Created by James Hurrell on Feb 16, 2023


Summary: documentation for the Nodes panel in the Console Administration Center.

Accessing the Nodes panel

When using Console standalone mode, the Nodes panel is not available since Standalone mode only allows the use of one Node.

Login with a user account that already has the Admin role and switch to the Admin Center:

Now move to the Nodes panel:

Options available in the Nodes panel are global to the entire Console, i.e. all Applications managed in the Console.

What are nodes?

A Node is a server/instance on which AIP Core has been installed together with the Node Service (see AIP Node package - back-end installation). The node registers itself in Console (or is registered in Console 1.x) and can then be used for analysis purposes. The Nodes section described in this page:

  • lists all Nodes that have been configured for use in Console (each line represents a Node). Note that in ≥ 2.x, Nodes that are powered off (after having been registered) will not be visible.
  • provides a means to view the status of your Nodes and their associated CAST Storage Services/PostgreSQL instances.
  • provides access to the Node system logs.

In 1.x, it is also possible to do the following (this is not possible in ≥ 2.x because Nodes are stateless):

  • add new Nodes
  • edit existing Nodes
  • disable/enable Nodes
  • delete existing Nodes

Available options

≥ 2.x

Name of the registered Node. This name is determined automatically and consists of the server host name and the port that the Node service is running on.

URL of the registered Node.

Shows the status of the disk storage on the Node. Rolling the mouse pointer over the icon will display the amount of free disk space in GB. The icon will be displayed in yellow when disk space is low:

Shows the status of all CAST Storage Service/PostgreSQL instances (whether it is "up"  or "down"  (unreachable)) configured in Console (see Administration Center - Settings - CSS and Measurement settings). Rolling the mouse pointer over the icon will display the host name and port number of the instance.

Use this option to expand the selected node and view the AIP Core release running in the node, other technical specifications of the node itself and access the system log download (see below):

Available in ≥ 2.7. A section allowing you to download the Node Service logs (i.e. the %PROGRAMDATA%\CAST\AIP-Node\logs\aip-node.log file) for the current node. Clicking the icon will show the following dialog allowing you to choose a date range and then download the logs:

  • Choose a date range for the log file using the From (1) and To (2) options, then click 3 to download the corresponding log file.
  • Logs are provided in ZIP format, within which the log file(s) are available. The ZIP file name uses the following syntax: <node_name>_<port>_node-logs_YYYY-MM-DD_YYYY-MM-DD.zip
  • Node instances are registered automatically when they are installed, so there is no need to add them manually (and which is why there are no add or edit buttons).
  • Where multiple Node instances are configured, Console will automatically operate in load-balancing mode (see also Application - Overview with Fast Scan):
    • For the initial fast scan, Console will always use "load balancing" mode, which functions as follows:
      • The node running the most recent release of AIP Core will always be used before all others.
      • If there are multiple nodes running the same most recent release of AIP Core, then Console will choose the least busy node.
    • For the deep analysis step, the least busy node running the same release of AIP Core as used for the initial fast scan will be selected.
    • Node manual selection: only nodes running the same release of AIP Core as used for the initial fast scan of the onboarding process will be made available for selection - this is to prevent analysis errors. This may mean that it is not possible to choose a specific node.

1.x


Click to add a new Node:

NameEnter a name to identify the Node you are configuring - CAST recommends using the server host name for easy identification.
SchemeChoose whether the Node has been configured to run as http (default) or https.
HostEnter the network name/IP address of the remote Node.
PortEnter the port number which the Node is running on (default is 8082).
Token

Enter the token that you received while installing the Node package - see AIP Node package - back-end installation. If you did not record the token during the installation, it can be found in the following file on the Node:

<console_installation>\AipNode\data\aip-node-app.properties

The token is located on the following line after the = sign:

spring.liquibase.parameters.baseToken=
Name

Name of the Node as defined when it was added. Note that Nodes listed:

  • in green signify Nodes that are actively responding to Console (even if disabled)
  • in red signify Nodes that could not be located on the network (the Node may be powered off or a network issue may be preventing Console from communicating with the Node).
AIP Core release

Displays the release of AIP Core installed on the Node:

HostURL of the node as defined when it was added.

Shows the status of the associated CAST Storage Service/PostgreSQL instance - whether it is "up"  or "down"  (unreachable).

Use this option to edit an existing Node:

Choose to either enable or disable the selected Node:

  • When Enabled, the Node can be used for analysis purposes.
  • When Disabled, the Node cannot be used for analysis purposes - i.e. any Applications defined on this Node, will be completely invisible in Console.

Click to delete the Node. Doing so will remove the Node from Console.

Deleting the Node does not delete any Applications, Domains or schemas associated with the deleted Node, however all references to these will be removed from Console. If you re-add a deleted Node (providing no changes have been made on the Node itself or in the CAST Storage Service/PostgreSQL instance), then all Applications, Domains and schemas associated with the Node will be visible once again and can be used without further configuration.

Use this option to expand the selected node and view the status of the associated CAST Storage Service/PostgreSQL instance and the technical specifications of the node itself:

This information may take a few minutes to populate after adding a new Node.

Declaring a new Node in Console 1.x when the embedded Dashboards have already been configured requires that you save the Dashboard Integration settings to ensure any snapshots generated with the Node before it was declared are made available in the dashboards.