Web Client Not Display Server Alarms

[Brett Sheeran]

Hi,

I am unable to display alarms that occur on a Lookout Server within a web client on the Internet despite having edited client lookout.ini as per instructions on the NI website.

I am hoping someone can offer me some suggestions so I can display server alarms on a client process. Details are as follows:

I have installed Lookout version 6 (build 5) on a web server and created a sever process that contains about a dozen priority 5 alarms.

I have created a Lookout client application to read data from the server application and exported the appropriate web client files into a Tomcat Servlet engine also running on the server. I am able to open the client PC’s web browser and successfully view the Lookout client application. So far so good.

*However* in spite of the fact that I modified lookout.ini on the client computer to the following:
1. Display alarms generated on the server in the client alarm page.
2. Not display any priority 0 alarms
The server alarms do *not* get propagated to the client. Also annoying is that the alarm page displays every button click (on the client alarm page) as a priority 0 alarm.

I have previously displayed server alarms on the web-client when both client and server were on a LAN. I did this “remote alarm retrieval” by editing the client-side lookout.ini. I made very similar edits on my Internet client (as shown below) but had no success. Could my problem be related to the fact that I am now working over the Internet as opposed to on a LAN?

Thanks.

Regards Brett Sheeran

LOOKOUT.INI----------------------
[Defaults]
Login=Administrator
Domain=Local
Idletime=0
DefaultLogin=1
Password=
[System]
Startup=fishfarm.l4p
[Custom Colors]
0=0x000000
1=0x000000
2=0x000000
3=0x000000
4=0x000000
5=0x000000
6=0x000000
7=0x000000
8=0x000000
9=0x000000
10=0x000000
11=0x000000
12=0x000000
13=0x000000
14=0x000000
15=0x000000
[DataPath]
DefaultLKP=C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Lookout 6.0
[alarms]
audible=0
timecolumn=11
areacolumn=0
processcolumn=0
prioritycolumn=6
objectnamecolumn=61
descriptioncolumn=59
height=127
width=977
top=396
left=3
AllGroups=0
Style=1621
Lines=5
TimeFormat=3
AlarmLevel=1
Priority=1
[AlarmFilter]
AlarmsOnly=1
MinPriority=1
MaxPriority=10
AreaName=FFM
[SelectedProcesses]
P0=\\www.telemetry.trl.oz.au\FishFarm_server
Count=1
MinPriority=1
MaxPriority=10
AreaName=FFM
[SelectedProcesses]
P0=\\www.myserverurl.com\FishFarm_server
Count=1
----------------------------------
Note: myserverurl.com is a replacement for my actual URL. FFM is the area that these alarms belong to.

I also tried uninstalling all the Lookout client software as per 250AIMJ6 and then re-installing again. However, this action did not fix the problem.

Thanks.

Regards Brett Sheeran

[JedRetherford]

Brett,

I have been looking over your post and have a few suggestions. The first one is in regard to the syntax in the INI file that you posted.
From the INI file that you posted:

[SelectedProcesses]
P0=\\www.telemetry.trl.oz.au\FishFarm_server
Count=1
MinPriority=1
MaxPriority=10
AreaName=FFM
[SelectedProcesses]
P0=\\www.myserverurl.com\FishFarm_server
Count=1

I noticed that you listed the "[SelectedProcesses]" token twice in your INI file. If you refer to the KnowledgeBase on this topic, you will find that you should only list the token once, and each successive server should have its own P value. In addition, MinPriority, MaxPriority, and AreaName are not valid arguments for the token. I would imagine that your INI file should look more like this:

[SelectedProcesses]
P0=\\www.telemetry.trl.oz.au\FishFarm_server
P1=\\www.myserverurl.com\FishFarm_server
Count=2

If you still have trouble after modifying the INI file, I would suggest trying the following:

-Accessing the server over a LAN instead of the Internet (using the machine name instead of the .com address)
-Modifying the server address in the INI file to use the IP address instead of the .com address
-Accessing the server using a run-time client (non-web client)
-Verifying that you have client licenses available by going to Help » About Lookout and checking the number of licenses that you have available

If you are unable to get the process working by modifying the INI file, then please post back with the results of the other testing. With that information, I believe that this forum will be better equipped to help you solve this problem.

Best of luck with your application.

Regards,
Jed R.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[Brett Sheeran]

Hi Jed,

Thanks for your reply. I attempted to do as you suggested and uncovered another problem.

Firstly, here is a little more background.

The Lookout server is in our "Demilitarised Zone", so there is one firewall between the Lookout server and the Internet and another between the Lookout server and our LAN. Furthermore, SSL is enabled on this server. As I have already stated, we can successfully load a Lookout page into Internet Explorer over the Internet using SSL. However our web client does not display any alarms (the original problem).

Incidentally, while developing the server application on my computer I *was* able to configure lookout.ini on another computer so that the server alarms were propagated to the web client.

As per your suggestions, I tried to run the Lookout client software directly from Lookout (without using a web browser) on our LAN. The Lookout client application does not display *any* data.

I also tried to run the Lookout client software in a web browser on our LAN. Once again, the Lookout client application does not display *any* data.

So, in these two cases I really need to get the client to talk to the server before I can sort out the alarms.

We are wondering if perhaps there are ports that Lookout requires that are being blocked by our firewalls.

Are you able to tell me which TCP and UDP ports that the Lookout client requires.

Thanks.

Regards Brett Sheeran



lookout.ini-----------------
[Defaults]
Login=Administrator
Domain=Local
Idletime=0
DefaultLogin=1
Password=
[System]
Startup=fishfarm.l4p
[Custom Colors]
0=0x000000
1=0x000000
2=0x000000
3=0x000000
4=0x000000
5=0x000000
6=0x000000
7=0x000000
8=0x000000
9=0x000000
10=0x000000
11=0x000000
12=0x000000
13=0x000000
14=0x000000
15=0x000000
[DataPath]
DefaultLKP=C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Lookout 6.0
[alarms]
audible=0
timecolumn=11
areacolumn=0
processcolumn=0
prioritycolumn=6
objectnamecolumn=61
descriptioncolumn=59
height=127
width=977
top=396
left=3
AllGroups=1
Style=1621
Lines=5
TimeFormat=3
AlarmLevel=1
Priority=1
[AlarmFilter]
AlarmsOnly=1
MinPriority=1
MaxPriority=10
AreaName=FFM
[SelectedProcesses]
P0=\\www.telemetry.trl.oz.au\FishFarm_server
Count=1
-----------------------------------

[JedRetherford]

Brett,

After reading over your email, it looks like you have some additional troubleshooting ahead of you. The fact that the standard client from outside your LAN, and the web client from inside your LAN, don't work at all is troubling. You will definitelly want to try and pinpoint what is causing those problems, as they may be causing the same problems that your web client is experiencing.

I also noticed that you had managed to get this working on one computer. What, if anything, was special about that computer and that computer's settings? Can you still get that to work now?

Finally, as for your question about ports, Lookout communicates on the UDP ports. It is dynamic communication, so there is no dedicated port. Instead, it relies on the OS to assign the port. To be sure that you aren't blocking this communication, you would need to have the UDP ports open on your computer.

I hope that information helps. Please do some additional work on the non-working setups and see if you can figure out what is going on with those and then post back some additional information.

Regards,
Jed R.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[Brett Sheeran]

Hi,

I now have alarms appearing on the client.

However, the Lookout alarm page also displays priority 0 messages for each button click. Can anyone please tell me how to suppress these messages?

Thanks.

Regards Brett

BTW, my lookout.ini file is now as follows:

[Defaults]
Login=Administrator
Domain=Local
Idletime=0
DefaultLogin=1
Password=
[System]
Startup=fishfarm.l4p
[Custom Colors]
0=0x000000
1=0x000000
2=0x000000
3=0x000000
4=0x000000
5=0x000000
6=0x000000
7=0x000000
8=0x000000
9=0x000000
10=0x000000
11=0x000000
12=0x000000
13=0x000000
14=0x000000
15=0x000000
[DataPath]
DefaultLKP=C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Lookout 6.0
[alarms]
audible=1
timecolumn=11
areacolumn=16
processcolumn=18
prioritycolumn=9
objectnamecolumn=16
descriptioncolumn=69
height=127
width=977
top=396
left=3
AllGroups=0
Style=1621
Lines=5
TimeFormat=3
[SelectedProcesses]
P0=\\www.telemetry.trl.oz.au\FishFarm_server
Count=1

[Danny G.]

Brett,

The events showing up in the Lookout Web Browser when you change the ini file to only display alarms is a known issue. A fix is currently being worked on. A possible solution would be to add a pulse object into your process that acknowledges events on a periodic basis.

Regards

Danny G
National Instruments

[Brett Sheeran]

Hi,

More problems I'm afraid. It seems that our web client alarm page will only display Lookout server alarms *some* of the time.

Can someone please tell me if there is a fix for this issue? Details as follows:

Sometimes, when we reload a web page with a Lookout display no server alarms appear. The most consistent way to get the alarms back is to open and close the client application within Lookout on the server. The alarms will suddenly appear on the web client moments after accepting the message “OK to stop process” at the server.

Incidentally, I stopped button clicks being displayed in the alarm page by “un-ticking” “Log Event” in the button’s properties.

Thanks.

Regards Brett