Can you use LV6.1 Remote Panel AND CGI?

[Matthew Verleger]

I would like to use both CGI and the Remote Panel system of LabView 6.1. I'd perfer to be able to implement the CGI in either Perl or LabView, but anything would work. What I'm trying to do is have a front end that is mainly all CGI, and only after certain conditions things have occured in the CGI would they be allowed access to the Remote Panel. This could be pretty easily done by having the CGI write the HTML file for the Remote Panel. I would do it all using Remote Panel, but the I only have 1 license, and I only really want 1 person to be able to use the Remote Panel at a time, but I want multiple people to have access to the CGI at any given time. Any ideas would be more helpful.

[ElliotR]

Yes, it is possible to use CGI (Internet Toolkit) and Remote Panels at the same time. The only trick is that the LV Web Server and G Web Server can not both be on port 80 at the same time, so one of them will have to move to another port.

[Matthew Verleger]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but because of the port difference, I wouldn't be able to have the CGI write the Remote Panel HTML for the user. The HTML would have to be a stand-alone page, and the CGI would simply provide the link to that page. If I'm missing something, please explain, but that thought had already occured to me. Thanks

Matthew

[ElliotR]

Actually you can use a meta tag to redirect the client to the newly built embedded control page. For example:



This should allow you to:
- get the request from the client on the CGI page
- build the html page with the embedded control
- redirect the user to the remote panel page on the different port

Just note that the url must be an absolute one (not relative), and you might want to talk to your IT department if you need to open this port up outside of the firewall.

Hope this helps.

[parenp]

I'm working on a similar issue with controlling connections to my remote panels. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the above solution has some loopholes also. Since the CGI script is generating a new HTML and actually writing it to disk, wouldn't anyone else also be able to connect to this newly page if they new the URL?

For instace:

1) A person logs in from the CGI page.
2) The CGI script builds the remote panel page.
3) At any time thereafter, someone knowing the name of the new webpage can connect to it.

Now this problem could be solved if the newly generated page could be sent directly to the person who has logged in if session variables were used within a single web server. However, since two separate web servers are being
used, this is probably not possible.

If anyone has a solution to this new problem or can refute what I've just said, please let me know. I have been running over how to do use a login system repeatedly without success. I really don't want to default back to using IP addresses to block access since my users will be 1) spread across multiple IP ranges and 2) more than likely unable to provide their own IP addresses if requested.

Thanks,
Pete