Chapter 3: Operating UMLServer

Main Window
License Server
Repository Server

Main Window

UMLServer's main window is illustrated below.

The User Access button allows you to specify access permissions for users.

The Disconnect User button allows you to disconnect a user that is currently logged into UMLServer. You should only use button in special circumstances (e.g., to disconnect a user whose session is hung due to a software bug). To disconnect a user, first select the user's row from the License Users tab page and then press this button.

The License Key button allows you to enter the UMLStudio license information into UMLServer.

The Options button allows you to specify user options for UMLServer.

The Help button display the help pages you are currently reading.

The bar appearing below the buttons displays the total number of UMLStudio licenses available and how many of these are currently in use. This bar is color coded to visual indicate whether the license usage is low (green), medium (yellow), or high (red).

License Server

The license server runs as a separate thread within UMLServer. This thread continuously listens for user login requests. When a user logs in, UMLServer creates a session for the user and adds a row to the table that appears on the License Users tab. For each user, the following attributes are displayed:

User name (in the format user@host).
Rights (in the format explained under User Access).
Connected (denotes the date and time when the user connected to UMLServer).
Session ID (is a numeric ID that uniquely identifies the user session).
Idle Since (denotes the time since when the user has been idle). Idle in this context does not mean that the user has not been working with UMLStudio. It simply means that no communication with UMLServer has taken place for that period.

Each UMLStudio session logged into UMLServer periodically sends a signal (called heartbeat) to the license server to indicate that it still alive. UMLServer uses this method to detect UMLStudio sessions that may have lost the ability to further communicate (e.g., due to abnormal behaviour or abnormal termination).

When a user session loses its heartbest, UMLServer puts it in snooze mode (the corresponding user icon in the table changes to a snooze icon to visually indicate this).

If the license server runs out of available licenses and receives a login request, it will terminate all user sessions that are in snooze mode so that it can grant the request. This simple procedure optimises license usage and avoids circumstances where licenses may have been locked due to malfunctioning user sessions. It also avoids the need to restart the server to free locked up licenses.

The license server keeps a log of its activities. To view this log press the License Log tab. Each successful login/logout is recorded in this tab. If you tick the Log Failed Login Attempts check box, then for each unsuccessful login attempt, a message is written to this tab which includes the unsuccessful user ID and password. You can use this as a diagnostic feature when users are having difficulty configuring their UMLStudio installation.

Repository Server

Like the license server, the repository server runs a separate thread within UMLServer. It continuously listens for user requests for interacting with the project repository. For example, when a user attempts to check-in a project, a request is sent to the repository server. The repository server attempts to perform the request and then responds with a successful confirmation or an error message.

The repository server is not visual in UMLServer. To get a visual view of the repository, you should use the repository window in UMLStudio.

The repository server keeps a log of its activities. To view this log press the Repository Log tab.

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