GIadmin Functions - Using the GIServer Administration Module
Please note: The admin=true, adminName and password properties must be set in giserver/lib/giserver.cfg file in order for the GIserver administration module to access the server. A recent change to GIserver renamed prop.giserver to giserver.cfg and changed the config.username files and config.default to username.cfg and default.cfg. GIserver will first look for a file giserver.cfg and username.cfg, and if not found will look for the older naming convention of the files.
What does it look like?
- You will have a GIadmin icon on the Desktop and in your program folder. When clicking on the icon, GIadmin will start:
The GIadmin main administration window will appear:
- Use the Select Server option and click on the applicable server name.
Note: GIserver must be started on the applicable system in order to use the GIServer Administrative Module:
- If you attempt to connect to a server that is not running, you will see a message similar to the following:
- If the server is running, a server login screen is presented as follows:
- Enter the administrator name and password that you assigned during installation of GIServer. These values are maintained in the giserver.cfg file for each server.
- Once you have succesfully logged into the server, you will see the number of connections available and in use for the server:
The GIadmin window is divided into several different areas:
- The Menu Bar is at the top of the GIadmin window and is used to access Select Server, Edit, View and Help Functions.
- and the GIserver main window which uses dropdowns for both current connections and filePro programs being run and a status display panel to display log in stats:
- The Current Connections Dropdown:
- The Current Users that are logged on...one per line in the dropdown and their initial log on settings are displayed in the status area:
- The filePro programs dropdown that show which filePro programs have been launched:

Starting, Stopping, and Exiting GIserver
- To Start GIserver on a Windows 98/98/ME server, you have to click on the GIserver icon:
- On a NT/WIN2000 server, if you have loaded GIserver as a service, it will start based on the Control Panel Services Startup setting. You can either set the service to start GIserver automatically or manually.
- On a UNIX server you must run a script file which loads and runs the giserver.jar file. If admin is set to True and a value for the GIServer administration module can be used to update the server and user configuration files.
- Use the Disconnect option to disconnect from one server and administer another.
- If you want to stop GIserver using the administration program, click on Shutdown Server. When GIserver is restarted, the configuration changes will take affect. Changes to default.cfg user configuration and giserver.cfg server configuration will not take affect until GIServer is restarted. When shutting down GIServer, you are prompted if users are logged in to the server. Click on Yes to terminate client connections and shutdown the server:
- Notice that the user status area is cleared.
Caution: Terminating client connections should be used with caution. It is better to have each user exit their session so that nothing is lost when shutting down the server.
- If you want to exit the GIserver's GUI Administration Module without stopping the GIserver, click on Exit Administration Module:
- GIserver will still be running and fully capable of fileProGI client log-in and message logging.
Note: You must shut down and restart GIserver for changes to take affect. The best method for shutting down the GIServer is to use the admin Shutdown Server option, but you can also use other methods e.g. for Windows 95/98/ME, shut GIserver down from the Task Manager popup [Ctlr-Alt-Del], NT/WIN 2000 by stopping and restarting the service, etc.
Setting up User Logins
As described in Setting Properties to Control GIserver, GIserver uses several configuration files that specify valid username/password access to GIserver and the environment that is passed to fpdaemon that handles filepro communication. These files are normally located in the giserver/users directory [or their location is specified by the users property in the giserver.cfg file in the giserver/lib directory]:
- default.cfg is normally is used to define environment and activity logging properties that apply to all users that log in.
- username.cfg where user name is the User name that is entered by the user when it tries to connect to an GIserver using a fileProGI client. You create one of these files for every valid username GIserver will recognize and allow a log in operation.
- anon.cfg, if present, will allow you to have an anonymous log in. If the anon.cfg file is NOT present and an invalid user name is entered, a login failure message is displayed by the fileProGI client.
Edit menu choice
If you click on Edit GIserver wll allow you to edit the properties file for both GIserver and for the users. How to use the Configuration Editor.
User Activity Status Area