Section 10. Configuring Radiator with GUI

10. Configuring Radiator with GUI

If your Radiator configuration file has a <ServerHTTP> clause configured, you can connect to Radiator with any standard web browser and use it to inspect, monitor, configure, restart, reconfigure, save and check statistics of your Radiator server from anywhere in your network. For more information, see Section 3.121. <ServerHTTP>.

This makes configuration and maintenance of your Radiator easier for staff that are not familiar with more traditional command-line tools and configuration file editing.

Tip

A simple configuration file that enables <ServerHTTP>, allowing you to get started with using the web-based configuration GUI is in goodies/serverhttp.cfg in your distribution.

Tip

The default port number that <ServerHTTP> uses is 9048. Use the following URL:

http://localhost:9048

If TLS or SSL is enabled in your <ServerHTTP> clause, use the following URL:

https://localhost:9048

10.1. Login page

When you first connect to the HTTP server port, you will be presented with a login page. Log in with the user name and password configured into the Radiator configuration file (the default shipped in the sample configuration file is user name ‘mikem’ and password is ‘fred’).

Tip

If the HTTP server has been configured not to require a user name and password, you will be logged in immediately without seeing the Login page.

Figure 7. Login page

After a successful login, Home Page is opened. For more information, see Section 10.2. Home Page.

10.2. Home Page

The Home page displays basic information about the GUI and provides a Navigation Area, from which you can access all the functions available to you.

The Navigation area contains links to each type of page you are authorised to see. The list of links depends on your Privilege Level. For more information, see Section 3.121. <ServerHTTP>.

Figure 8. Home Page

10.3. Administration

10.3.1. Server status

The Server Status page shows details about this instance of Radiator, including the command line used to start it, the name of the configuration file, how long the server has been running for and how many requests it has processed.

Figure 9. Server status page

10.3.2. View log

The GUI log collects and displays the last LogMaxLines of log messages at or above the current Trace level. To renew the displayed list, click Refresh on your browser.

To change the number or severity of collected log messages, click on Edit and see the ServerConfig page. Click on Show Advanced Options. Click on Server ServerHTTP and see the ServerHTTP configuration page. Adjust Trace on this page and LogMax-Lines on the Advanced Options page.

Figure 10. View log Page

10.3.3. Logout

The logout link logs you out of the GUI. A new Login page will be displayed.

10.4. Configuration

10.4.1. Edit

The Edit page displays configuration details for a single configurable Radiator object. Each Edit page corresponds to a Radiator configuration clause. By clicking on appropriate links you can drill down into the hierarchy of configuration clauses and examine and change the configuration of each clause.

The first page you see when you click on the Edit link is the ServerConfig page, which is the main (top-level) configuration page. All the Radiator configuration clauses and their sub-clauses are accessed starting at the ServerConfig page and drilling down into subclauses.

Figure 11. Edit Page

For a given configuration object, the GUI displays up to four different pages, one for each level of configuration detail:

Basic Options
Displays the most basic configuration options that must be configured in order for the object to work at all.
Advanced Options
Shows more advanced options that can fine tune the basic operation of the object.
Very Advanced Options
Shows options that are rarely used and which are only required under unusual circumstances.
Deprecated Options
Shows options that should never be used in a new installation. They are only provided for compatibility with old deprecated (discouraged) options.

10.4.2. Load config file

This page allows you to upload an entire new configuration file into Radiator.

Figure 12. Load config Page

After uploading, the new configuration will take effect. However the new configuration will not be saved until you click on Save.

Tip

If the new configuration does not include a ServerHTTP clause, you will not be able to reconnect to the server with the browser.

Tip

There are many sample configuration files included in the goodies/ directory of your Radiator distribution.

10.4.3. Save

This page allows you to save the currently running Radiator configuration to the configuration file specified on the Radiator command line. The original configuration file will be saved and renamed with a ‘.bak’ extension.

Figure 13. Save Page

CAUTION

The newly saved configuration file will not include any formatting or comments that may have been present in the original configuration file.

10.5. Miscellaneous

10.5.1. Licence

This page displays the software license that applies to your copy of Radiator.

Figure 14. License Page

10.5.2. Support

This page displays useful information about what levels of support are available for Radiator and how to access them.

Figure 15. Support Page

10.5.3. System

This page shows information about the machine that this instance of Radiator is running on.

Figure 16. System Page

10.5.4. Perl

This page shows information about the version of the Perl interpreter that Radiator is using on this machine.

Figure 17. Perl Page

10.5.5. Modules

This page lists all the Radiator Perl modules that are currently loaded into Radiator, and the version number of each one. Also shown is the main Radiator version number.

Figure 18. Modules Page

Tip

The list of modules you see will depend on the precise configuration your Radiator is running, since many Radiator modules are only loaded when required.

10.6. Advanced

10.6.1. Manual edit

This page allows direct manual editing of the configuration file without having to start a text editor on the host machine. In order to use this interface, you need to be familiar with Radiator configuration file format and syntax. For more information, see Section 3. Configuring Radiator. The original configuration file will be saved and renamed with a ‘.bak’ extension.

Figure 19. Manual edit Page

Saving a new configuration with the Save button saves the edited text to the configuration file (after making a backup of the original), but Radiator will not run with the new configuration until it is reset with the Reset server page. For more information, see Section 10.6.2. Reset server.

10.6.2. Reset server

This page allows you to Reset Radiator. Resetting causes Radiator to reread the configuration file and restart. Any unsaved configuration changes in the currently running configuration will be lost. If there are any unsaved configuration changes you will be informed of this.