The Webinterface allows you to give users controlled access to submit and view Jobs without the need for the user to have permissions or network access to the Storages or to the FFAStrans server itself.
The design allows to run the webinterface in a separate network from Users and FFAStrans perspective.
In Simple environments of course, the webinterface runs on the same server as FFAStrans does.
The number of logged in users does not influence how often the Data from FFAStrans is requested so your production server is safe from a possible overload by too many users.
Installing the Webinterface as a service is optional, you can also just execute “server.exe” for testing.
Before installing the webinterface, make sure the FFAStrans API is running as described here: Installation.
Note: It is recommended to extract the installation package in the same folder than FFAStrans folder.
Example location:
C:\FFAStrans\Webinterface
To install Webinterface, follow this procedure :
The Webinterface Windows Service is now running and called “FFAStrans Webinterface”.
You should be able to access it in your Browser on http://localhost:3002
Note: : To access the WebInterface from another computer, don't forget to allow WebInterface app (Server.exe →Node.js:Server-side Javascript) to communicate through the firewall.
IMPORTANT: By default, Windows Service will be installed with standard Local System User. It is recommended to configure the Windows Service to run under different credentials so it can access UNC or SAN Locations of the Media Files.
If you change the credentials, make sure that the new user also has Administrative rights on the machine in order to write files to the installation directory (Database).
The Webinterface works only if :
If your webserver(webinterface) runs on the same server as your main ffastrans server, open your web browser and type : http://localhost:3002
Details :
The Workflow Menu allows users to select files from existing Server locations or upload new files and start Jobs. Use the User Configuration Manager to Filter which Workflows and Variables users are allowed to utilize.
For the File upload, please note that this is only HTML5 file upload so it will be relatively slow and somewhat instable when it comes to Files bigger than some Gigabytes. Transferring huge files should be done using technologies that are intended for it (e.g. NFS, SMB, FTP etc…).
Details:
This menu is only useful if “STATIC_USE_WEB_AUTHENTIFICATION”(Server Configuration Menu) is enabled.
The purpose is to filter Webinterface access rights based on users. Here is the procedure :
You can use filters per group(filter rules), see inbuilt documentation for details.
This menu allows to configure the Webinterface : Header name, browse locations, port number, etc. Click “Save” after making your settings.
See inbuilt documentation for settings details.
(See Instance Name if your header's name is too large)
Scheduled jobs are used to start workflows in a specific frequency, compareable to the Windows Task Scheduler.
The Idea is to start jobs on a specified frequency instead of starting a job manually or at the arrival of a new file in a watchfolder.
The “Condition” is a key part, it allows you to run a Script before a job is actually started in order to check if the Job actually needs to be started.
By default, if you do not care about the condition, your workflow will just be started in the provided frequency. You can however alter the condition script in a way that it “checks” if a new job need to be started. So in the end if you have a complex starting condition like the arrival of multiple files in the same folder or such, you are able to provide your own logic to check if a new job shall be started or not.
Example usages:
If you want to enter a long or colorful Instance name, you can use html in the Server Administration Menu:
<span style="font-size:10px">VERY LONG NAME OF MY INSTANCE</span>
You can give users direct access to the single pages of the Webinterface, e.g. if you want to display the Jobs on a Monitor, you would just enter the direct url to the Jobs:
http://localhost:3002/webinterface/components/jobviewer.html
Another example that allows users to open directly the Jobstarter Interface:
http://localhost:3002/webinterface/components/jobstarter.html
The jobstarter.html even allows you to automatically add a file to the list of to be submitted files:
http://localhost:3002/webinterface/components/jobstarter.html?file=YOURFILE_OR_URL_OR_WHATEVER
This allows an administrator to configure easy job start tools for his users, e.g. by adding a context menu item to the windows registry.