This documentation is only valid for versions >= 5.9.0.
System server list
ecFlowUI can make use of multiple externally managed system server lists. A system server list is just a text file where each row is either a path to another system server list file or specifies a server (name, host and port with a space separator):
path_to_another_system_server_list_file1 name1 host1 port1 name2 host2 port2 ...
Servers from these lists are marked as "system" in ecFlowUI and represented by a different colour and icon decoration (in column "S") in the Manage servers dialogue (see server "demo2" in the snapshot below).
Please note that servers marked as "system" cannot be modified or removed. Instead they are managed by an automatic update process (see below).
Specifying the system server lists
A colon separated list of system server list files can be defined via the ECFLOW_SYSTEM_SERVERS_LIST environment variable. At ECMWF this is pre-set in the ecFlowUI start-up script on installation so you do not need to set it. However, if you define it it will overwrite the pre-set value (if there is any).
It is also possible to specify this list of paths in ecFlowUI in Preferences > Server > System server list. Any paths here will overwrite the ones defined via the environment variable! Having set this value and pressing Apply/Ok the system server list synchronisation (see below) is automatically performed. The advantage of using it over the environment variable is that it needs to be set only once! Probably this is the best option when you access ECMWF servers remotely via proxychains (see here).
You can always check the current value of ECFLOW_SYSTEM_SERVERS_LIST before starting up ecFlowUI with the following command:
ecflow_ui -h
However, it does not show what has been set in the ecFlowUI Preferences.
Getting updates from the system server list
On each startup ecFlowUI checks the system server lists and updates its local server list with it. This update process uses the following algorithm:
- If a server in the system list does not appear in the local list, it is added to the local list and marked as system.
- If a server in the system list does appear in the local list but the host or port do not match, the local version will be updated.
- If a server is marked as "system" in the local list but does not appear in the system list it will be removed!
If any changes happen during the update process an indicator icon will appear in the left hand side of the statusbar:
Clicking on this icon will start up the Manage servers dialogue showing the change log of the update process:
Closing this dialogue will make the statusbar notification disappear but the change log can still be viewed in the Manage servers dialogue any time by using the the Show update log button at the top of the dialogue:
When no changes happen during the update this button is disabled.