1 Preface

One TRIBON project is a complex environment which consists of different kind of information. There are data banks, default files, project configuration file, symbols, applications' input and output files, etc. Each of these items has to be accessed and supported in the right way. For example, the data banks have to be accessed only trough the applications that are especially designed for this purpose. Opening any of the data banks' files as a text file for example may corrupt the data bank and destroy the information inside, hence to destroy the model information.

Considering the TRIBON working environment in the real live, we have to admit that one TRIBON project will be accessed by a number of people, specialists in their area - pipe, hull, outfitting, etc., but with different computer skills. In order to build one trouble less working environment, we must protect the sensitive project information from the human's mistakes and at the same time to provide flexible and unrestricted way of working for every project participant.

The purpose of this document is to give to the reader a basic understanding for TRIBON project environment, the usage of the different project's items and some examples of how these items could be organized and protected using the standard Windows security facilities.

2 Basic concept

In the real practice one TRIBON project is accessed in client-server working environment. In other words , the project and all its components are located on the server while the designers' workstations (client PCs) are running the applications locally and access the model information located on the server. This way all project participants use the latest model information and the latest project settings. All sensitive information is located in one place (on the server) and it is easy to back up or restore it when required.

2.1 The server

Generally when we say "server", we have in mind a powerful computer running Windows Server operating system. On this machine we could set up a number of software servers to handle the client-server networking environment. Such servers could be DNS, DHCP, Telnet, FTP etc. On the same machine we could create and configure different computers, groups and users accounts with the corresponding level of privileges and file access permissions. Usually we setup this machine as a domain controller. These settings are network wide and even if the user login from different client's workstation he will have always one and the same privileges.

TRIBON Server

Normally we call "TRIBON server" the machine where the TRIBON projects are located. This could be the same domain controller, a second domain controller or even just a normal computer running Windows Workstation software but with higher performance. However for a workgroup of 3 to 7 designers one workstation dedicated for TRIBON server could be more than enough, but for bigger design offices Windows Server operating system is recommendable.

What we call "TRIBON Server" is actually a set of software servers (windows services) and project relevant data banks and ASCII files. Depending on the purpose of this software we can define the following items:

• TRIBON License Server
  
• TRIBON Data Base Server
  
• TRIBON Surface Server
  
• TRIBON Project Server
  

The common practice is to have all of them configured and working on one and the same machine and usually this is a Windows Server platform. In some rare cases the surface server could be located on a different PC or even there could be more than one surface servers running in the network. At this moment I would like to point out only the difference between Data Base Server and Project Server. For many users both servers sounds as one and the same functionality, but it is quite different actually. The Data Base server is supposed to provide access to the data banks where the model objects are stored, while the Project server's usage is to keep the project's definitions and to provide this information to the client's PCs, serving d065...sdb files in fact.

TRIBON Client

Usually this is the designer's PC which is running Windows Workstation software. TRIBON software must be installed on this machine as well. It is user's choice whether a full installation to be done or only the required packages for this particular working place to be installed.

Generally the client's PC access the information located on the server in two ways:

• TRIBON data banks are accessed using TRIBON data base server and its sub servers based on PowerRPC Portmapper service
  
• For all other files the standard Windows file sharing is used