msgmgr – Message Manager by Ted Jirik Description Message Manager was originally designed to act as a PC-based alarm alert system for Foxboro display managers running on a PC. It accepts and displays messages in real time with prioritized visual and sound notification. It was designed to include a configurable soft key panel to mimic the Foxboro annunciator panel and allow integration with the Display Manager running on the PC. Communication to I/A is accomplished using TCP/IP. Up to ten alarm servers can be run on a single 51-series machine. Process alarms, System alarms and Operator Actions are sent to queue names associated with an alarm server process. The last fifty messages are stored in a circular shared memory area created by the alarm server. Configuration files for soft key buttons and user messages are centrally located on the server and are sent to the PC when it connects. A single configuration file is manually copied between the server and the client PCs which informs the package which queues are available and where they are located. Remote clients connect to a server and are sent messages as they enter the shared area. There is no imposed limit on the number of PCs which may connect to the alarm server queue. As the program was rolled out a need for alarm archiving was recognized and it was initially implemented using Access97 compatible files. We soon found this too cumbersome and inflexible so support for MS SQL Server 7 was added. It is now used in a user interface role at some sites and some sites use it only for archiving alarms to SQL Server. In the archiving role it can be activated and run as an NT Service to save alarms with out requiring a user to be logged in. Version 6a notes (16 October 2001): There are some minor internal changes. Also corrected an example inetd.conf file which came off a system with tcp wrappers installed. Most users do not have the tcpd executable so the sample entries would not work without modification. Installation Instructions The PC client is installed by executing the self-extracting executable, then running the setup.exe installation program. Online help includes screen shots as well as installation instructions. Copy msgmgr-6a.exe to a directory of your choice Double-click on the file to extracted the files to a directory of your choice Traverve to said directory, double-click on setup.exe to start the installation Download download MsgMgr-6a.exe (1.71 MB) Author Ted Jirik Real Time Solutions, Inc.