Understanding SAS/CONNECT Servers

Initial Configuration of the SAS/CONNECT Server

Overview of the Initial Configuration of the SAS/CONNECT Server

Overview of the Uses of SAS/CONNECT in the SAS Intelligence Platform looks at several scenarios in which SAS/CONNECT plays an important role in the SAS Intelligence Platform. In the first two scenarios, SAS/CONNECT must be configured on at least one machine in the system. This means that not only was SAS/CONNECT installed on the machine, but the SAS Deployment Wizard configured a SAS/CONNECT spawner and a SAS/CONNECT server on that machine.

If SAS/CONNECT was configured, then the SAS Deployment Wizard will have created metadata objects and files that are used in the management of the spawner and server. The next two sections explain what metadata objects and files were created so that you can understand how things are currently set up and where you might need to make changes.

SAS/CONNECT Metadata Objects

When the SAS Deployment Wizard configures SAS/CONNECT, it creates at least three metadata objects:

one representing a SAS/CONNECT spawner
one representing a SAS/CONNECT server
one representing a connection to the SAS/CONNECT server

You can see all of these objects in SAS Management Console. (In order to see the connection, you must select the server.)

[Server Manager plug-in SAS/CONNECT server tree structure]

You can view the properties of each object by right-clicking its icon and selecting Properties from the pop-up menu. A properties dialog box will be displayed.

The metadata definition for the SAS/CONNECT spawner is very simple. The main pieces of information that it contains are the following items:

name of the machine on which the spawner will run.
name of the metadata definition for the SAS/CONNECT server that the spawner can start. This will be set to SAS-application-server - Connect Server.

This metadata definition also specifies whether sign-on scripts are allowed. By default, this value is set to Yes.

The SAS Deployment Wizard creates the metadata for the SAS/CONNECT server (and the associated connection) and sets values for the following items:

name of the CONNECT server, logical server, and spawner
name of the CONNECT spawner log file
name, display name, and description of the CONNECT spawner Windows service

The following table lists the SAS/CONNECT properties and their default values as set by the SAS Deployment Wizard:

Default CONNECT Server, Spawner, and Connection Properties
Setting	Default
SAS invocation options	-dmr -noterminal -nosyntaxcheck
Authentication domain	DefaultAuth
Host name	localhost
Port	7551
SASCMD options	SAS-configuration-directory\Levn\SASApp\ConnectServer\ConnectServer.bat
Requires encryption	No
Encryption algorithm names	(none)
Encryption algorithm key size	0
Communication protocol	TCP
SIGNON type	Scriptless
Prompt for user ID and password	No
Execute remote submits synchronously	Yes
Display signon window	Yes
Signon wait	Yes

For more information about these settings, see the SAS/CONNECT User's Guide.

SAS/CONNECT Configuration Files

The SAS Deployment Wizard creates several directories and files in support of SAS/CONNECT.

The wizard creates two directories under SAS-config-dir\Levn: ConnectSpawner and ConnectSpawner\Logs. The Logs directory holds the SAS/CONNECT spawner log. The ConnectSpawner directory contains configuration files and scripts related to the operation of the SAS/CONNECT spawner. One of those files, metadataConfig.xml, contains the information that the SAS/CONNECT spawner needs in order to connect to the metadata server so that it can read the information it needs to start a SAS/CONNECT server. The file contains the following types of information:

name of the machine on which the metadata server is running
TCP/IP port on which the metadata server is listening
authentication domain to which the metadata server belongs
credentials that can be authenticated by the metadata server (those of the SAS Trusted User)
name of the metadata repository that contains the definition of the SAS/CONNECT server

The wizard also creates a ConnectServer and a ConnectServer\Logs directory under: SAS-config-dir\Levn\SASApp. These directories contain various configuration files for the SAS/CONNECT server, the SAS/CONNECT server log, and a script that the SAS/CONNECT spawner uses to start a SAS/CONNECT server process.

Changing the Logging Level of the SAS/CONNECT Spawner

By default, the SAS/CONNECT spawner does not write much information to its log file. To debug SIGNON problems, you might need to change the logging mode to verbose. For information about how to perform this task, see Administering Logging for SAS Servers in the SAS Intelligence Platform: System Administration Guide.

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