Properties
The Properties tab allows you to configure how MIS Communicator services can be access, by configuring the connection type Serial/TCP IP/Bluetooth and its properties.
Description
The description field allows you to give a name to this connection, and will be used to identify the connection in the other screens of MISCommunicator. Give it a name that is meaningfull if you will have multiple connections configured.
Type
Local COM Port
This connection type is used for serial connections to a local COM port. This is also valid for Bluetooth, if you have associated a COM port to the Bluetooth connection.
When using a serial connection, you should select the appropriate settings for the connection with the following parameters, and you should take attention to use the same settings when you configure the client Application that will use this connection.
Port - Here you should enter the COM port number that you want to use to listen for connections
Baudrate - Select the Baudrate for the serial connection
Parity - Select the Parity option for the serial connection
Data Bits - Select the Data Bits option for the serial connection
Stop Bits - Select the Stop Bits option for the serial connection
Serial Connections do not allow you to use the ODBC/OLEDB services provided by MIS Communicator
TCP/IP
This is the most common option used with MIS Communicator, it allows you to select a network Port to open on this machine to listen for requests from the client applications
Port - Here you should enter the network Port number to open. This is important, since you must select a free port that is not already used by another service, and you must also specify this port on the client application.
Don't forget to open this port on your firewall to allow incoming TCP/IP connections
If you want to open this port to an external network, don't forget to configure your router to forward external connections for this port to this Windows machine
Bluetooth
This option allows you to listen for incoming Bluetooth serial profile connections without having to associate the Bluetooth connection with a serial COM port. Normally on the device side you will access this connection by using this machine Bluetooth MAC address.
Bluetooth Connections do not allow you to use the ODBC/OLEDB services provided by MIS Communicator
Timeout Type
You are advised to use the Client Defined option. With this option, MISCommunicator will use the timeout settings defined by the client application when the connection is established.
If you use Fixed Values, the you must manually set the Timeout and Tries parameters.
Timeout
This is the maximum time in seconds MIS Communicator will wait without receiving and request or confirmation by the client application.
When the client application connects to MIS Communicator, it can send several requests using the same connection, if MIS Communicator does to receive any request within this period, it will terminate the connection.
This timeout is also applied when MIS Communicator is waiting for a confirmation from the client. For example, if a File is sent, then MIS Communicator will wait for a confirmation on the reception, and if that confirmation is not received within the timeout period, the connection is terminated, and MIS Communicator will consider that the file was not received by the client.
Kalipso client applications may use a Keep Alive mechanism to keep the connection active while they have no requests to make, so the connection doesn't timeout.
Tries
This is the maximum number of times an operation should be retried when it fails.
In some operations, MIS Communicator may need to retry its execution. For example when it is sending a File, if the client responds with an error, MIS Communicator will try to resend the File.
Timewait
This option is rarely used, its purpose it's to slow the transmission of data to the client. It is a delay in hundreds of second between each data packet sent to the client, so the higher this value is, the slower the transmission will be.
It can be necessary if the client is using a very slow network, like GPRS, and it may happen that MIS Communicator sends data to the client so quickly that the network buffers may overflow, because the client is receiving data very slowly, causing the data connection to drop.
It may also be useful to prioritize connections. For example you can have 2 connections in MISCommunicator, one without Timewait, and the other with a Timewat defined, this will cause that connections received on the second will be slower, leaving more network bandwidth and server resources available for the first connection.
Password
This parameter is very important, it is the connection authorization password. When a client connects to MIS Communicator, it needs to send this password to authenticate, so MIS Communicator will accept the connection.
Never leave this empty or with a weak password.
Doing so, may leave your machine vulnerable to unauthorized connections.
Encryption
This option allows you to select the encryption type on your connection, and in case of TLS option you can also use additional authentication options to increase security.
None
This option will create an unencrypted connection, so all data transfered will be in plain text.
You should only use this option if this connection is limited to the local network and you need to sacrifice security for a slight performance increase.
There is no other reason known to have this option active except for that slight increase in performance.
AES 256
This option will encrypt the data transmited with the Password parameter using AES 256 algorithm.
It provides a medium level protection on your data. The 2 main use cases for choosing this option instead of TLS is for compatibility with older Kalipso client versions that did not support TLS, or if you need to make many small requests to MIS Communicator, and you need to squeeze out that extra time that it takes to establish a TLS connection.
TLS
This is the best option in terms of security for your connection. It uses the well known TLS protocol to secure your connection and it gives you the possibility to increase the protection of your solution by giving you additional authentication options for both client and server side using certificates.
When you select this option, the Configure TLS button will become available for you to configure additional security options for this connection.
If you do not make any additional configuration, this connection will only have the protection provided by data encryption of the TLS protocol, but will not give you any additional security in terms of authentication.
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