· Security
·
webAPX parameter files description
·
Installation’s guide for webAPX
·
Administrator’s guide for webAPX
·
Frequently asked questions for webAPX
All file-references in this document are
relative to the ‘Installation Directory’ of webAPX.
If more than one APX databases are in
use on your site, webAPX can connect to each of them. The connection is
managed with the Data Source defining the name of the database to work with as
well as the server the database manager is running on. Therefore when dealing
with multiple APX-databases you must create multiple Data Sources on the
server webAPX is running on, each one connecting to a specific database.
The list of the possible Data Source Names must
be defined in the System Configuration File of webAPX with the element: dsnAPX,
In the Login-page you will select the Data
Source Name corresponding to the database you want to connect to.
Each user authorized to connect to the
Production Database via webAPX must be registered in APX as a
standard user with his/her access rights. Additionally starting with the
relaese 2.0 of APXDB the user must be grant the ‘PCCSYS’ role.
We recommend to create specific accounts in APX
for the purposes of webAPX. These accounts should have only read access
to the production and profiles and no access to any other function.
We recommend to assemble user accounts into
group accounts in order to simplify the maintenance of the authorizations.
The user of webAPX must give his/her
user-id and password at each session start and they are checked against the APX-database
referred by the given Data Source Name.
The Login-page can be accessed at any time to
re-enter the user-id and password in order, for example, to reconnect with
different rights or to a different APX-database.
The element userAPX in the System Configuration File of webAPX ‘system/system.xml’ can contain a default user-id for every person
connecting to the webAPX-Server. The default user-id presented in the
Login-page can be changed by the current user, is saved in his/her cookies and
will be presented during his/her next login.
The authorizations to the objects accessed by
the users of webAPX are checked in exactly the same way as it is done in
the standard GUI-program PCC.EXE. The webAPX users or groups must have
at least the read authorization in the production respectively in the profiles
to get access to an object. If the user has no authorization at all or not
enough authorization on an object, this object will not be displayed.
By default webAPX is to checks the
user’s authorization when displaying the monthly forecast. The System
Configuration File of webAPX can be
customized to change this default behaviour.
No authorization is required when displaying
the status of the RCS’s.
Generally no authorization is required when
displaying the Production Protocol. But
the System Configuration File can restrict the presented protocol messages only
to the one belonging to the current user. The user PCCDBA can see all messages
without restriction.
The user name, password and selection done on
each page and in the RSS-feeds are stored by ‘cookies’ in the browser of the
user.
At installation time the option to encrypt the
cookies is automatically set.
The site security policy can restrict the
utilization of cookies. The System Configuration File can be customized to
enable or disable the utilization of cookies without effect on webAPX.
Additionally the duration of the validity of
the cookies can be customized in the System Configuration File too.
If the site policy allows cookies, each user
can decide in the Login-page if he/she wants to allow cookies on his/her
workstation.
The identified user can send commands to APX-Control,
if the corresponding option is set in the System Configuration File.
The commands are sent on behalf of the logged
user and APX-Control checks his/her authorization when the command is
received.
The result of the command sent can be displayed
with the Production Protocol page.
Following options are available in the System
Configuration File:
-
Allow
or not to send commands to APX-Control,
-
Command
to use when loading a job or an application, i.e. LOAD_JOB or ADD_JOB,
Users can change their own passwords.
This option can be disables in the System
Configuration File.
The web-server can be configured to support the
SSL/TLS protocol. In this case the connection between the user’s workstations
and the server will be encrypted. The utilisation of an encrypted protocol has
no effect on webAPX. The Windows setup program ‘webToolsAPX’
pre-installs the SSL/TLS configuration. See the Installation
documentation to have detailed information about SSL under webAPX.
If there is a firewall between the user
workstation and the web-server running webAPX,
the firewall must authorize all packets initiated by the workstation sent to
the port 80 (HTTP
protocol) or 443 (HTTPS protocol) of the web-server to pass thru. The port number can be
different if customized in the web-server configuration file; for example, they
are respectively 5180 and 5181 if you install the Apache server with
‘webToolsAPX’.
Sample
rule for a firewall based on ‘iptables’
iptable –A FORWARD –p tcp –-sync /
–s
192.168.10.0/24 / # The user-PC’s
-d
webapx –dport 80 –j ACCEPT # The
web-server
A user module can be activated to
record the connexions to webAPX.
Currently the user API records in a daily file each connexion (user
identification and time) in a CSV format ready for import in Excel or a similar
program.
To activate the user module the
system administrator must rename the module ‘php/userAPI_98.php’ to ‘php/userAPI_01.php’
The user module can be customized
for your site and will not be overwritten during the next upgrade process.
In the following paragraph we present some
configuration files or members of interest for the user or the administrator of
webAPX.
All parameter files are stored in the
installation directory of webAPX.
This file called the ‘System Configuration File of webAPX’ is stored in the installation directory of webAPX on
the web-server.
The System Configuration File contains every site specific parameters.
This file will not be overwritten during an
upgrade of the product. This is the place where your own parameters are stored.
It will be automatically expanded with the new options during an upgrade.
The comments enclosed in the file explain the
contents and the utilization of these parameters. Additionally the FAQS document offers a lot of information on the
System Configuration File.
This file can be edited with any text editor
i.e. WordPad or ‘vi’ but must remain XML-conform. The validity of the System
Configuration File syntax can be checked when you open it with your browser.
Any syntax error will be automatically shown.
The activation of the changed parameters
applies after a new login into webAPX.
These files, stored in the installation
directory of webAPX on the web-server, contain the user specific
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for the browser and for print purposes.
webAPX makes use of the CSS3 version therefore we
recommend you to use an actual version of your favorite browser.
The CSS-files above will not be overwritten
during an upgrade of the product. These are the places where your own presentation
parameters should be stored.
The changes done in the CSS file ‘css/siteScreen.css’ apply to the entire site. The
changes done in the file ‘css/userScreen_<username>.css’ apply to a specific user. There is
no restriction to the number of user CSS files defined in the system.
The files ‘css/siteScreen.css’, ‘css/sitePrint.css’, ‘css/userScreen_sample.css’ and ‘css/userPrint_sample.css’ are created during the initial
installation of webAPX and never changed thereafter.
The elements you can customize in the site and
user style sheets can be found in the standard CSS definition file called: ‘css/webapxScreen.css’.
Please note that we offer no free support for
changing these parameters, you can do it but at your own risk and cost.
The comments contained in the standard CSS
definition file explain the structure of the pages generated by webAPX.
Every valid CSS definition can be given and
will be sent as it is to the browser.
These files can be edited with any text editor
i.e. WordPad or ‘vi’.
The activation of the changed definitions
applies after a reload of the current web page, generally with ‘F5’.
Last update: 01 March 2020