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"Thin clients" and static MAC addresses

This is useful for when you have computers that can't provide a consistent unique mac-address. For example when you use “thin clients”.

There are several different ways to do this so use the one that is best suited for the customers environment.

When running RSClient as a BigScreen or Operator Tools terminal it uses the MAC-address of the network interface as a unique id in order to remember the settings for each specific terminals. 
In some situations when running the RSClient in a thin client environment, the Client is actual running on a server and not on the thin client hardware, this means that the MAC-address is fetched from the server running the client session, then you may need to set the MAC-Address manually for each user running the thin
clients. There are also other reasons such as security settings that can interfer with the retrival of a mac address.

Alternative 1: Use from the computer/settings file

The pros:

  • No configuration needed in most cases

The cons:

  • Might not work in some environments

How it works

The first time you log in to an installation, one of the mac addresses from the computer will be added to the the following config file "%localappdata%\Good Solutions AB\RS Production\Data\[InstallationNumber]\Local-Settings-[InstallationNumber].config" and a terminal will be created with that mac address as an identifier.
A problem that may occur is that more than one computer has the same mac address (a vpn that's installed may have a virtual network card that always has the same mac address).
To fix this you can manually set the <MACAddress>0215FB66E158</MACAddress> to anything unique (i recommend generating a guid https://www.guidgen.com/ ). After a restart you will have to create a new terminal again and after that the configuration is completed.

Alternative 2: Use the username as mac address

The pros:

  • You can login anywhere and get the configuration for the user. This makes it easy to replace terminals or test terminals in the office.

The cons:

  • You have to create one user for every single terminal

Setup

  1. Add a new PageConfigurationValue with the Key: USERNAME_AS_MAC and set the value to true

  2. Create one user for every terminal in the factory

Alternative 3: Read MAC-Address from config file instead of network card

An old version of alternative 1 that may still be needed sometimes if the same user is used on all computers and the user catalog is synced between computers.

The pros:

  • You don't have to create a new user for every terminal

  • No risk for logging in with the wrong user and getting wrong settings

  • If some terminals provide their own MAC-address you don't have to configure them, you only have to configure the ones with problems

The cons:

  • You have to change the mac address in the file on every new computer

  • May not work if the configuration removes files and resets the installation.

Setup

  1. Add a new PageConfigurationValue with the Key: MACAddressXMLLocation

  2. The Value field should contain the path where the MAC-address configuration file should be stored at the file system. If no path is specified the client will use the system (Windows) specified ApplicationData folder, there are two Magical folders that can be used [MyDocuments] or [Desktop] which will locate either the user Desktop or MyDocuments path.
    Usage:
    [MyDocuments]\RSP (will store the file e.g. at: C:\Users\[CurrentUser]\Documents\RSP)
    [Desktop]\RSP (will store the file e.g. at: C:\Users\[CurrentUser]\Desktop\RSP)
    It also possible to create a fully specified path to where the file should be saved e.g.
    C:\Data\Applications\RSP\

  3. When the folder path is configured and the RSClient is restarted in either Operator Tool or BigScreen terminal mode, it will create a file: RSProductionMACAddress.config where the MAC-address is stored.

  4. To manually set the MAC-address, open the file in a text editor and change the value in the <MACAddress> </MACAddress>.
    After setting a value e.g. 178:
    <MACAddress>178</MACAddress>
    This will be the unique id for the terminal in the future.

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