How to set up a WebFront in IP-Symcon to control a Xcomfort system

·         Open the “IP-Symcon Management Console”

·         First you need to make sure the IPSymcon WebServer is running. This is done by clicking on the “Logical Treeview” link

·         Navigate to the “Core Instances” and check that there is a component called “WebInterface WebFront”. Double click on this to open the property page.

·         Verify that the server is running and that it is configured to listed to “All” addresses and that the Port is set to a TCP port that is not in use (default is 82). Make a note of the port value as we will configure the firewall later to allow incoming traffic to this port. If you made any changes then click [Apply]

·         Next you need to organize all the XComfort components into a logical structure.

·         Still in the “Logical Treeview” window. As shown in the example below I have created a set of Catagories and placed the XComfort components (and some PHP scripts) into a desired logical structure. You add a new Category by right click a node and select “Add Object – Add Category”

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      Now, close the “Logical Treeview” window and return to the main windows in IPSymcon

·         Normally IPSymcon is installed with a default web front. I will now add an additional WebFront only for the XComfort components show above. Click on the “Configure WebFront” link

·         Click on the [New] button

·         A default WebFront is created with some basic items in it. In this example I will not make many adjustments to this, but there is a lot of configuration you can do to build quite advanced web pages to control various events and components.

·         Double click on the “Category” item to open the properties page

·         Click on the number 0 value in the “Root” property.

·         A location tree will now appear. Select the root level of the XComfort devices you want to add by double click on it (in my example it is the “Lys” with ObjectID 42817)

·         Back in the Category properties window, verify that the root value have changed to the ObjectID that you selected (in my example this is 42817). Click [OK]

·         Back in the WebFront config window, click [Apply]

·         Click on the “Appearance” TAB and e.g specify the name “XComfort” in the Title field . Click [Apply]

·         If you are using the Android or iOS app from IPSymcon then click on the “Mobile/Retro” TAB and configure as shown below. Click [OK] and [Apply] when done

·         You may also want to protect the access to this configuration with a password. You do this by clicking on the “Security” TAB and specify a password. This is especially important if you publish this configuration towards Internet in your internet router (e.g if you want to control the WebFront from the mobile app and/or a browser outside your home).

·         OK, almost there. You can now close the WebFront configurator and return to the main window in IP Symcon and then close the IP Symcon console

·         Finalize the setup by configure the Windows firewall. Open the windows Firewall management console (in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 this is called “Windows Firewall with Advanced Security”

·         Click on the “Inbound” node and click “New Rule” in the action pane:

o   Select “Port”

o   Select “TCP” and then specify the port 82 (same as the IPSymcon WebServer is running on as shown previously in this procedure)

o   Select “Allow the connection”

o   Select “Domain”, “Private” and “Public”

o   Type a name for the rule

o   Click [Finish]

·         Now test the new WebFront by open an internet explorer e.g Chrome (do not use IE as this does not work properly with IPSymcon) and specify the URL:
 http://<ip address of your machine>:82

·         You should now see the IPSymcon welcome page and a link called “XComfort” (if you used that name on the WebFront previously) at the front page. The “Login” is another WebFront that I have in my system.

·         Click on the XComfort link and specify the password (if that was configured previously). The web page (WebFront) is now shown and you have a menu item corresponding to the logical structure of your XComfort devices as configured in the IPSymcon logical treeview.

·         If you need access from Internet, then publish this IP and port through your Internet router. I will not go into details how this is done as this varies quite a bit from router to router. See the internet router documentation for instructions how to do this.

·         If you are using the IPSymcon mobile app, then configure this to point to the same IP and port as shown above (or the NAT ip address of your internet router). You will then get the same logical structure on the mobile device as shown in the browser above. I know the app cost a bit, but I can strongly recommend it.

·         Enjoy!