Chaz - Embark/WebKiosk Server Information
We have a non-standard WebKiosk install in that we only use it for back-end - the front-end of the site lives elsewhere and is maintained by UMark (Nick Weaver). The front end hits the Kiosk API to pull down information and images.
Notes
When working on CHAZ-EMBARK2 you should be signing on as AD\embark-service. (Password in LastPass) A recent 4D update requires that the service is registered by an account that is logged in, so this service account was created to avoid running the service as a DS technicians account.
CUSTOM API FOLDER - Joyce maintains custom templates that live in the API folder. https://git.doit.wisc.edu/UMark/embark-templates. After version upgrades you need to put these custom templates in the API folder or the site will not function correctly.
Nightly sync - every night there is a script that runs that will stop the webkiosk service, copy the embark database to the kiosk datafile, then restart the webkiosk. This ensures any changes made in embark during the day are reflected on the website the following day. You can see the script and job in task scheduler.
Troubleshooting
- The most common outage that occurs is what I call a "blur outage". This is when the webkiosk service (EmbARK_Web_Kiosk (managed by AlwaysUp)) is down and the images on the chazen collection website all show up as blurry. To resolve this you can restart the Webkiosk service. You can safely restart the webkiosk service at anytime without risk of causing an outage.
- The Embark service (4DS embark) is the service that Embark desktop clients connect to. If chazen users report that they cannot connect to embark on their desktop machines you should make sure this service is running. You can NOT restart this service during business hours without approval from Chazen (Andrea S), as this will boot off users who may be actively working on the database.
Example troubleshooting scenarios
- Make sure services are running
- If one of the services listed is stopped attempt to start it and see if it resolves the issue
- If a "blur outage" is still occurring and all services are running you can check the WebKiosk panel in AlwaysUp and check for an error message. You can also safely restart the Webkiosk service at any time via the always up console.
- If all services are running and users are unable to log into the Embark desktop client you can reboot the server. DO NOT REBOOT THE SERVER DURING BUSINESS HOURS UNLESS YOU CONFIRM THE DESKTOP CLIENT IS BROKEN FOR ALL USERS.