Outside Counting House
When registering for shift you will be taken to Counting House Logbook Server (logbook.phobos.bnl.gov). phobos user DOES NOT WORK THERE. Only shift user can login to that site !
I have set up the IE5 on almost all Windows machines in the counting house (e.g. Logbook) to use the username and password taken from the windows session. Since we must use username shift to logon this is what is being used. At this moment you do not have to type any web password on these machines.
In whatever happens you will use only phoboschd\shift and phobos\phobos accounts.
Never use your own Windows username !!
To simplify entry of user names for logbook comments and changes to configurations the shift crew names are stored in cookies. Cookies persist during browser session and they are erased upon exit from the browser. Cookies are defined only for one client machine. Web pages that update database require that the cookies are present and defined.
To register you need to go to Portal and click on register or re-register link. After selecting your name (or names) from the list of all Phobos collaborators click Register button. To see if your registration was successful refresh/reload the portal page. Registration is NOT ALLOWED for client machines outside BNL. This is done on purpose such that logbook comments and configuration changes can only be entered or modified in the counting house. The Read/Write version of the Portal appears only after registration.
At this moment only machines with the following IP addresses can register:
After final security configuration will be implemented only 3,4,5,6,7 will remain.
When Portal.asp detects that it is being run on one of the counting house computers it invites you to register. After you have registered the Portal page looks a little different. Some new links appear and the logbook page is taken from a different server. The new links and new logbook page allow WEB ENTRY to the database. The scripts that enter data to the database use special Oracle user name that has more privileges than the one used for reading the data. After full implementation of the firewall the web entry will be possible only from the counting house.
This page shows the current expected state of all phobos hardware systems. Disagreement between the nominal page and the actual state of a detector component is a problem, and the specific instructions what to do can be found in that systems documentation/checklist.
The PHOBOS database (located on PHOBOSCH) undergoes a hot backup three times a week at the same time during the day. The backup is scheduled for Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 10 AM. The backup normally lasts about an hour, but may last as long as two hours.
If the portal is being slow to respond or entering comments into the logbook take time, one possible cause is the scheduled backup for the PHOBOS database. Please see above for schedule. If the timing fits with the schedule, please be patient as the backup lasts for a short time. This backup is necessary to ensure all data in the database (up to at worst one day lost) will be recoverable. Again, if the timing is correct, please be patient. If not contact the on call person for the logbook computer.
Please send all comments and suggestions regarding this page to Bolek Wyslouch. |