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Installation and Setup

• How to set up your network for Smedge
• Installing Smedge
• Configuring Smedge
  • Specifying a dedicated server
  • Advanced port configuration
  • Behind a firewall
• Uninstalling Smedge

Welcome to the world of Smedge.

Before installing Smedge, there are some considerations about your network setup that you should be aware of. At its heart, Smedge is nothing more than a shell program for launching command line renders. In order for it to work, you need to actually be able to render from any machine. Smedge makes one basic assumption:

The files being used for a job are in the same place on every render client.

Implicit in this assumption is the idea that every machine has access to the same files. If MyScene.mb on machine A is different than MyScene.mb on machine B, then the two machines are going to render different images.

One way to set the clients to be the same is to use Windows NT drive letters. If you have a file server, make sure that every machine is mounting the shared volume at the same drive letter. If you are using Windows peer-to-peer networking, you can change the drive letter of your shared disk and mount that shared disk at the same drive letter on the other machines.

Smedge has no problem with UNC pathnames (e.g. \\MyServer\SharedDisk\Project\scenes\scene.mb). However, Windows does not support UNC paths as a startup directory. For products that allow you to set the startup directory, if you provide a UNC path, Windows will ignore it and use the Windows directory by default.

Pre-Smedge checklist

The following steps provide a simple way of setting up your network to allow Smedge to render. For this example, we concentrate on Maya, but the same theories apply for any product you want to render through Smedge. Please Note: These are generic instructions. Your network setup may be different. Contact your network administrator for more information.

1.	Install Maya on your Render Clients	Follow the instructions that come with Maya to install and configure Maya to render on each computer you want to use as a render client
2.	Set-up your shared project space	Make sure that every client is set up with the same access points to your scenes. For example, if you use a file server, make sure that every client mounts that file server at the same drive letter.
3.	Install Smedge on your Render Clients	See the next section for more information.
4.	Configure Smedge to render	Make sure that every render client has Maya enabled in its Client Settings dialog box. Also make sure that every client is enabled and has checked out a license.
5.	Test it out	Try submitting a render. If it doesn't work, take a look at the FAQ for more help, or try contacting technical support at support@uberware.net.

Smedge comes with an installer program. However, Smedge can also install itself just by running the Smedge.exe program on any computer. There are five files that are necessary to run Smedge:

Smedge.exe	The executable itself
Watcher.exe	A supporting appliction for crash protection
Platform.dll	A library of Win32 network functions
Smedge.hlp	The help file
Smedge.cnt	The contents file for the help system

The other files that come in the Smedge distribution are files that provide information about the product, or examples of using the product. You do not need these files to run Smedge.

After you have run Smedge you will see a file with the name of your computer in the same directory as the Smedge.exe file. These are the debugging log files. The name of the file tells you which computer generated this log information. You can delete these files at any time. If you are having a problem, though, it may be useful to send the log file to technical support. It provides information about what is happening to Smedge and what it is trying to do.

An easy way to configure Smedge is to install it onto a shared directory on your file server. Then just make a shortcut to the executable on each computer you want to run Smedge. It is often a good idea to put a shortcut to Smedge in the Startup folder of the Start menu for "All Users." This way, whenever someone logs into the computer, Smedge will start automatically. And to update Smedge, you only have to update it in one place.

Smedge stores its configuration in the Windows NT registry. Some settings are user specific, such as the window position and the sound Smedge plays when a render completes, and others are machine specific, such as the number of processors available. You need to make sure that the user running Smedge has permission to modify registry settings under the keys:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software

By default, Smedge will configure a client in the following manner:

• Smedge will assume that all the renderer executables are in the user's PATH environment variable
• Smedge will try to check out a license to render on the client
• Smedge will be enabled for Maya and Generic scripts
• There will be no time restrictions
• All processors on the machine will be made available to jobs
• Smedge will try to save output in the local TEMP folder, and will limit that output to 5 MB

All of these options, and more, are configurable. You can even configure multiple machines at the same time, and change the configuration of any machine running Smedge on your entire network. For more information, see the chapter on The Smedge Client.

Smedge #31 and later allow you to specify a dedicated server machine. Any client that you tell about the server will bypass the UDP server location system. Obviously, if the client sees that it is supposed to be the dedicated server, it will start up the server process automatically.

There are two ways to configure the dedicated server, with a server.txt file or with the command line.

You can create a text file in the same folder as the smedge.exe program file called server.txt. This file should have one line, and that one line should contain the name or the IP address of the computer you want to act as the server, and optionally the TCP port to use for communication. The format of the line is:

server:port

server can be a computer's name (for example, EDGAR), or its IP address (192.168.0.3). port should be an unsigned integer less than 65536. You shouldn't use a port that is being used for any other service on your computer, as conflicts will result and Smedge may not work correctly. If you leave the port off, Smedge will use the default port 4566.

If you use the command line switch -server it will override the server.txt file, if it exists. The syntax for the command line is:

Smedge -server server:port

the server and port parameters work the same as in the file. The port is optional.

If you dedicate a server machine, that server will still listen on the UDP port as well, and will respond correctly to server requests from the original floating server location system. This means that if you do not provide either the file or the commandline switch to a client, it will still find the dedicated server. However, this means that you still may need to be aware of the Advanced port configuration settings for both the dedicated server and the client that doesn't know about the dedicated server.

Note that you should use the same server.txt file for every client on your network that you want to connect to that server. If you do not, other clients could start up their own server, and you could end up with multiple servers on your network. One easy way to do this is to setup Smedge to run from a common shared folder, as described above.

Smedge #30 and later have the ability to configure the port used for server location. Clients use this port to locate the server, through which all other communication is routed. If you change this port, you need to make sure that every machine you want to connect uses the same port number. If two clients are started with different server ports, those two machines will never know about each other, and will work independently.

Smedge uses the following method to determine the port to use to locate a server:

1. If you provide the command line switch -port port_number, Smedge will use that port to look for a server.
2. Next, Smedge will look at the registry key HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Überware\Smedge\Options\Port, which should be a DWORD value.
3. Next, Smedge will look at the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Überware\Smedge\Host\Port, which should also be a DWORD value.
4. Finally, if none of the above options are set, Smedge will use the default port, 4566

Note: Smedge #29 and earlier cannot change this port. The port they use will always be 4566.

There is only one configuration that should have to be changed to use Smedge in a protected network. Smedge uses a UDP port to locate the server. You need to make sure that your firewall allows UPD network broadcasts on the chosen port in order for Smedge to find the network. All other communication is sent through TCP ports that are determined at run-time and broadcast through that UDP port.

Alternatively, you can now dedicate a machine to be the server machine, and no UDP messages will be used to locate the server. See Specifying a dedicated server for more information.

See Advanced port configuration for more information on how Smedge chooses which port to use. Smedge #29 and earlier cannot change the port, and always use the default port 4566.

If you use the installer to install Smedge, it provides an option for removing the program.

If you didn't use the installer, you can just delete the Smedge files.

You can also delete the "Smedge" keys in the registry in the following places:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Überware\ and
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Überware\