Configuring BiblioRemote server

Before doing any of the following, be sure to have BiblioRemote server running by double click "<installation directory>\BiblioRemote\dbsrvr.exe". You can also run BiblioRemote server as a system service. To configure the BiblioRemote server, run "<installation directory>\BiblioRemote\srvradmin.exe". When you first run this program you will need to use the default account to log in.

Go to the menu command "File | Options". Select remote type (Local Area Network or Internet), and enter the IP address of the server. If you are using the computer on which the server is installed, use the default IP address 127.0.0.1. Click "OK". Now go to "File | Login to Server"and use "Admin" as the user name and "DBAdmin" as password. For security reasons, you may want to remove the default account after establishing existing users and administrators. At least, change the password.

Status

The Status panel lists all the active sessions currently connected to the server as well as other information like memory usage, up time, etc. By default, the BiblioRemote server uses port 12005 for database communications and port 12006 for administrative communication. You can stop the server by clicking the Stop button and restart it by clicking the Start button.

Server

On this panel, you can change server-related parameters. The most import one is "Max # of connections". By default, it is set to 3. If you need to support more concurrent users, you can go to the Biblioscape web site and purchase additional BiblioRemote server license(s). Then click on the label "Max # of connections" and enter the key you received. All the other server-related parameters can be changed after clicking on the "Edit" button.

• Deny New Connections: With this box checked, no more users can connect to the server.
• Connection Timeout: If user can't make a sucessful connection within the indicated time, the user has to reconnect.
• Dead Session Cleanup Interval: BiblioRemote server checks for dead sessions periodically.
• Dead Session Expiration: If an user doesn't reconnect within the time specified, the session will be removed and the user has to log in again.
• Max # of Dead Sessions: The max number of dead sessions allowed. Temp File Directory: The folder where temporary files are created.
• Authorized Addresses: The IP addresses allowed to connect to the server. Use * to allow connections from any IP.
• Blocked Addresses: The IP addresses not allowed to connect to the server.

Users

You can add, edit, or delete users on this panel. A user can be given administrator privileges if the "Administrator" box is checked.

Databases

All available databases published by the server are listed. Click the "Add" button to make your Biblioscape database available. First, give it a name. This name will be used when you set up Biblioscape to access the database on the BiblioRemote server. You can add a description about the database in the Description box. Then specify the path where the database resides.

Database Users

You can grant each user privileges to access a specific database. Each user can be assigned Read, Insert, Update, Delete, Create, Alter, Drop privileges to a specific database. In order for an user to open a remote database with Biblioscape, the user must be given the privilege to do so.

Log

All the server activities are logged. You can load the log by clicking the Load button and save the log as a text file by clicking the "Save" button.

 

 

Firewall and Router issues

Firewall issues

Security software such as Windows Firewall or ZoneAlarm will block all unused ports. If the ports used by BiblioRemote are blocked, you won't be able to access BiblioRemote from other computers. You will need to change the appropriate settings in your security software to unblock those ports. By default, BiblioRemote uses ports 12005 and 12006.

Running behind a router

If you run BiblioRemote on a computer behind a router and only the router has an IP open to the world, please make sure the two ports 12005 and 12006 are not blocked by the router. Also, configure your router to forward traffic on those two ports to the computer on which BiblioRemote runs. For example, if that computer's IP address is "192.168.0.3", configure the router (this is sometimes called “port forwarding”) so that it sends all traffic it receives from the Internet for ports 12005 and 12006 to "192.168.0.3".

 

Open a database through BiblioRemote server

BiblioRemote is installed with Biblioscape under the folder "...\BiblioRemote\". With BiblioRemote, you can open a Biblioscape database that resides on a remote machine that has the BiblioRemote server running. The remote machine could be on your LAN or a machine in another city, country, even continent. By default, the BiblioRemote server supports 3 concurrent sessions for personal use for free. If your organization needs to support more users, please order more licenses at our web site.

To have BiblioRemote access set up correctly, you need to have a PC designated as server which must have a permanent IP address. If you want users outside your firewall to open database through BiblioRemote, you must open the ports used by BiblioRemote. The client PC must have Biblioscape installed and have Internet or Intranet access. The server PC doesn't need to have Biblioscape installed. However, we recommend you do so, because some activities such as database maintenance and record importation are much quicker to perform on the server PC locally. If your server doesn't have Biblioscape installed, please copy the directory "BiblioRemote" under your Biblioscape root directory to the server PC.

To configure the BiblioRemote server from the server PC:

1. On the server PC, run "dbsrvr.exe" under the BiblioRemote directory. You can also run BiblioRemote as a Windows service.
2. On the server PC, run "srvadmin.exe" under the BiblioRemote directory, and go to "File | Options...".
3. On the "Default" tab, select "Local Area Network" as the "Remote Type". Enter the host name or IP address of the server PC in the appropriate fields, and click the "OK" button to close the window.
4. In srvadmin, go to "File | Login to Server". Enter "Admin" as User Name and "DBAdmin" as Password to login. This is the default password; please change it after first login for security reasons. If you cannot login, please make sure the two ports used by BiblioRemote server port 12005 and 12006 are not blocked by Windows firewall. These two ports are blocked by default in Windows Vista. Click here to learn how to open a blocked port.
5. After login to the server, go to the "Users" tab. You should change the password for the Admin account instead of keeping the default password. Please keep your user password in a secure place. Then click the "Add" button to add a new user. You can also continue to use the Admin account if you wish. If you need to support more than one BiblioRemote user, you should use srvadmin to create an account on the BiblioRemote server for each user.

   

6. Next, go to the "Database" tab. Before doing so, you need to ensure that there is a Biblioscape database on the server for the remote Biblioscape client to open. You can transfer Biblioscape databases by using WinZip (http://www.winzip.com) to compress all files in the Biblioscape database directory into a zip file. Transfer the zip file to the server PC and unzip it. Once you have done this, in srvradmin's "Database" tab click the "Add" button. First, give the database a name. You will need this name on the client PC to configure the setup; it can be anything you like (in other words, it doesn't have to have the same name as the *.bsl file in the database, although it's recommended that it does, for clarity). Click the "Select" button to point to the folder where the database files resides. Then click the "Save" button. Create one database name for each *.bsl file. In the next step, you can assign multiple users to a single database created in this step.

   

7. Then, go to the "Database Users" tab. Select the database from the combo box first. Then click "Add" button to add users to this database. Make sure users are given the rights they need, for example to Read, Insert, Update, Delete. Click the Save button to save the changes. Now you can logout from the server by going to "File | Logout from Server".

   

8. On the client PC, start Biblioscape and go to the menu command "File | Database | Configure Remote Database...".
9. Click the "New" button, select a directory and give a file name for the configuration file ("*.bsr").
10. Now you need to fill out the configuration settings. Enter the IP address of the server machine with dbsrvr.exe running on it. Enter the remote database name you created in step 6. For the "Remote Type", select "LAN" if the server PC is on the same Local Area Network as the client PC. If the server PC is in another building, city, or country, please select "Internet". Enter the user name you created in step 5 or use the default Admin account. Enter the password for the account you entered. In the *.bsr file that will be created when you save the configuration, the password will be encrypted. If you do this, other people will not need the password to open the *.bsr file with Biblioscape to open the remote database. To be more secure, you can leave the Password field blank. However, the downside of doing this is that each time you open the remote database, you will have to enter the password manually, which can be annoying. If you have the password field filled in the *.bsr file, the remote database will be opened automatically when you open the *.bsr file. Click the "Save" button to save the configuration file.

    

11. In Biblioscape, go to "File | Database | Open Database". Select the *.bsr file you created in step 8 and open it. The remote database should then be opened.

Note: This section is for advanced users who want to use host name instead of IP address, and service name instead of port number. In some cases when the sever IP address and port number keep changing, it is more convenient to use host name instead of IP address, and service name instead of port number. The mapping between host name and IP address is controlled by the Hosts text file available from the client operating system (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hosts_file). You can add an entry to this file. It will allow you to refer to the server by host name instead of IP address. For example:

192.168.0.100          BiblioRemoteServer

When your remote machine IP changes, you can just update the hosts file instead of the *.bsr files. The mapping between service name and port number is also controlled by the Services text file available from the client operating system (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832017). You can add an entry to allow you to refer to the server by service name instead of port number. For example:

BiblioRemoteData             12005/tcp
BiblioRemoteAdmin           12006/tcp

Once you have added entried to those two mapping files, you can edit your *.bsr file. Open Biblioscape *.bsr file with a plain text editor like notePad. Add entry "RemoteHost" or "RemoteService" to the *.bsr file. You can leave the RemoteIP and RemotePort entries untouched. Because RemoteHost takes precedence over RemoteIP, RemoteService takes precedence over RemotePort. For example:

[RemoteDB]
RemoteIP=192.168.0.100
RemoteHost=BiblioRemoteServer
RemotePort=12005
RemoteService=BiblioRemoteData
RemoteUser=smithon
RemotePassword=ž‘˜š“
RemoteDatabase=sample
RemoteType=LAN

Close and save changes to the *.bsr file. The next time you open the *.brs file from Biblioscape, RemoteHost setting will be used instead of RemoteIP setting, and RemoteService setting will be used instead of RemotePort setting.

Note: With BiblioRemote, a research group can share a common Biblioscape database from different locations. A researcher can have the BiblioRemote server running in his or her office and open the same database from a home PC if he or she has broadband access at home (dialup access will probably be too slow to be practical; it's normally better to use BiblioWeb in this situation). In a multi-user environment in which BiblioRemote is not the server, when the database become large, sharing a common database on the file server can be slow because Biblioscape needs to download all records through the network in order to perform queries, etc. With BiblioRemote installed on the server, the performance can be much improved because the processing is done at the server and only the relevant records are downloaded to the client PC. So, even on the same LAN, client/server setup with BiblioRemote can improve the performance when the database is large.

Running BiblioRemote as a system service

To run BiblioRemote server as a regular Windows application you must be logged on to Windows. This has two disadvantages. First, other people can't use the computer, because when they log on to their own accounts BiblioRemote will stop running. Second, you can’t leave the computer with no user logged on (as you might wish to, for security reasons), because BiblioRemote will shut down when you log off. To solve this problem, you can run BiblioRemote server as a Windows service under Windows NT, 2000, XP, and Vista.

• Windows Vista: Click Windows Start button and type "task schedular", select program "Task Scheduler" to run it. Click "Action | Create Basic Task..." to add a job using the wizard. Give it a name like "BiblioRemote" and a short description to remind yourself. Click the Next button. On the "Trigger" tab, select "When the computer starts" under "When do you want the task to start". Click the Next button. Under "What action do you want the task to perform", select "Start a program" and click the Next button. Click the Browse button to select "dbsrvr.exe" under the BiblioRemote directory of your Biblioscape installation. Click the Next button and then click the Finish button to create the task. Go to the Task Schedular main window and double click the task you have just created. Under the "General" tab, check the box "Run wether user is logged on or not". On the "Settings" tab, check off the box "Stop the task after...". Click the OK button. You will be prompted to enter a password. You have to enter a Windows account with admin privilege to make BiblioWeb run at computer startup without loging in. If you do not have the admin privilege, the task will not run untill you are logged in to Windows. To remove BiblioRemote from scheduled tasks, just delete it from the list.

• Windows 2000/XP: To run BiblioRemote server as a Windows service, go to "Start | Run...". Click the "Browse" button to find "dbsrvr.exe". At the end of the file path, add " /install", for example: "<installation folder>\BiblioRemote\dbsrvr.exe" /install. Then click the OK button to install. The service will be automatically started the next time you start your computer. You can also manually start or stop a service by going to Windows "Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services". The service name is "Biblioscape Database Server - DBSRVR"; right-click on it and select “Start” or "Stop". To remove BiblioRemote server from your Windows services, first shut down the service by going to  Windows "Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Services". Right-click on the service name and select “Stop”. When the service has stopped, enter "...\BiblioRemote\dbsrvr.exe" /uninstall under Windows Run command line as described above.