Re: CS-Studio Phoebus Deployment-Only Version

["Kasemir, Kay via Tech-talk" <tech-talk@aps.anl.gov>]

Hi:

Operators tend to be the ones who operate the machine. To accomplish that, they need operator interfaces.

At our site, and I assume at many others, operators do create their own displays on top of the “engineering” displays.

Having a crippled version of the display tool, one that doesn’t allow changes to existing displays nor the creation of new displays, defeats that purpose.

You do want to control write access to displays, and you can do that in the same way you control access to any file, by using the file system access permissions.

For example, you can make “installed displays” read-only. If you open such a display in the CS-Studio editor, it will detect that the file is read-only and put the editor in a read-only state. You can then use File, Save As … to save the display in a location where you do have write access and edit it there. This way you have perfect control over who may modify which files.

Anybody can open a file and “Save As…” to a different location, modify it then then tell the owner of the original file “Hey, I improved this display, see my copy in …”. Also allows anybody to create new displays, then either keeping them for their own usage, or contact somebody in the controls group “Hey, I’ve created this great new display, maybe you want to install that with the other control system displays.” In the controls team, you probably want to put displays into a version control system like git and then “install” them by checking them out of that version control system into a read-only location. Anybody is still free to create new displays, and you then have a process to add those that are generally useful into your version-controlled “installed” set of displays.

Having said that, you are of course encouraged to build a site-specific product that includes exactly what you want.

In there, you may exclude app-display-editor-*.jar to prevent any editing, you may exclude the save/restore tool if you don’t want your operators to use that etc.

-Kay

From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces@aps.anl.gov> on behalf of Ramirez-Morales, Jacob J (CONTR) via Tech-talk <tech-

 

I’m exploring options for deploying CS-Studio Phoebus in an operational environment where it will be used solely by operators. The goal is to have a streamlined version without any developer-focused tools or menus; essentially, an environment where only the windows and panels that were intended to be configured are the only ones accessible to end-users.

 

1. Is there a deployment-oriented build that already exists and is readily available? Or if there are recommended configuration profiles through a “settings.ini” to achieve this?
2. Does anyone have experience or know how to create a “locked-down” Phoebus distribution for operations?

 

Any suggestions, documentation pointers, or examples from existing facilities would be greatly appreciated.