Command Line Tool for Management of Altium NEXUS Server

This document is no longer available beyond version 5.0. Information can now be found here: Command Line Tool for Management of Altium On-Prem Enterprise Server for version 7.0

This documentation page references NEXUS Server (part of the deployed NEXUS solution), which has been discontinued. All your PCB design, data management and collaboration needs can now be delivered by Altium Designer and a connected Altium 365 Workspace. Check out the FAQs page for more information.

 

Parent page: Altium NEXUS Server – Details for IT Departments

The Altium NEXUS Server provides a Command Line tool to cater for the following aspects of NEXUS Server Configuration:

  • User Management – allowing the Altium NEXUS Server to be preloaded with bulk user and role configurations derived from company systems or records, thereby avoiding a need to individually create the entries through the NEXUS Server's browser-based interface. The tool supports the import of Users, Roles, and user-role membership data from standard comma-delimited *.csv files.
  • Part Choice Indexing – allowing you to manually perform a re-indexing of the Part Choices for your managed components, sourced through user-defined Part Sources (connections to local parts databases).
Part choice re-indexing can be setup to occur automatically. Configure this using the Indexing part choices every field, when defining a custom database part source. Part sources are defined by a NEXUS Server administrator on the Part Providers page (Admin – Part Providers) of the NEXUS Server's browser interface. For more information, see Configuring a Custom Database Part Source.

The tool – avconfiguration.exe – is included with your Altium NEXUS Server installation and can be found in the \Program Files (x86)\Altium\Altium NEXUS Server\Tools\VaultConfigurationTool folder.

Even though the tool can be used for automated user management, the recommended approach is to use LDAP synchronization functionality.

Accessing the Configuration Tool

To use the tool:

  1. Launch a Windows Command Prompt.
  2. Navigate to the correct folder. For a default installation on C drive of the host computer, this will be: cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Altium\Altium NEXUS Server\Tools\VaultConfigurationTool\.
  3. To run the tool and list the available options, at the prompt type: avconfiguration ?
Depending on the server PC's operating system, copied text can be pasted into the command prompt using right-click or Ctrl+V, or both.

Accessing the configuration tool through a Command Prompt.Accessing the configuration tool through a Command Prompt.

Note the ?, including this displays help on the functions available in the configuration tool:

  • usermanagement – import Users and Roles.
  • suppliers – Part Choice indexing.
  • help – display the help screen (? can be used instead of the string help).

Usermanagement Syntax and Switches

The following switches are available when using the usermanagement function of the tool:

avconfiguration usermanagement [-help | params [options]]

where available params are:

  • --url – required. Address and port of target Altium NEXUS Server.
  • --user – required. User Name portion of a NEXUS Server user's access credentials.
  • --password – required. Password portion of a NEXUS Server user's access credentials (case sensitive).
  • --roles – filename of the file containing roles to import.
  • --users – filename of the file containing users to import.
  • --memberships – filename of the file containing users memberships to import.
The default search path for the CSV input data files is the current directory (where the avconfiguration.exe file resides). If a data file is not located in the current directory, the path to the data file needs to be included.

Available options are:

  • -d – delete users and roles not listed in the supplied files. All existing users and roles in the NEXUS Server, and which are not listed in the supplied files, will be deleted (with the exception of the System and admin users, and the Administrators role).
  • -o – overwrite existing data. If a user exists in the NEXUS Server, and is also part of a file being imported, then the information in the NEXUS Server will be overwritten with that in the imported file.

By typing just avconfiguration usermanagement, these switches will be listed as a helpful aid.

Switches available when using the tool in usermanagement mode.Switches available when using the tool in usermanagement mode.

Example CSV Files

An example of each recognized *.csv file in included in the tool's directory (\Program Files (x86)\Altium\Altium NEXUS Server\Tools\VaultConfigurationTool). The content descriptions of each file type, and any requirements, are shown below.

users.csv

Contains User profiles data.

Field name Description Requirements
FIRSTNAME First name Required (must be at least one character)
LASTNAME Last name Required (must be at least one character)
USERNAME User name Required
PASSWORD User password Required for 'Built In' Authentication mode
PHONE Phone number  
AUTHTYPE AUTHTYPE Required: Type of Authentication; 0 for 'Built In' Authentication, 1 for 'Windows' (Domain) Authentication
EMAIL Email address  
DOMAIN Domain name Required for 'Windows' Authentication mode.
  • Each user must be defined on a new line of the file.
  • No entries will be imported into the NEXUS Server if data for any of the Required fields are missing in the users.csv file.
  • User entries will not be imported if there is an error in the data, such as a Domain included when the AUTHTYPE is incorrectly set at 0 ('Built In').
  • All fields must be present in the CSV file, separated by a comma. The data for non-required fields should be blank (e.g. field1,,field2,...).
roles.csv

Contains Role data.

Field name Description
ROLENAME Name of Role (must be at least one character)
  • Each role must be defined on a new line of the file.
memberships.csv

Contains User Role membership data (that is, which users are members of which Roles)

Field name Description
ROLENAME Role name
USERNAME User name
  • Each user-role membership definition must be defined on a new line of the file.
  • Fields must be separated by a comma.
  • Invalid USERNAME–ROLENAME matches will fail, but not prevent valid matches from being imported.

Suppliers Syntax and Switches

The following switches are available when using the suppliers function of the tool:

avconfiguration suppliers [-help | params]

where available params are:

  • --url – required. Address and port of target Altium NEXUS Server.
  • --user – required. User Name portion of a NEXUS Server user's access credentials.
  • --passwordMD5 – required. Password portion of a NEXUS Server user's access credentials, as an MD5 hash value.
  • --reindexPartChoice – required. Supplier name(s) to start part choice indexing. This is the name of the user-defined custom database Part Source that has been configured to connect to a local company parts database. Separate multiple Suppliers (Part Sources) using a comma. Note that because the comma character is used as a separator, it cannot be used within a Part Source name.
Part sources are defined by a NEXUS Server administrator on the Part Providers page (Admin – Part Providers) of the NEXUS Server's browser interface. For more information, see Configuring a Custom Database Part Source.

By typing just avconfiguration suppliers, these switches will be listed as a helpful aid.

Switches available when using the tool in suppliers mode.Switches available when using the tool in suppliers mode.

An example entry might be:

avconfiguration suppliers --url=http://localhost:9780 --user=admin --passwordMD5=21232f297a57a5a743894a0e4a801fc3 --reindexPartChoice=MySQLODBC,MsSQL

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