Managing Commander Services with the Control Panel

The Commander Control Panel allows you to manage the Commander services and database.

In this topic:

Accessing the Control Panel

To access the Control Panel on the application server, from the Windows Start menu and click the Control Panel shortcut in the Embotics program group.

Note: When you change a setting for one of the following tasks and click OK, you will be prompted to restart the service. If you then click OK, the service will be automatically restarted.

Commander Control Panel Tasks

Task Steps

Check the status of the Commander service and the Identity service

On the Service Control tab, Service State displays the current state of the Commander service and the Identity service

Start, stop, and restart the Commander service
  1. On the Service Control tab, click Services as a quick shortcut to opening the Windows Service Control Manager.
  2. Locate the Commander service to start, stop or restart the service.

    Note: While there are other Commander services, including the database and message queue services, you will need to start, stop or restart only the service named "vCommander".

Modify the level of logs to be viewed

On the Service Control tab, click Edit Logging. This opens the log4j.properties file in the editor configured for files of this type.

We recommend opening the log4j.properties file in a text editor other than Notepad, so that the file is easier to read.

See the Snow Globe article Controlling Commander Logging Level to learn how to edit logging levels, or contact support@snowsoftware.com.

Verify or modify the port for the default (Postgres) database
  1. Click the DB Management tab.
  2. Change the configuration information as necessary.
  3. Click Test Connection.
  4. Click OK.

Verify or reconfigure a Microsoft SQL database
  1. Click the DB Management tab.
  2. Change the configuration information as necessary.
  3. Click Test Connection.
  4. Click OK.

Verify or modify any of the following ports:

  • the Commander service port
  • the Service Portal port
  • the Admin port
  1. Click the Port Management tab.
  2. Change the configuration information as necessary.
  3. Click Test Ports.
  4. Click OK.

Using a separate port for the Service Portal

Using a separate port for the Service Portal allows you to open your firewall for the Service Portal port only, preventing Service Portal users from accessing Commander.

If you configure a separate port for the Service Portal, users can access the Service Portal at:
https://<FQDN or IP address>:<port>

Or, optionally:
https://<FQDN or IP address>:<port>/portal

Note: If you change port numbers for Commander or the Service Portal, links in notification emails sent before you changed the ports will no longer work. You must resend notification emails as required.

Services started when running Commander

When Commander is launched, it will start the following services, which are used to support Commander operations.

Commander Service Description

Commander (vlm)

Main Commander Windows service

Commander Consul Agent (vlm-consul)

HashiCorp Consul agent for service discovery and orchestration

Commander Hyper-V Adaptor (vlm-hyperv)

Commander Hyper-V network adapter

Commander Identity Service (vlm-identity)

Commander identity service

Commander LinkerD Service (vlm-linkerd)

LinkerD service mesh

Commander Message Queue

Commander message broker

To view services from the Commander Control Panel, on the Service Control tab, click the Services button. The system's services are shown in the Windows Service Control Manager.