Service/Deamon

It is recommended to install a service for Clients and especially for the Server.

The advantages of the service are:

• The service is automatically started after the machine booted up. The machine can be restarted any time by anyone or even by an OS crashe (bluescreen),.
• You do not have to login at the machine. (Machines that use auto-login are a security issue, you do not have this with a service)
• You can use the login/logoff of the artists to disable/enable the rrClient.
• Even if the client is terminated or in an unlikely case that it crashes, it is restarted by the service.
• If the network is unavailable after the machine started, the service waits until the network is available again before starting the client.
• The client is not limited to the fileserver access rights of the user logged in.

More Information:

• The service executable itself is installed on the local harddrive of the machine.
• The service will get the latest rrClient/rrServer from the RR network share every time it starts.
• The service logs in with a user you specify. This user is named for rrService User in this help. 

Which processes are started?

With a service installation, you should have 3 processes running:

1. rrAutostartservice:
   Linux/Osx: rrAutostartservice changes its login to the User for rrService. Windows: rrAutostartservice starts rrClient/rrServer with the login of the User for rrService.
   Then it stays in the background and checks in regular intervals if rrClient/rrServer is still running.
   rrServer only: it checks if the main threads are executed. If not, it tells the rrServer to restart or forces a restart.
   
   
2. rrClient/rrServer:
   rrClientconsole/rrServerconsole is the actual process that does all the rrClient/rrServer work.
   
   
3. rrClientwatch/rrServerwatch:
   As it is not allowed/possible for the service to display its UI on the users desktop, therefore you have the rrClientwatch/rrServerwatch application.
   Windows only : This application is started if a user logs in (via startmenu/startup).
   It checks if the actual rrClient/rrServer is running and you can send commands to the main rrClient application.
   By default, it is shown as tray icon. (Windows only: You do not see the tray icon by default, you need to customize your tray to see the watch icon all the time)

How to install

The service can be installed with the rrWorkstationInstaller.

Client run mode

You have to decide how your client will run on workstations of artists.

See help section rrApplications/ rrClient/ Run on artists workstation

Important rrConfig settings

Windows Only: Drive mappings 

rrConfig, tab "Paths and drives"

If you install the rrServer or rrClient as service, then you do not have any mapped drives. 

No matter what you have in your windows environment, the service has its own environment.

If you use these drive letters in your scene files, then you have to tell RR these mapping.

OS conversion

rrConfig, tab "Paths and drives"

If you want to use RR on multiple OS, then you have to create a conversion table for the paths. 

Company Project Name

You should setup the Company Project name in rrConfig, tab "Jobs".

A Company Project is not the same as an XSI or Maya project/database. It is the Project your Company is working on.

For Example:

You are working on a Commercial for a new shoe named "The Faster" of the manufacturer "Nico".

So your Company Project name would probably be something like "2015_Nico_TheFaster".

Any you have created a folder for each company project \\fileserver\share\projects\2010_Nico_TheFaster\... for your data.

So you have to tell RR that your Company Project is the name of the 4th folder. 

Average Clients

RRender has a feature named "average clients".

For example if you are running multiple Company Projects at the same time, then the server tries that each Company Projects has the same amount of render power.

Or that all jobs with the same priority get the same amount of clients. Or each user gets the same amount.

When a client asks for a new job, the server sends a job of the Company Projects with the least render power.

Note: 

As the server can only influence the averaging if a client asks for a new job, it could take some time.

Depending on how long the client takes to finish a job segment.

You can enable the option "Abort clients for better averaging" in rrConfig, tab jobs.

Then the server checks the client distribution every x hours and aborts Company Projects that have too many clients.