Manage Commander Services

The Snow Commander Control Panel allows you to manage the Commander services and database.

Access the Control Panel

To access the Control Panel on the application server, from the Windows Start menu, click the Control Panel shortcut in the Snow Software program group.

When you change a setting for one of the following tasks and click OK, you will be prompted to restart the service. If you then click OK, the service will automatically restart.

Snow Commander Control Panel Tasks

TaskSteps

Check the status of the Commander service and the Identity service

On the Service Control tab, Service State displays the current state of the Commander service and the Identity service.

Start, stop, or restart the Commander service

  1. On the Service Control tab, click Services as a quick shortcut to opening the Windows Service Control Manager.
  2. Locate the Commander service to start, stop, or restart the service.

    While there are other Commander services, including the database and message queue services, you only need to start, stop, or restart only the service named "Commander".

Modify the level of logs to be viewed

On the Service Control tab, click Edit Logging. This opens the log4j2.xml file in the editor configured for files of this type.

We recommend opening the log4j2.xml file in a text editor other than Notepad, so that the file is easier to read.

See the Snow Globe article Controlling Commander Logging Level to learn how to edit logging levels, or create a case through the Snow Support Portal to get help.

Verify or modify the port for the default (Postgres) database

  1. Click the DB Management tab.
  2. Change the configuration information as necessary.
  3. Click Test Connection.
  4. Click OK.

Verify or reconfigure a Microsoft SQL database

  1. Click the DB Management tab.
  2. Change the configuration information as necessary.
  3. Click Test Connection.
  4. Click OK.

Verify or modify any of the following ports:

  • Commander service port
  • Service Portal port
  • Admin port
  1. Click the Port Management tab.
  2. Change the configuration information as necessary.
  3. Click Test Ports.
  4. Click OK.

Using a separate port for the Service Portal

You can use a separate port for the Service Portal to open your firewall for the Service Portal port only and prevent Service Portal users from accessing Commander.

If you configure a separate port for the Service Portal, users can access the Service Portal at:
https://<FQDN or IP address>:<port>

Or, optionally:
https://<FQDN or IP address>:<port>/portal

If you change port numbers for Commander or the Service Portal, links in notification emails sent before you changed the ports will no longer work. You must resend notification emails as required.

Commander services

When Commander is launched, it will start the following services, which are used to support Commander operations.

Commander ServiceDescription

Commander (vlm)

The main Commander Windows service.

Commander Consul (vlm-consul)

The HashiCorp Consul agent used for service discovery and orchestration.

Commander Currency Service

The Commander Currency service.

Commander Database

The Commander Database service.

Commander Hyper-V Adapter (vlm-hyperv)

The Commander Hyper-V network adapter (created only if Hyper-V Manager exists on a VM).

Commander Identity Service (vlm-identity)

The Commander Identity service.

Commander LinkerD (vlm-linkerd)

The Commander LinkerD service mesh.

Commander Message Queue

The Commander message broker.

Commander Terraform Service

The Commander Terraform service.

To view services from the Snow Commander Control Panel, on the Service Control tab, click the Services. The system's services are shown in the Windows Service Control Manager.