Verify EA application version connecting to repo

[Max Widen]

Hello all!

In our company we are using a DBMS-based repository shared with different workgroups. Each workgroup has their own license pool and is able to use their own EA aplication version. The owner workgroup of the repository not long ago upgraded their licenses and asked group employees to install EA v11. But we still can not be sure employees from other workgroups are not using some legacy, beta or brand-new versions of EA application.

We suppose the simultaneous use of different client application versions can break the repository or some of it's elements. As for EA8 and EA11 - we'd already made some tests and figured out limitations, but we can't repeat those tests on any EA version.

Now we would like to monitor (or, preferably, to limit) access to our repository for untested versions of EA applications. Using add-ins is not an option: we are unable to force employees installing any kind of validating add-in. Workflow scripts are also of no use: from within those scripts there is no access to client app version data.

Any suggestions on how to limit repository clients by EA version would be appreciated. Thank you!

[qwerty]

You would need to install an add-in that checks the EA version number and start some voodoo to force upgrading. So if you have a configuration management which would need to install the add-in, then why not have them do their work correctly and install the recent EA version instead?

q.

[Max Widen]

Thank you for suggestions, Q!

But the problem is:
 - some employees do not use any add-in at all
 - some employees may firstly install EA and only later install required add-in

Beta or newest trial version can easily be downloaded by any employee and installed and potentially contain a bug ('cause it's "beta") or some incompatible behavior.

And there is no way to prevent someone from going to his local "c:\distribs" or whatever folder and installing some legacy version.

[qwerty]

Yes, but that is a general problem. Most companies don't allow their "normal" employees to install software on their machines for exactly that reason. And the privileged ones are supposed to care for a correct configuration on their own.

q.

[Eve]

You can't restrict it with a direct connection. If an option was added to EA, it would only be able to work with new versions of EA. (Older versions just wouldn't know about the option)

The cloud server may actually be able to do it. There are options that can be applied to a server to restrict connections based on the EA build. But they aren't documented and I don't think they have been properly tested.

I've updated the sample config file with the lines in red.

(
# If no web server is running on this machine on the default
# http port then this can be changed to 80.
SERVER_PORT=804

# Warning: There is no security applied to this connection.
# Your models are exposed to anyone. This should only be used
# inside a private network or possibly to allow public access
# to a single model.
REQUIRE_SSL=0

# This option allows a single model to be exposed on this
# connection.
# DEFAULT_MODEL=public model

# Restrict connections from a single build of EA.
EA_MINIMUM_BUILD=1210
EA_MAXIMUM_BUILD=1210
)