Version 1.2.0 issues

Questions regarding installing, running and configuring UaGateway.

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dds
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Version 1.2.0 issues

Post by dds »

Hello,

we are connecting to OPC DA and OPC UA servers through the gateway's OPC UA interface, using the latest version 1.2.0. The problem we have is that inverse browsing is not supported by the gateway for the connected OPC DA servers, it works for the OPC UA servers though.

In version 1.0.1 it wasn't supported at all, now it works at least for connected OPC UA servers. So can we assume it will be possible for the connected OPC DA servers too in a future version? We strongly require this functionality because we need to start browsing at a given node id, but without inverse browsing we never can go back to the parent node(s). :(

other problems we noticed so far:

- while configuration the gateway service can freeze:
- add a new opc ua server with the configuration tool
- the ua server must be offline whole time (gateway is trying to connect)
- now change the security policy for this server and save -> the gateway service freezes (only shutdown/restart is still possible)

- restarting through the systray tool doesnt work, it doesn't wait long enough before starting the service again and fails because service is still shuting down (same if admin gui wants to restart the service)

- "Open Folder..." button in the "trace" register of the admin gui does nothing.

- admin gui doesn't remember setting "Notification Area Icon"

feature requests:
- an option to completely disable the OPC DA interface, not only prevent remote access
- username/password support for the OPC UA interface to prevent
unauthorized configuration changes

edit: in general, the configuration should only be visible and editable for a special user, currently everybody can connect and do anything with the config


tested on MS Vista 32bit, standard user account (used admin account when asked by UAC)


with best regards
M. Mosch

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Re:Version 1.2.0 issues

Post by Support Team »

Hello,

Thank you very much for your detailed feedback. This type of feedback is very important for us to improve the product.

Regarding the inverse browsing:
The inverse browsing is optional in OPC UA. You should not expect in your OPC UA client application logic that this is always working. The UaGateway can only provide inverse browsing if it is supported by the underlying server. For OPC UA, this depends on the aggregated OPC UA server. For COM DA server this depends on the supported browsing interface. DA 3 browsing does not provide a way to do browse up. For DA 2 browsing it would be possible. Since the internal browsing interface is using a DA 3 like functionality, this is not possible at the moment.
We added a feature request for the next version to implement inverse browsing if the aggregated COM DA server supports DA2 browsing.

We will look into the reported issues and provide feedback in another reply.

Regarding disabling COM Server interface – we added this as feature request for the next version.

Regarding user authentication:
It is already possible to deactivate Anonymous access in the XML configuration file. In this case only known Windows users can connect to the UaGateway.
In general, we prepared already to restrict the configuration to configured users. This functionality is deactivated at the moment since it was not completely finished. It will be part of the next release.

Best Regards,
Unified Automation Support Team
Best regards
Unified Automation Support Team

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Re:Version 1.2.0 issues

Post by Support Team »

Regarding:
- restarting through the systray tool doesnt work, it doesn't wait long enough before starting the service again and fails because service is still shuting down (same if admin gui wants to restart the service)

The service shutdown is called with a quite long timeout (30sec), which works really good in our tested scenarios. Obviously on your machine the UaGateway can not shutdown within this time. This can have two reasons: your configuration is really huge or one or more Clients still have outstanding calls into the UaGateway and thus prevent it from shutdown. You should try again for shutdown, or try to disconnect (especially COM-Clients who can have synchronous calls) before shutdown.

Regarding:
- "Open Folder..." button in the "trace" register of the admin gui does nothing.

This happens when the folder (location of the trace file) does not exists, and hence can not be opened. Second possibility, the folder is at a location where even the admin (the Administration Tool always runs with elevated rights) is not allowed to open a folder. You should select a folder location which a) exists and b) where UaGateway process and Administration Tool have sufficient access rights.

Regarding:
- admin gui doesn't remember setting "Notification Area Icon"

This seems also to be an access rights issue. The Administration Tool (used admin account when asked by UAC) runs under the context elevated by UAC. It seems that the admin account you elevate to has not sufficient rights on the file system. Your admin account is not allowed to write UaGateway's configuration file (and is even not allowed to open the trace-folder). This is not the default in Windows. You should make sure that the admin you get elevated by UAC "really" is an local admin with read/write access to c:ProgramFilesUnifiedAutomationUaGateway. It seems that your admin has less rights than a standard user.
Best regards
Unified Automation Support Team

dds
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Re:Version 1.2.0 issues

Post by dds »

Hello,

thanks for the clarifications on the inverse browsing functionality.
Wasn't aware of this feature being optional and that DA 3 doesn't support it at all. We changed our client software accordingly.
The service shutdown is called with a quite long timeout (30sec), which works really good in our tested scenarios. Obviously on your machine the UaGateway can not shutdown within this time.
i made some further tests:
uagateway is running, NO servers added to config and no one is connected to the gateway: shutdown through systray succeeds within 1 second, start always finishs within 1 second. restart works fine

now with config tool/uaexpert connected to the gateway doing nothing but idle: shutdown within 5 seconds, start 1 second, restart always fails after 2 seconds with the following error:

Code: Select all


[UA Gateway Starter]
StartService failed (Der Dienst antwortete nicht rechtzeitig auf die Start- oder Steuerungsanforderung.)

seems it does wait only 1-2 seconds instead of 30.
Regarding:
- "Open Folder..." button in the "trace" register of the admin gui does nothing...
uagatway is installed in c:toolsuagateway and the folder for the trace logs is c:toolsuagatewaybin. All users have full access to the path and all the files (tested it). gateway is even running under the mentioned admin account (its the standard admin account of windows, not limited in any way). trace logs are created too. if i click the "..." button the file selection dialog opens that folder too. i don't know what your software is trying to do when i click "open folder" but i only see a short wait cursor for 1 second, thats all.
Your admin account is not allowed to write UaGateway's configuration file (and is even not allowed to open the trace-folder).
admin has full access and all settings are saved correctly, beside "Notification Area Icon". I noticed if i check this option and click save it will immediately be unchecked.

i found a new issue: when you add an ua server through the config tool, the "Namespace Prefix" setting is ignored and will be always set to "ServerUri". However, later it can be changed successfully in the config page.

i hope this report helps you.

best regards,
M. Mosch

p.s. the "CODE" and "QUOTE" codes on this board are buggy as hell and are not firefox friendly :S

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Re:Version 1.2.0 issues

Post by Support Team »

Dear dds,

thanks for reporting these issues, it helps a lot.

We figured out some incompatibility issues amongst the Windows API. It seems that Vista behaves a little different in certain function calls, compared to XP or Win7. This prevents the Systray checkbox to be set correctly on Vista. We are investigation a work around to this problem.

Restarting the service actually tries to start the service a little to early (before the process was completely down). This leads to an error during startup, (having two UaGateways running shortly at the same time). This problem will be fixed in the next Service Release. In the meanwhile you should use the "Stop" and "Start" instead of the "Restart".

The "Open Folder" button does nothing special (actually it does pretty much the same like the "..." ) We can't reproduce the error even though we installed at the same location as you and also use the built in admin. Only when the folder does not exists, the button does nothing.

We are still investigating the "Namespace Prefix" issue. On a first add it defaults to ServerUri, keeping it unique, but can be changed later.

Please contact me by Email, if you are interested in a prototype before the official Service Release.

Best Regards
Support Team

P.S. our web designer is working on the "quote" and "code" problems, hopefully he finds a solution shortly.
Best regards
Unified Automation Support Team

dds
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Re:Version 1.2.0 issues

Post by dds »

Hello,

there is a problem when using the Browse Service on the Root Node of an aggregated UA Server.
I'm using your UA Client SDK and if browseContext.maxReferencesToReturn is set to 1 no nodes
will be returned (also no continuation point). I assume it happens because the gateway filters out
the "Server" object of the aggregated server. This happens only in the described special case.

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Re:Version 1.2.0 issues

Post by Support Team »

Dear dds,

the new version of the UaGateway v1.2.1 is now available for download at: http://www.unifiedautomation.com/opc-ua-servers/

The new service release of the UaGateway comes with improved administration and configuration capabilities and some minor bug fixes.

Best regards
Unified Automation Support Team
Best regards
Unified Automation Support Team

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