Author Topic: PCS5 Beta does not work under Linux(wine) + feature feedback on setup experience  (Read 14450 times)

timoc

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I have been running PCS4 under wine (crossover) for a while, and have been trying to setup PCS5 32bit under wine. It turns out, that it just does not work.

I used the windows native management UI under wine to configure PCS5 to serve some test databases - everything is green in the UI, but could not connect to the model server port.

When i checked the log files i see:
Quote
2021-11-05 16:26:45 [DEBUG]:   Thread 5  Created secure server on soap port 1805 (https)
2021-11-05 16:26:45 [DEBUG]:   Thread 5  ATTEMPT Bind and listen on soap port 1805
2021-11-05 16:26:45 [DEBUG]:   Thread 5  WARNING Failed to bind and listen on soap port 1805
2021-11-05 16:26:45 [SYSTEM]:  Thread 5  No longer listening on soap port 1805.

Lots of installation documentation and certificate generation later,  still no luck. Even with a beta, if i need luck, then i am doing it wrong, so took on the time consuming process of elimination. Every step failed with same bind errors.

Finally decided to risk my production PCS 4 configuration. It failed to serve the model generating the same errors above. As far as i can tell, it is related to the port binding for model server threads. It does not matter whether the port is configured as https or http, it gives the same 'failed to bind' error when trying to bind.

Summary of findings:
- Service manager interface (port:1803) binds.
- Model setup seems to work - or at least shows green in the interface.
- Port binding for https and http model server ports, fail with the above useless error.
- Setting up PCS is still a test in patience - If i had to do this before trying out Prolaborate, i would have moved on.
- No UI indication that the service is not working as configured. Have to dig in logfiles.
- PCS4 Log file seems to contain more detail than PCS5 Log files

Even if this is an error on my part, i don't want to spend any more time on this, so waiting for next version before i do anything else.

Some feature suggestions, based on my recent experience, to lower the frustration overhead of PCS setup & maintenance:

0. 'Restart Service' button on Admin UI. Should be as simple as installing PCS with 'restart on failure' profile. UI button triggers service to exit with non zero 'user restart' error code. OS  forces restart and logs user restart to windows service log.

1. Show status of Model port (and integration port?) service-threads. E.g. as traffic lights, like the db connection status in the model list.

2. Logfiles via the admin http server. Essential for remote debugging, an open browser tab of server logs while working on setting up a model/port or debugging a client connection on a desktop. Preferably to authenticated users, or as configuration flag (like private). Nice to have - a button on the admin UI that opens the correct url in your browser, and a button that opens the the correct url for a selected port in the browser.

3. 'Test configuration' command line option for server binary. Runs service in standalone mode, sets default log output to TRACE on stdout, loads specified configuration file. exits when all server-thread have been started and statuses (re:point 1) are available.

4. Nice to have - Ability see/poll current PCS status information (re:point 1) on admin port. e.g. service, model-thread, integration-thread status. Needed for uptime monitoring tools like Nagios/Icinga. Additional usage metrics, last x lines of logfile good too.

5. Nice to have - 'Test Port' button in port setup screen. Tests service binds to port and attempts connection to port.

6. Nice to have - Instructions for creating a letsencrypt signed server.pem. Its cross platform tooling is enough to support  ssl demos without the hassle of making a CA and installing CA's in browsers. Letsencrypt certs expire after 90 days, so documentation on integrating PCS with a preferred letsencrypt ACME client such as certbot would also be welcome.

« Last Edit: November 10, 2021, 04:44:27 am by timoc »