ADDERLink INFINITY Manager Manual

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Receivers > Add Receiver Group or Configure Group
From the View Receiver Groups page, you can create a new group or configure an 
existing group: 
• To create a new group: Click the “Add Receiver Group” option.
• To configure an existing group: Click  for a group.
The Add and Configure pages are similar in content. 
Login Required
• No: When selected, anyone can use a receiver terminal and connect to a channel. The 
channels/permissions displayed to this anonymous user are those that are set for the 
“anonymous user” defined within the Dashboard > Settings page.
• Inherit from global setting: When selected, the requirement for user login will be 
determined by the “Login Required” setting within the Dashboard > Settings page.     
• Ye s: When selected, a user will need to login with the username and password defined 
in the “Users” section. They will only be allowed to login if they have been granted 
permission to access devices in the receiver group.
Enable Receiver OSD Alerts
Determine the required setting for pop up OSD alerts: Inherit, No or Yes.
The next fields are the USB settings
Note: USB port reservation and advanced USB features will be added to future releases of the 
A.I.M. management system.
Enable Video Compatibility Check
This reads the EDID from the attached monitor and determines whether the monitor is 
capable of displaying the selected video mode before connecting a channel. This prevents 
the receiver showing a black screen and the user being locked out because a dual link 
resolution has been selected to display on a single link monitor.
Force 60Hz
If enabled, the receiver frame rate is held at 60Hz regardless of the video input frame 
rate. The Video Switching options (below) cannot be altered when this option is enabled. 
Video switching
Provides two options for video switching:
• Fast Switching (default state) - Retains the same frame rate (at either 50Hz or 60Hz) 
depending upon which video resolution was displayed first. 
• Match Frame Rate - Follows the source frame rate and will change the frame rate every 
time this changes even if the video resolution doesn’t change. If you have one receiver 
switching between 1920x1080@60Hz and 1920x1080@50Hz then this setting will 
change the frame rate from 60Hz to 50 Hz every time that you switch. 
USB Settings - see USB Settings.
Group Membership
This section allows you to easily include or exclude individual receivers for this group. 
All relevant group permissions will be applied to all receivers that are included within 
the group. Receivers that are not currently included in this group within the left list and 
those receivers that are included within the right list.
To add a receiver to this group: Highlight one or more (use the CTRL key if selecting 
more than one) receiver names in the left list and then click  to add the name(s) to 
the right list.
To add all receivers to the group: Click  to move all receiver names from the left 
to the right list.
To remove a receiver from the group: Highlight one or more (use the CTRL key if 
selecting more than one) receiver names in the right list and then click  to move the 
name(s) back to the left list.
To remove all receivers from the group: Click  to move all receiver names from 
the right to the left list.
Permissions
This is hidden by default because all users have access to all receivers. You can deny 
access to the receiver group, however, be aware that users who are included within user 
groups may have been given access to the receiver group via their user groups. 
Receivers > Update Firmware
Click this option to go straight to the Dashboard > Updates page.  
See Dashboard > Updates for more details.   
						

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THE TRANSMITTERS TAB
The Transmitters tab shows a paginated table of all transmitter devices within the A.I.M. 
network.   
Click the TRANSMITTERS tab to view the transmitters page.
Transmitters  > View Transmitters
The table shows the following information for each receiver:
• Name  • Online status
• IP address  • Firmware revision of transmitter
•  Channels (attributed to each transmitter)  •  Description & Location
•  Manage (admin options - see below) 
The Manage icons are as follows: 
(Note: You can hover your mouse pointer over any icons to reveal additional information):
  Configure device: Displays the “Configure Transmitter” page.
 Reboot device: Allows you to reboot or reset a unit to its factory settings. A 
popup will ask which task you wish to carry out. A reboot is useful if a device enters 
an unknown state. A reset will return the unit to its factory default state and reset 
its IP address (the unit will retain any firmware updates that have been applied).
 Identify unit: Causes the LED lights to flash on the front of the selected unit. An 
alert will be shown if the unit cannot be contacted (e.g. if it is offline).
 Delete device: This brings up two options: Delete the device which removes it from 
the list, or Replace, where it can be replaced with new hardware of the same type. 
The Replace option is useful if you have faulty hardware that needs swapping. This 
means that you do not have to configure the new hardware as it will have same 
settings as the previous AdderLink Infinity extender.
Search filters
The key fields (Name, Description and Location) all provide a 
search filter to locate particular items within long lists. Enter a full 
or partial search string into the appropriate filter box and then 
click  to start the search. Optionally use the  buttons to 
invert the order of the listing. 
The page will reload with the same pagination/sort order, but with the added search 
filter. It’s possible to filter by several columns at once (e.g. search for all entries with 
“mac” in the name, and “mixed” in the description). Search terms are case-insensitive. 
You can re-sort and paginate on filtered results without losing the filters.
To remove a filter, click the red cross next to the relevant filter, (you can also empty the 
search box and click  again).    
						

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Transmitters > Configure Transmitter
When you click  for a particular transmitter, this page lists information about the unit 
and allows numerous settings to be configured.
IP Address
Allows you to alter the IP address of the transmitter unit. Any change in address will be 
enacted when you click the “Save” button at the foot of the page. Any IP connections 
currently made to the transmitter will be ended.
Device Name, Description and Location
These are useful identifiers for the transmitter unit and its exact location. These become 
even more valuable as the number of transmitters within the system increases. 
Enable Dummy Boot Keyboard
It is often necessary to have a keyboard reported at start up. This setting means that a 
“Virtual Keyboard” is always reported to the USB host. It may be necessary to disable 
this for use with some KVM switches.
USB Speed
Select Low/full speed or High speed USB operation.
USB Hub Size
Select either a 13 or 7 port USB hub. This determines the number of USB devices that 
can be connected to a single Transmitter.
Peak Bandwidth Limiter
The transmitter will use as much of the available network bandwidth as necessary to 
achieve optimal data quality, although typically the transmitter will use considerably less 
than the maximum available. In order to prevent the transmitter from ‘hogging’ too 
much of the network capacity, you can reduce this setting to place a tighter limit on the 
maximum bandwidth permissible to the transmitter. Range: 1 to 95%. 
Video Settings
This section allows you to directly adjust various key video controls within the 
transmitter in order to obtain the most efficient operation taking into account 
connection speeds and the nature of the video images sent by that transmitter.  
Magic Eye
Determines whether the Magic Eye feature should be enabled on ALIF (1002T, 2002T, 
2020T or 2112T models only) transmitters. Magic Eye works to overcome the issues 
with increased bandwidth usage caused by ‘dithering’ techniques used on some 
computers, such as Apple Macs. See the ALIF dual user guide for more details.
DDC
Determines whether video configuration details should be harvested from connected 
display screens or a static fixed EDID report should be used. Care must be taken when 
selecting a Dual Link Video resolution as only ALIF dual units support a Dual Link Video 
resolutions. In the case of a Dual Link EDID being set in the Global settings, no EDID will 
be set on Video port 2 of the ALIF dual transmitters.
EDID optimisation
When this option is ticked, the Transmitters will compare the native resolution settings 
of their monitors when switching. If the monitor has the same native resolution as the 
previous one, the new EDID is not sent to the graphics card. This speeds up switching 
as the graphics card does not have to go through a hotplug detect routine when a new 
receiver is switched to that channel. If the new receiver has a monitor with a different 
native resolution, then the EDID will be updated to allow for a change in video mode. 
Hot Plug Detect Control
Determines whether to enable hot plug detection for monitors. By default this is enabled.
Hot Plug Detect Signal Period
By default this is set at 100ms, which is sufficient for most graphics cards. Occasionally it 
may be necessary to adjust this. An Adder engineer will advise if necessary.
Background Refresh
The transmitter sends portions of the video image only when they change. In order to 
give the best user experience, the transmitter also sends the whole video image, at a 
lower frame rate, in the background. The Background Refresh parameter controls the 
rate at which this background image is sent. The default value is ‘every 32 frames’, mean-
ing that a full frame is sent in the background every 32 frames. Reducing this to ‘every 64 
frames’ or more will reduce the amount of bandwidth that the transmitter consumes. On 
a high-traffic network this parameter should be reduced in this way to improve overall 
system performance. Options: Every 32 frames, Every 64 frames, Every 128 frames, Every 
256 frames or Disabled. 
Frame Skipping
Frame Skipping involves ‘missing out’ video frames between those captured by the 
transmitter. For video sources that update only infrequently or for those that update 
very frequently but where high fidelity is not required, frame skipping is a good strategy 
for reducing the overall bandwidth consumed by the system. Range: 0 to 99%.
Serial Settings
Serial Parity, Serial Data Bits, Serial Stop Bits, Serial Speed
This group of settings allows you to define the key parameters for the AUX port of the 
transmitter so that it matches the operation of the device attached to it.
Transmitters > Update Firmware
Click this option to go straight to the Dashboard > Updates page. See Dashboard > 
Updates for more details.     
						

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Transmitters > Configure New Transmitter
This page is displayed whenever a new transmitter is added to the network. 
The IP Address 1 field, showing 0.0.0.0, is for an unconfigured device on its zero config 
address. Before A.I.M. can add the device into its database, a new IP address must be 
added to IP Address 1. This is the system IP address and applies equally for ALIF (1000 
series) and ALIF dual (2000 series). 
ALIF dual units have a Teaming port which provides a second 1Gigabyte link port which 
can be used for bandwidth doubling and/or redundancy. The IP address 2 field is for the 
Teaming port. In order to use the Teaming port, IP address 2 field must be given a valid IP 
address.    
						

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THE SERVERS TAB
The Servers tab shows a table of all servers within the A.I.M. network. 
Click the SERVERS tab to view the page.  
For installations that require greater redundancy, it is possible to have two A.I.M. servers 
running on the same subnet. If the primary server fails then a secondary server with the 
same database can take over until the primary unit recovers.
Each server entry will have one of four possible states within the Rôle column:
• Unconfigured  The server is a factory fresh device or has performed a full factory 
reset. This does not yet have a proper role.
• Solo   This is a server acting as a standalone A.I.M. All A.I.M. servers with firmware 
below 3.0 will be in this state. If there is only going to be one A.I.M. on the subnet, this 
is the Role that will be used.
• Primary  The server is configured as a fully functional A.I.M. from which a back-up 
server can be slaved.
• BackUp  This server is configured to serve as a back up to the Primary.  
Each server entry will also show one of six entries within the Status column:
• Active  This server is functioning as an A.I.M. server and is administering ALIF devices. 
Primary or Solo servers with this status are fully functional A.I.M. servers that will 
accept network configuration changes. A backup server with this status is functioning 
as an Active Primary. It will execute channel changes, but will not accept network 
configuration changes.
• Standby  This server is currently maintaining its database as a copy of the primary in 
readiness to take over if necessary.
• Offline  This server should be maintaining a copy of the primary’s database, but is not 
doing so.
• Initialising  This is the initial status upon start up. This should not persist beyond the 
initial start up procedure.
• Quiescent  This is an inactive server on the network. It will not function without 
remedial action from its system administration. A typical reason for this is the presence 
of another server on the network blocking its configured role. i.e. two servers are 
configured as a primary on the same subnet.
• Failed  This server has suffered a serious internal failure.  
Servers > Configure Server
When you click  for a particular server, this page lists information about the unit and 
allows several basic settings to be configured.
Rôle
Allows you to change the server’s function between primary and solo (see descriptions 
left).
Device Name, Description and Location
These are useful identifiers for the server unit and its exact location. These become even 
more valuable as the number of servers within the system increases.
For details about setting up server redundancy, please see 
Appendix C - Redundant servers: Setting up and swapping out.   
						

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THE USERS TAB
The Users tab shows a paginated table of all users within the A.I.M. network. Within the 
list, the admin user is always present and cannot be deleted - in order to avoid being 
locked out of the A.I.M. system. The username and name details of the admin account, 
however, can be edited as required.  
Click the USERS tab to view the initial View Users page.  
The other user pages (e.g. Add User, View User Groups, etc.) are selectable within the 
blue section located just below the tabs.
Search filters
The key fields (Username, First Name and Last Name) all provide a 
search filter to locate particular items within long lists. Enter a full or 
partial search string into the appropriate filter box and then click  
to start the search. Optionally use the  buttons to invert the 
order of the listing. 
The page will reload with the same pagination/sort order, but with the added search 
filter. It’s possible to filter by several columns at once (e.g. search for all entries with “B” 
in the Username, and “Smith” in the Last Name). Search terms are case-insensitive. You 
can re-sort and paginate on filtered results without losing the filters.
To remove a filter, click the red cross next to the relevant filter, (you can also empty the 
search box and click  again). 
Users > View Users page
The table shows the following information for each user:
• AD - indicates whether the user was imported from Active Directory
• Username  • First Name  • Last Name
• User Groups - the number of user groups to which the user belongs
• Channels - the number of channels to which the user has access 
• Receivers - the number of receivers to which the user has access
• Allow Exclusive? - indicates whether the user is permitted to access channels in 
exclusive mode (  - Yes,  - No,  - Inherited setting from user groups) 
• Suspended - indicates the user account status ( - User is suspended,  
 - User account is active, i.e. not suspended) 
• A.I.M. Admin - indicates whether the user has admin privileges
The Edit option icons are as follows:
  Configure user: Displays the “Configure User” page.
 Clone user: Create a complete copy of the currently selected user entry.
 Delete user: Confirmation will be requested.    
						

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Users > Add User or Configure User page
From the View Users page, you can add a new user or configure an existing user:
• To add a user: Click the “Add User” option.
• To configure an existing user: Click  for a user.
The Add and Configure pages are similar in content.
Username
The username is mandatory and must be unique within the A.I.M. installation.
Note: If a user is synced with Active Directory, it is not possible to change the Username, First/
Last Name, Password, or User Group membership. These items must be edited on the Active 
Directory server and the changes will filter through to A.I.M. the next time a sync takes place 
with Active Directory. 
First Name, Last Name and Email
The First Name, Last Names and Email address entries are optional but are advisable 
within an installation of any size or one that will be administered by more than one 
person.
Require Password?
Determines whether the chosen user must enter a password to gain access to channels 
and/or A.I.M. admin system.
Password
The password is required for logging into a channel and/or for logging into the A.I.M. 
admin system, if the user is to be granted admin privileges.
A.I.M. Admin?
When set to Yes, the user is granted privileges to login to the A.I.M. admin system and 
make changes.
Account Suspended?
Allows the admin user to temporarily prevent the user from logging in without the need 
to delete the whole account.  
Allow Exclusive Mode?
Defines whether the user is able to connect to channels exclusively (preventing other 
users from sharing the connection). When this is set to “Inherit from User Groups/
Global Setting”, if ANY user-group that a user is a member of is granted permission to 
connect exclusively, then the user will have permission to connect exclusively. Note: It 
is an additional requirement that the channel being accessed by the user, must also permit 
exclusive access.
Enable Remote OSD?
Supported in firmware v3.0 or greater. This option determines whether the chosen 
user should be permitted to use the remote OSD functionality which permits access 
to remote receivers in order to change channels or presets even though a user has not 
logged into those receivers. Please see Using the Remote OSD feature for details.
Group Membership
This section defines the user groups to which the user will be a member. Any 
permissions applied to the user group are inherited by all users in the user group. 
User groups to which the user is not currently a member are shown in the left list 
and those to which the user is a member are shown within the right list. See Including 
and excluding a user... on the next page for details about including and excluding group 
membership. 
Permissions
This section defines to which channels and/or channel groups the user should have 
access. Note: Only the channels for which a user is given permission to access will appear within 
their channel list.
See Including and excluding a user... on the next page for details about including and 
excluding channels and/or channel groups.
Receiver and Receiver Group Permissions
Receiver and Receiver Group Permissions are hidden by default because all users are 
initially granted permission to use all receivers. If desired, permission to use a receiver 
and/or receiver group may be withdrawn from a user by revealing this section.   
						

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Users > Add User Group or Configure Group page
From the View User Groups page, you can create a new group or configure an existing 
group: 
• To create a new group: Click the “Add User Group” option.
• To configure an existing group: Click  for a group.
The Add and Configure pages are similar in content. 
User Group Name
The User Group name must be unique within the A.I.M. installation.
Allow Exclusive Mode?
Defines whether the users within the group will be able to connect to channels 
exclusively (preventing other users from sharing the connection). When this is set to 
“Inherit from global setting”, the setting for the “Grant all users exclusive access” option 
(within Dashboard > Settings) will be applied. Note: The final arbiter of whether any user can 
gain exclusive access is always whether the channel being accessed is also set to allow exclusive 
connections.
Enable Remote OSD?
Determines whether members of the chosen user group should be permitted to gain 
OSD access to remote receivers in order to change channels. 
Group Membership
This section allows you to select which users should be members of the group. Any 
permissions applied to the user group are inherited by all users in the user group. Users 
who are not currently members are shown in the left list and those who are members 
are shown within the right list. See Including and excluding a user... on the right for 
details about including and excluding group membership.
Permissions
This section defines to which channels and/or channel groups the user within this 
group should have access. Note: Only the channels/channel groups for which a user is given 
permission to access will appear within their channel list.
See Including and excluding a user... right for details about including and excluding 
channels and/or channel groups.
Receiver and Receiver Group Permissions
Receiver and Receiver Group Permissions are hidden by default because all users/user 
groups are initially granted permission to use all receivers. If desired, permission to use a 
receiver and/or receiver group may be withdrawn from members of this user group by 
revealing this section.
Including and excluding a user within group or channels
The Group Membership and Permissions section use the same method to 
determine inclusion and exclusion:  
To add the user to a group or grant access to a channel: Highlight one or 
more (use the CTRL key if selecting more than one) of the entries in the left list 
and then click  to add them to the right list (you can also double-click on an 
entry to quickly add it).
To add the user to all groups or grant access to all channels: Click  to 
move all entries from the left to the right list.
To remove the user from a group or channel: Highlight one or more (use the 
CTRL key if selecting more than one) entries in the right list and then click  to 
move them back to the left list (you can also double-click on an entry to quickly 
remove it).
To remove the user from all groups or channels: Click  to move all entries 
from the right to the left list.   
						

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Users > Active Directory
To simplify integration alongside existing systems within organisations, A.I.M. can be 
synchronized with an LDAP/Active Directory server. This allows a list of users (and user 
groups), together with usernames and group memberships to be quickly imported and 
kept up to date.
Initial configuration
The basic Active Directory (AD) server details are defined in the Dashboard > Settings 
page. Once configured, the Users > Active Directory page (called “Import Users from 
Active Directory”) will allow you to scan the AD server for a list of folders and users/
groups within those folders.
Choosing users and groups
Once scanned, the “Import Users from Active Directory” page shows all folders that are 
available on the AD server. 
1 Use the “Include Users” and “Include Groups” checkbox columns on the right hand 
side of the folder lists to select which items to import (with optional additional LDAP 
filters where necessary).
• If an AD user was not in the A.I.M. user database, they will be imported.
• If an AD user is already in the A.I.M. user database, they are kept.
• If an AD user is NOT marked for import/sync from the AD import page, and they 
already exist in the A.I.M. user database, they will be removed from the A.I.M. user 
database during the sync operation. 
 IMPORTANT: It is thus vital to ensure that all users you want in the A.I.M. system 
are always selected for import/sync, otherwise they will be removed.
2 Choose the required “Re-Synchronize” interval. Choices are Never, Hourly, Daily or 
Weekly.  
3 You can choose to synchronize immediately or to preview the results of your settings:
• Click the “Preview” button to view the list of users that will be added/updated/
removed on this synchronization. Once previewed, you can either go ahead with the 
sync or return to the filter page and edit your settings.
• Click the “Save & Sync” button to synchronize the selected items into the A.I.M. 
user database.
Note: A.I.M. will only import folders/groups/users up to the limit set by the AD server. There is a 
known issue: A.I.M. can only import x users/groups from AD where x is the limit set on the AD 
server. Any users/groups beyond this limit will not be imported.
Active  Directory Tips
• A backup schedule is recommended so that any changes on the AD server are carried 
across to the A.I.M. server regularly. You can choose from hourly/daily or weekly 
syncs. The settings/filters saved on this screen will be applied to each subsequent sync, 
ensuring that your list of users is kept accurate.
• To temporarily remove a particular user from A.I.M. access, without having to make 
complicated LDAP filters, simply edit the A.I.M. user to be suspended (see Users  > Add 
User or Configure User page). Even though they will continue to be imported/synced 
from AD, they will be prevented from logging on.
• All LDAP filters should be self-contained, e.g:  (!(cn=a*))
• Be sure to save any changes made to the sync settings before clicking the “sync-now” 
option. Otherwise, the next scheduled sync operation will overwrite any user changes 
you made in your “sync-now”. 
• User groups are only imported from AD to A.I.M. if they contain users that are set to 
be imported too (i.e. a group will not be imported, even if it contains users, unless its 
users match the sync filters).
• Associations between users and user groups can only be made on the AD server - it 
is not possible to edit user/user-group membership for AD users/groups on the A.I.M. 
server.
• Users and groups are technically “synchronized” rather than “imported” - each time 
a sync takes place, details are updated and if a user no longer matches the sync filters, 
they will be removed from the A.I.M. user list.   
						

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THE PRESETS TAB
Presets enable multiple actions to be pre-defined so that they can be initiated with a 
single action. This feature is particularly useful when switching multiple AdderLink Infinity 
units, such as in the example below where multiple video heads need to be switched in 
unison between different server systems.
According to how a preset is configured, it is possible to have one or more receivers 
connected to separate channels (i.e. unicast) or multiple receivers connected to a single 
channel (i.e. multicast). 
The preset allows multiple AdderLink Infinity receivers to be switched between transmitters using a single action.
The Presets page is where the admin user can create and configure new and existing 
presets.
Click the PRESETS tab to view the Presets page.  
The nature of each preset, i.e. which receiver connects to which channel(s), is defined by 
the admin. The permitted connection modes are worked out according to: 
• The topology of the preset, 
 AND 
• The current connections within the A.I.M. network.
For instance, if two receivers in a preset are configured to connect to the same channel 
(multicast), it will not be possible to connect to the preset in exclusive mode.
The presets table shows the preset name, description, allowed connection modes, and 
number of receiver-channel pairs in the preset.
If any preset-pairs are misconfigured (e.g. a channel no longer exists), a warning triangle 
will appear. The preset will NOT be usable if any receiver-channel pairs are misconfigured.
The admin user can connect any presets using the standard view/shared/exclusive 
buttons.
Note: There are no permissions to set for a preset. Instead, a preset will only be available to 
users who have permission to use ALL receivers and channels within the preset. In other words, 
permissions on the preset are implied by the permissions on the preset’s contents.
continued