3.5 General Setup

The general setup page provides some general installation settings (section 'General') and the settings of the IO-FEP2's SNMP agent (section 'SNMP Configuration'). The settings are in particular:

General

• Display Title --- The title entered here is displayed on all pages of the IO-FEP2 user interface. For compatibility with older software versions, "State" is treated as an empty title. To remove an entered title, either enter "State" or a single space character.
• Date & Time --- Click to 'Set Time' in order to set the actual date / time at theIO-FEP2's real time clock. Enter the actual date / time in xactly the format YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS .
• NTP Time Server 1 IP --- To make the IO-FEP2 sync it's internal clock to a NTP time server, set this to the IP address (aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd) of the NTP server. Setting this to 0.0.0.0 disables the NTP synchronisation (even if time server 2 IP is set).
• NTP Time Server 2 IP --- You may define a second (backup) time server IP address with this field. The backup time server is queries if the first server is not available. The setting 0.0.0.0 disables the backup time server interrogation.
• NTP Time Zone Offset --- NTP servers deliver their time stamps in UTC. By setting an offset in this field, you can tweak the IO-FEP2 clock to display local time, even if synced to a NTP server. Entering "01:00" for example adjusts the clock to CET (Central European Time), "-04:30" to VET (Venezuelan Standard Time). Beside the the HH:MM notation, the software also accepts arbitrary values in minutes. The examples above then would read as "60" (CET) or "-270" (VET). Entering "0" or "00:00" clears the offset, returning the clock to UTC, the same happens if the offset cannot be parsed by the software.After changing the time zone, you should clear the event log because old log entries are not affected by the time zone change.
• State Page Refresh Rate --- The state page by default refreshes automatically every second The refresh rate may be slowed down, setting it to zero disables the automatic refresh completely.
• Point & Click Operation --- Setting this to YES enables small buttons at the main status page which permit to change output settings and switch positions with a single mouse click to one of the buttons.
• Use USB Stick --- Setting this to YES lets the IO-FEP2 write its log files to the stick instead of storeing them in RAM. This makes the log persistent when the IO-FEP2 ist switched off. For obvious reasons this requires an USB stick to be plugged to IO-FEP. Setting this to NO unmounts the USB Stick allows the safe removal of the stick.
• Max. Concurrent WG-Switch Actuations --- The IO-FEP2 is capable to queue / delay waveguide switch actuations in order to protect weak power supplies from overload. While this is not important if the IO-FEP2 is exclusively controlled through the web interface, a monitoring & control computer is capable to command actuations for all waveguide switches at a time. Set the parameter to the max. available supply current divided by the current drawn by a single waveguide switch. Setting the parameter to zero disables the switch actuation queuing.
• Serial I/O Address --- The serial interface may be operated either with the MOD-95 / Miteq protocol, using a device address 'A' to 'G' or with a simple ASCII / terminal protocol (setting 'NONE'). See chapter 4.3 The RS232 remote control interface for details.
• User Password --- Defines the user password (default 'user'), which is required to actuate switches or to set output circuits of the IO-FEP2. An empty password disables the password prompting.
• Administrator Password --- Defines the administrator password (default 'admin'), which is required to change any configuration settings. An empty password disables the password prompting.
• Reboot Device --- Clicking to REBOOT forces a power up reboot of the IO-FEP2 (after an inquiry dialog). Please note, that rebooting the IO-FEP2 interrupts all operation including redundancy switching for about 30 seconds.

SNMP Configuration

• Read Community --- Sets the SNMP community string expected for read access. The default is 'public'.
• Write Community --- Sets the SNMP community string expected for write access. The default is 'public'.
• Trap Community --- Sets the SNMP community string sent with traps. The default is 'public'.
• Trap Destination IP 1 --- Enter the trap destination IP address (dotted quad notation) to make the IO-FEP2 sending traps by UDP to this host. Setting the parameter to 0.0.0.0 disables the trap generation.
• Trap Destination IP 2 --- Enter the trap destination IP address (dotted quad notation) to make the IO-FEP2 sending traps by UDP to this host. Setting the parameter to 0.0.0.0 disables the trap generation.
• Trap Destination IP 3 --- Enter the trap destination IP address (dotted quad notation) to make the IO-FEP2 sending traps by UDP to this host. Setting the parameter to 0.0.0.0 disables the trap generation.
• Trap Destination IP 4 --- Enter the trap destination IP address (dotted quad notation) to make the IO-FEP2 sending traps by UDP to this host. Setting the parameter to 0.0.0.0 disables the trap generation.
• System Location --- The IO-FEP2 replies to MIB-II sysLocation requests with the text entered at this place.
• System Contact --- The IO-FEP2 replies to MIB-II sysContact requests with the text entered at this place.

File Up & Downloads

• Download MIB File --- Clicking to DOWNLOAD downloads the IO-FEP2 MIB file from the device to your computer. Depending on the configuration of your webbrowser the file is stored as 'IO-FEP.MIB' in the default download folder or a file save dialog appears to select the place where to store the file.
• Download Configuration --- Clicking to DOWNLOAD downloads the SETUP.TXT file which contains all configuration setting of the IO-FEP2 from the device to your computer. Depending on the configuration of your webbrowser the file is stored in the default download folder or a file save dialog appears to select the place where to store the file.
• Upload Configuration --- Clicking to UPLOAD (you must be logged in as 'admin' for this) shows a dialog to select a SETUP.TXT file which shall be applied to the device. After selecting the file it gets uploaded to the IO-FEP2 and the settings in the file are applied immediately. No reboot is required. For convenience, the IP settings (address, netmask and gateway) are not changed with this. IP settings in the SETUP.TXT file are ignored. This lets you easily copy complete setups from one IO-FEP2 to another without messing up the IP settings of the destination device.It is not necessary that the Setup file is named 'SETUP.TXT.' It might also be possible to upload a Setup-file thats name is e.g. 'STATION_1_IO-FEP2_SETTINGS.TXT'. By this it is easy to handle backup files from different IO-FEP2.
• Upload Configuration (incl. IP Parameters) --- This second config file upload works the same way than the one above, but it updates also the IP parameters with the values (IP address etc.) stated in the uploaded file. Please note, that the new IP parameter do not become effectove immediately after the upload. To set the changed IP address it is required to reboot the IO-FEP2.

Real Time Clock battery backup

The IO-FEP2's real time clock is backed up by a goldcap capacitor. The goldcap supplies the RTC chip with power for several days if the main power is missing. This is the preferred mode of RTC backup for stationary installations of the IO-FEP2.

For applications where the IO-FEP2 is powered up only occasionally, a lithium cell may be connected inside the IO-FEP2 housing in order to provide a permanent buffering of the clock.

NTP time synchronisation

The IO-FEP2 may be configured to use one or two NTP time servers as reference for it's internal clock. To enable NTP time synchronisation, set the NTP server's IP address at the general setup page.

With NTP time synchronisation enabled, the IO-FEP2 sets the internal clock from the NTP time once after power on and then every 3 hours. This ensures correct time stamps for IO-FEP2's event log.

With the first successful NTP sync after power on, the IO-FEP2 also sets the on-board RTC chip to the NTP time. If later on the NTP server becomes unavailable, the IO-FEP2 automatically uses the RTC chip as a backup for synchronisation. The actual state of time synchronisation is continuously displayed at the bottom of the main page of the IO-FEP2's Web-GUI.

If the time server address 2 is configured as well, the IO-FEP2 queries this server if the first one is not available (times out). The date / time status line at the primary IO-FEP2 web page always states which time server was used for synchronization recently and if this was successful.