Launching a Client

Now that we've created a project, lets launch a Client to see it in action.

1. From the Designer toolbar, select File > Save and Publish to save your project.

2. Go back to the Gateway Home page.
   Your project will appear in the Launch Projects panel with a big Launch button to its right.

3. Click on the Launch button to start up a Client.

4. Login to the Client using
   Username: admin
   Password: password
   
   By default, a new project uses the same user source as the Gateway, so the admin/password credentials will work.

5. After you logged in, you can see your Client window displaying your project.

6. Go back into the Designer, make a change to the window, and click File > Save and Publish.
   Your Client will show a notification saying that there are updates to the project.

7. Click on the notification and the Client will update itself.

   You can launch as many Clients as you want! If you've got other computers on the same network as the Gateway computer try launching on them too. Make sure that your Gateway computer doesn't have a Firewall enabled, otherwise, it is allowing traffic on port 8088 - the default port for the Ignition web server.

Local Client Fallback

Ignition Clients are fully dependent on being able to communicate with a Gateway. If Gateway communication is lost, the Client suspends operation while it attempts to reconnect with the Gateway. This can be a problem when you need the Client to monitor critical operations on a plant floor.

Ignition provides a local Client fallback mechanism that lets you to use a Gateway running on the local machine. In normal operation, your Client can connect to a central Gateway located somewhere on the network. The central Gateway would be responsible for all data aggregation, such as storing historical data in a database. But if communication to the central Gateway is lost, the Client can automatically retarget to a project that you specify in the local Gateway. This project should contain the minimal realtime information that you need to keep your operation running. Note that in order to use local fallback, port 6501 must be open on the local machine.

To enable local fallback, do the following steps:

1. Go to Configuration > Gateway Settings in the local Gateway.

2. Scroll down to the Local Client Fallback section and select the Enable Local Fallback.

3. Select a Fallback Project from the dropdown list.
   Note that the project that you select must be published in the local Gateway and it must have at least one main window.

4. Optionally, you can change the Seconds to Failover setting to a value other than 60 seconds.
   This setting controls the number of seconds to wait before fallback automatically starts. During comm failure, you can also click a button to load the local fallback project immediately.

When local fallback is enabled, the Client attempts to open port 6501 on the local machine. If the port can be opened successfully, the Client reads fallback settings from the local Gateway and shows a Fallback Project button on the bottom of the Gateway Connection Lost window. You can click this button at any time to load the fallback project, or simply wait for the fallback project to automatically load. You may want to set the local Client to automatically log in to avoid typing in a username and password when the Client loads. This can be set in the Login section of the project's properties.

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