Description

When using Futurama Vision both the Futurama Vision Management Site and the Futurama Vision Database have to be installed. At this page the installation of the Futurama Vision Database is described. For the installation and configuration of the Futurama Vision Management Site consult this page.

Download

Visit the Futurama website www.futurama.eu to download the Futurama Vision Database code:

• Go to www.futurama.eu
  • Go to the download section of the Support menu
  • Log in with user name and password
  • Click the most recent Futurama release
  • Extract the zip-file

Installation

Release folder

Use the release code from the folder 'Vision_Database'.

Installation initial version

If this is the first installation of the Futurama Vision Database follow the steps in this paragraph. If you already have a Futurama Vision Database installation, and want to upgrade this to a new version consult the next paragraph 'Upgrading existing version'.

Follow the next steps to install the initial version of the Futurama Vision Database:

• make sure you have the permission to configure the database server with SQL Server
• open the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio
• at the security section create a new login. This login will be linked to a user in the Vision Database.
• choose either Windows Authentication or SQL Server Authentication. For Windows Authentication choose a valid Windows User or Windows Group. For SQL Server Authentication define a name and password for this login
• select for the SQL Server the Server authentication 'SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode'. This configuration can be made in the properties section of the SQL Server
• create a new database. Give this database the name you want to use for the Vision Database
• create within this database a user with dbo permissions. The communication between the vision mangement website and the database uses this username.
• connect this user with the login you already created
• execute in the created database respectively the sql-scripts 'CreateDatabase.sql', 'CreateSPs.sql' and 'CreateIndexes. sql' from the release folder.  

Upgrading existing version

From 18.04, upgrading the Vision database is done from the Vision Management site itself, using the new Vision Upgrade screen. Vision will lead you to this screen after installing the new code version. It will only do this when the database version does not match the code version, and only for admins with access to the security page. If the upgrade feature isn’t shown, make sure you access the Managementsite through a browser on the server itself, or have the servers hostname in the AdminHostNames configuration mentioned below.

In order to perform the database upgrade, a password will be required, which is defined through the configuration mentioned below. When everything is correct, a cumulative impact description is presented of upgrade sequence that applies to your configuration.

It is important to verify that when performing upgrades to the database, the ‘user’ has sufficient read/write rights. The user (and password) can be found in the Connection string (see below). Note that when no user and password are present, but instead Trusted_Connection=true, then the ‘user’ is the Application Pool user, which can be found in IIS.

It is strongly advised to backup your database before this upgrade. After making this backup you can press the ‘Start Upgrade’ button. Upgrade will then execute the needed version upgrades consecutively. The upgrade log section on the screen will display upgrade process.

Configuration

In the web.config of the Futurama Vision Management Site the connection between the Management Site and the Vision Database has to be set. In the configuration file the name of the database, the name of the user of the database and the password you chose for the SQL Server login are relevant. Consult the installation of the Management Site for exact information regarding this configuration.

Connection string SQL Server database

The Futurama Vision Database is a SQL Server database. In the previous paragraph is explained how to define the connection between the Futurama Vision Management Site and the Vision database. Sometimes it is necessary to retrieve data from tables of the Vision Database. This can be done by defining a connectstring key within the appSettings section of the Futurama application that has to make the connection with Vision. This can either a SQL authentication connectstring or a Windows authentication connectstring. See below an example for each of these authentication methods:

SQL authentication connectstring:

<add value="server=server_name;database=database_name;UID=user_name;password=password_name;" key="Name_ConnectString"></add>

Windows authentication connectstring:

<add name="Name_ConnectString" connectionString="Data Source=server_name;Initial Catalog=database_name;Integrated Security=True;"></add>

Administrative access (Futurama 18.07 and newer)

In order to allow a user to upgrade the database through the Upgrade page within the Vision Management site itself, the following configuration is required within the web.config file of the Vision Managementsite:

<configSections>
	<sectionGroup name="visionSettings">    
		<section name="security" type="ActuIT.Futurama.Vision.Config.SecurityConfigSection, ActuIT.Futurama.Vision.Business"/>
	</sectionGroup>
</configSections>

and

<visionSettings>
	<security mode="{basic/advanced}" adminHostnames="{list of accessible hostnames}" adminPassword="{password value}"/>
</visionSettings>

• mode: This setting is intended for the user-security, and will not influence the upgrade procedure.
• adminPassword: This setting defines the password that must be entered when an upgrade is performed.
• adminHostnames [Optional]: This setting can contain a comma-separated list of hostnames from which the upgradepage should be accessible. The default value when omitted is “localhost”
  What this means is that in the default state, the upgrade page can only be shown for users that visit them page from the same machine (so they have ‘localhost’ in the browsers url).
  Should an administrator access the page through a different URL, like “http://mySite/vision”, then the “mySite” value must be included in the appsetting value, by setting it to value=”localhost;mySite”.

Administrative access (Futurama 18.06)

In order to allow a user to upgrade the database through the Upgrade page within the Vision Management site itself, the following AppSettings might be required:

 <appSettings>
	<add value="{password value}" key="AdminPassword"/>
	<add value="{list of accessible hostnames}" key="AdminHostnames"/>
</appSettings>

• AdminPassword: This setting defines the password that must be entered when an upgrade is performed.
• AdminHostnames [Optional]: This setting can contain a comma-separated list of hostnames from which the upgradepage should be accessible. The default value when omitted is “localhost”
  What this means is that in the default state, the upgrade page can only be shown for users that visit them page from the same machine (so they have ‘localhost’ in the browsers url).
  Should an administrator access the page through a different URL, like “http://mySite/vision”, then the “mySite” value must be included in the appsetting value, by setting it to value=”localhost;mySite”.

Testing

Checking tables

Open the Vision Database you created. Check whether there are several Vision tables or not.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter problems with the installation of the Vision Database check the sections below.

Cannot find the object because it does not exist or you do not have permissions.

When this text is found in the vision log after a failed upgrade, the database user probably needs more rights. To solve this problem, the database user needs the rights to alter the database, for instance by assigning the role ‘db_ddladmin’.

No Vision tables available

If you consult the tables in the Vision Database you created and you don't find any Vision tables, then something went wrong when executing the scripts of the release folder. Make sure you first select the Vision Database before executing the SQL-scripts.

Feedback

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