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Connecting to Remote Servers

This page describes how to use the InterSystems IRIS® data platform Launcher to access remote servers, as well as how to use the InterSystems IRIS Server Manager to define server connections.

The Launcher and the Server Manager are provided only on Windows.

Launcher Submenus

For quick access to remote InterSystems IRIS servers, the InterSystems IRIS launcher provides the following options that do not require having OS-level permissions on the machine hosting the remote instance:

  • The Remote System Access submenu, which provides access to the Terminal and the Management Portal for any instance defined in the InterSystems IRIS Server Manager.

    This submenu also provides access to Studio, the documentation, and the class reference, not specifically discussed here.

    Remote System Access also provides an option you can use to connect via Telnet.

  • The Preferred Server submenu, which lists the instances defined in the InterSystems IRIS Server Manager and which provides options to let you manage that list.

To use the utilities on the Remote System Access submenu for a remote instance:

  1. Define a remote server connection to add the server to the preferred server list.

  2. Click the InterSystems IRIS Launcher and select Remote System Access.

  3. Select a utility (for example, the Management Portal)

  4. Select the server name.

When connecting to the Management Portal, the documentation, or the class reference, you can bookmark the URLs for future use, for quicker access.

Define a Remote Server Connection

To use the InterSystems IRIS Launcher utilities or other InterSystems IRIS applications on a remote server, the server must be on the connection list in the InterSystems IRIS Server Manager. This is a list of remote servers you have previously defined to which you can quickly connect. A remote server is defined with an IP address for a unique server and a TCP port, which is an instance of InterSystems IRIS on that server.

Important:

The InterSystems IRIS superserver must be running on the remote machine and its port must be open on your firewall to use the InterSystems IRIS Launcher utilities on that system.

For security reasons, username and password are not stored with the remote connection information.

To define the remote server:

  1. From the InterSystems IRIS Launcher menu, point to Preferred Server, and click Add/Edit to open the InterSystems IRIS Server Manager. (On Windows systems, you must have Administrator privileges to take this step.)

  2. Click Add to open the Add Connection dialog box.

  3. Fill in the fields as described in the following table and click OK. Each field is required unless otherwise indicated.

  • Server Name — A descriptive phrase that identifies the server; it is what appears as a selection in the InterSystems IRIS Launcher.

  • IP Address — The IP address, host name (if you have a DNS server) or the fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the remote server. InterSystems IRIS accepts any legitimate name reference for the remote server.

  • Port — The port number of the superserver. The default port number is 1972.

  • Telnet Port — The port number of the telnet connection. The default port number is 23.

  • Web Server IP AddressOptional. The IP address of the web server you wish to use to manage this InterSystems IRIS instance. Defaults to IP Address if not specified.

    If you plan to use a web server that exists on a separate machine from the InterSystems IRIS instance you are managing, enter the IP address of the web server machine in this field. Defaults to IP Address if not specified.

  • Web Server Port — The port number of the web server, if needed.

  • CSP Server InstanceOptional. The InterSystems IRIS instance name to which you want to connect if you are configuring one web server to connect to multiple InterSystems IRIS instances. See Specifying CSP Server Instance for more information.

    Note:

    The CSP Server Instance must be in all lowercase characters for the request to route properly.

  • HTTPS — Whether or not links from the InterSystems IRIS Launcher use HTTPS.

  • Authentication Method — Choose Kerberos or Password.

    See the Kerberos Authentication section of the “Authentication” chapter in the Security Administration Guide for details on the use of these fields.

    See the Instance Authentication section of the “Authentication” chapter in the Security Administration Guide for information about password-based authentication in InterSystems IRIS.

  • Connection Security Level — For Kerberos 1 only. Choose either Kerberos, Kerberos with Packet Integrity, or Kerberos with Encryption.

  • Windows InterSystems IRIS Telnet Server — For Kerberos only. Select this check box if you are defining a connection to a Windows server.

  • Service Principal Name — For Kerberos only. This field is pre-filled with the recommended service principal name format “cache/<FQHN>” (FQHN is the fully qualified host name) for the IP address you enter.

  • CommentOptional. A description of the remote server.

Specifying CSP Server Instance

If you are configuring one web server to connect to multiple InterSystems IRIS instances, enter the InterSystems IRIS instance name to which you want to connect in the CSP Server Instance field. Make sure you enter the name in all lowercase characters.

For example, if you have an IIS web server installed on a Windows machine and you also install two instances of InterSystems IRIS, iris1 and iris2, by default you manage each instance with its own private Apache web server that is installed as part of InterSystems IRIS.

However, you can also manage both instances from the public IIS web server by changing the Web Server Port (80 by default for IIS) and specifying iris1 and iris2 in the CSP Server Instance field when creating a server definition for each instance. This automatically creates virtual directories /iris1 and /iris2 on the public web server that point to the corresponding InterSystems IRIS instances.

When you enter a value in the CSP Server Instance field and select the Management Portal on the Launcher for this server, the URI is formed as follows:

http://<web srvr addr>:<web srvr port>/<csp srvr inst>/csp/sys/UtilHome.csp

This places the instance name before the /csp/sys/UtilHome.csp portion of the URI and generates the following URIs for the two instances in the example.

http://localhost:80/iris1/csp/sys/UtilHome.csp
http://localhost:80/iris2/csp/sys/UtilHome.csp

For more complex configurations involving remote web servers, see the sections for your platform in Web Gateway Configuration Guide.

Connecting via Telnet

You can also connect to a remote instance of InterSystems IRIS from a Telnet session:

  1. Click the InterSystems IRIS Launcher and point to Remote System Access.

  2. Click InterSystems IRIS Telnet, connect to the remote server, and log on to the InterSystems IRIS system with your username and password.

You can remotely log in to an InterSystems IRIS instance on any supported platform from a terminal running on a PC or from any workstation client capable of running Telnet. This client may have only utilities and not an InterSystems IRIS server instance. The version of InterSystems IRIS on the client machine in most cases, must be the same or a later version of the InterSystems IRIS system it manages.

Note:

On the macOS platform you can also use SSH from a command prompt on Windows to connect to your macOS machine and then connect with the following command:

sudo /sbin/service telnet start
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