Supervisor software is available targeted for a specific Linux-based platform: an Intel-based PC platform running the OS of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5. NiagaraAX installation on this platform is done as user “root” using the supplied “Bash” install script. This results in a “niagarad” user and group added, where almost all of the installed software files use niagarad as both owner/group.
During the install script process, existing users of the Linux host platform can be added as Workbench users. This includes menu options to start Workbench and/or the Niagara Console application at the Supervisor machine.
Refer to the Engineering Notes document “Linux AX Supervisor Notes” for further installation details.
The following sections provide platform-related details about a Linux Supervisor:
During the install script process for the Supervisor Linux platform, a choice is presented as to whether NiagaraAX users should be allowed to perform certain “root-privileged” tasks. These include tasks such as specifying the host’s date and time, time zone, TCP/IP settings, and NTP settings, as made available in various platform views. Note that in addition to the single NiagaraAX platform administrator, these items may be available to Supervisor station users too, via views of the different Platform service types (for users with admin-level permissions on PlatformServices).
The default install choice for this is “no,” such that related items in the platform views appear as read-only. However, if this is changed to “yes” at installation time, NiagaraAX is installed such that the Niagara platform administrator user will have the ability to modify these settings, as well as any Supervisor station users with admin-write permissions on the station’s PlatformServices.
Following installation, the (single) default NiagaraAX platform administrator has these credentials:
-
Username:
tridium -
Password:
niagara
On any real job, these credentials should always be immediately changed, by opening a platform connection and using the Update Authentication option in the Platform Administration view. Note this is particularly important if the “root-privileged” tasks were enabled at installation time.
At the time of this document update, a platform connection to a Linux-based Supervisor provides the same collection of platform views as to an AX-3.4 or later Windows-based Supervisor, except the following views are not present:
-
DDNS Configuration
-
Dialup Configuration
-
User Manager (always specific to Windows-based hosts only)
Platform service types in the Supervisor’s station also include fewer types than in other host platforms, currently limited to the TcpIpService, LicenseService, and NtpPlatformServiceLinux.
Note that the station running on a Linux Supervisor is “owned” by a specially created user/group niagarad:niagarad, and therefore cannot bind to Linux “root owned” software ports 1- 1024. This is not an issue for the conventional port (3011) used for a platform connection, but does affect the standard port used by the station’s WebService (Http Port), which cannot be used at the default port
(80) setting. In addition, other software ports potentially used by various drivers must be adjusted above port 1024.