Device manager

The device manager website is relatively simple. It has only a few pages. The "view devices" page displays a list of all of the devices that have been added to this server's device database. The lists can be sorted alphabetically by clicking on the column name. Each device can be edited by clicking on its row. Devices can be added and removed. You can also access the optional Battery History site from this page.

Device manager page

The device manager shows all of the devices that are in the device database. It shows the device's MAC address, which plugin it is using, the battery level, when it last checked in, and other useful information. Devices may be sorted by clicking on the column header. Devices highlighted in blue are not in production. Devices in a black font are "in production". Production devices will show up as orange if they are not checking in on time, or if their batteries are below a threshold. Production devices may also be monitored by the various Nagios scripts included with the project.

Edit device page

The edit device page allows an administrator to configure the device as seen in the screen below. As options for the device are changed, an image of what will display on the device's screen is built on the right side of the screen.

Note that the 7" static image allows an administrator to upload any static .pbm file to the screen.

Adding a new device to the database

Use the device manager to "Add New Device"

Obtain the MAC address of the device in one of several ways:

• Place the device in Admin mode. The MAC address of the device will be in the name of the access point created by the device as viewed on your phone or other mobile device. --or--
• Boot the wall-ink device and have it check in to the desired server. The server will use the simple text plugin to display the MAC address on the screen. --or--
• Place the device in Admin mode. Connect to the access point, and access the Admin webpage. Use the "Copy MAC address" button to put the MAC address into the clipboard. (Thank you koos for this feature!)

Once the MAC address has been obtained as instructed above, use the "Add New Device" link in the Device Manager. Edit the MAC address in this new record to match the new device that is being registered.

Why it MAC registration not automatic?

The option to add devices automatically to the device manager database was considered, but rejected for security concerns. If any internet address were allowed to contact the wall-ink-server and register a mac address for a new device, then an unauthorized system could fill the device manager database with garbage entries. Since typical installations will have less than a few hundred devices, and most will have much less than that, it was decided that having a way to automatically register devices was not important. The risk of unauthorized database entries seemed to outweigh typing in a few mac addresses.

Important Files

The files for the configuration website can be found at wall-ink-server/web/device_manager

view_devices.php

This is the homepage; it shows a list of devices

edit_device

This file displays an HTML form to the user to allow them to edit the database entry for the device

handle_edit_device

A handler for the HTML form generated by edit_device.php

handle_delete_device

A handler for the "Delete" button on edit_device.php

handle_upload

A handler for the "Upload" button on edit_device.php

.htaccess

Makes sure only those with proper credentials can access the site; needs to be edited to include accurate information about your organization