Configuration Utility for ExpressInterface (Xi / OPC .NET 3.0) Servers.

The Expres Interface (Xi / OPC .NET 3.0) specification bases on .NET3.5 WCF (Windows Communication Foundation). The communication can be configured for any of the WCF supported communication bindings. Microsoft provides the SvcConfigEdit utility that is rather difficult to use and doesn't do consitency checks. Users without much WCF experience likely create incomplete or inconsistent configurations that cause the server to crash at startup. The XiConfig utility makes the configuration of Xi servers simple. XiConfig can create basic configurations based on user selections about the application situation. The created WCF configuration can be edited to exactly match the application requirements. XiConfig includes edit features for server options in the AppSettings configuration file and additional XML configuration files for Xi Wrapper server settings for the OPC server access.

XiConfig is easy and quick to use. There are dialogs for all bindings and endpoint settings. New endpoints can be created by dragging a binding definition to contract tree node. When a binding is deleted then all related endpoints are automatically deleted, ensuring consistent configuration settings.

Access control on Object level The Xi interface and WCF security control the access to the server. Clients that are allowed access to teh server have access to all objects of the server. The Advosol Xi servers implement an additional security layer. The server configuration can restrict the object access individually for each client. E.g one client may have read/write access to all objects but other clients can only read a few objects. Browsing the server shows only the objects this client is allowed to access. The clients are identified by either the Windows user name or by a X509 certificate. Access can further be restricted based on the client IPC address. The access can be restricted to e.g. deny write access, deny access to a set of object or allow access to only a configured set of objects.   This XiConfig Access Restrictions form helps create and edit object access restriction configurations. The Xi server can be browsed and objects can be dragged to a list of objects that are either allowed or blocked for particular clients.