User Support

The web interface offers various options for visualising data and managing C-Gate. This can be called up with all current web browsers with the associated address. If your browser is not compatible, you will be informed of this on the web interface and you will receive a recommendation.

Process data can only be displayed if you either have a Carola programme with the old list concept or you are working with the new QTI list concept and the control software version is QS2.8 or newer.

Compare the procedures from your MASTER programme with the documentation and adapt it accordingly. Be sure to use the procedures SEAMSTRT and SEAMEND if you are using the module C-Gate.QM.

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is composed of the metrics availability, performance and quality. QINEO productivity consists of the metrics availability and performance. The exact calculation can be found in the corresponding documentation.

The metric availability depends on the capacity planning, which corresponds to the planned working time. For example, as soon as the plant or equipment is switched off, the plant is assessed as unavailable. For the performance metric, it is important that your component programmes are equipped with the documented Carola instructions and that the target times have been entered appropriately in the component templates. The quality metric is determined either automatically, via the process data, or manually, via an entry by the worker at the machine. QS2.8 or newer, QTI and SD monitoring and the module C-Gate.QM are required for automatic determination.

The C-Gate time can be set in the settings of the web interface. Synchronise the time either manually or enter a time server for automatic synchronisation.

The functions of C-Gate are divided into modules, each of which must be licensed. Contact CLOOS for the licensing of further modules or installations.

The C-Gate programme management can only be used if the C-Gate.PG module is licensed for the corresponding robot and the robot has the 'Programme management with C-Gate' option set. In addition, either the C-Gate IoT Connector address (if available) or the C-Gate IoT Hub address must be stored in the robot. Furthermore, the robot's device-specific token must be stored in the robot settings. The robot must have at least software version QS2.12. From time to time it helps if the address of the C-Gate IoT Connector in the robot is set as the default gateway in the network configuration.

Under Docker, data is usually stored in so-called volumes. C-Gate uses one such volume for the internal directory /data.

You can create a backup of your data with the following command. The backup is stored in the folder where the command is executed.

Linux (Docker):

# Create backup
sudo docker run --rm --volumes-from cgate -v $(pwd):/backup ubuntu tar cvzf /backup/cgate-backup.tar.gz /data

# Restore backup
sudo docker run --rm --volumes-from cgate -v $(pwd):/backup ubuntu bash -c "cd /data && tar xvzf /backup/cgate-backup.tar.gz --strip 1"

Windows (WSL Ubuntu Shell):

# Create backup
podman run --rm --volumes-from cgate -v $(pwd):/backup ubuntu tar cvzf /backup/cgate-backup.tar.gz /data

# Restore backup
podman run --rm --volumes-from cgate -v $(pwd):/backup ubuntu bash -c "cd /data && tar xvzf /backup/cgate-backup.tar.gz --strip 1"

For a daily backup, for example, a cron job (Linux) or a scheduled task (Windows) can be used.

For a consistent backup, it is recommended to stop the application briefly (docker stop cgate) and start it again after the backup (docker start cgate).

By default, a user with the name admin is created when C-Gate is installed. The password for this user is generated the first time the Docker Container is started and output on the command line. You can display the output of the Docker Container with the command docker logs cgate. The following command provides you with the output of the password generation:

Linux (Docker):

sudo docker logs cgate | grep UserInitializer

Windows (WSL Ubuntu Shell):

podman logs cgate | grep UserInitializer

With the Windows installation, the access data is also displayed once at the end of the installation.

You can force a new admin password by setting the environment variable APP_ADMIN_PASSWORD='NewPassword' for your C-Gate container. For a Docker installation with Docker Compose, for example, you can set this variable in the docker-compose.yml file below the environment line.

Example:

...
  environment:
    - APP_ADMIN_PASSWORD="MySecretPassword"
...

If you have installed C-Gate with our Windows instructions, you can set the password in the file ~/.config/cgate/cgate.conf within the WSL by entering the following line:

APP_ADMIN_PASSWORD="MySecretPassword"

1. First of all, a physical connection should be available. For CLOOS robot systems, this is usually a network cable connected to the robot controller and your company network. QINEO welding units can alternatively be connected via Wifi.
2. Then your devices need an IP address and corresponding network settings so that they can be reached from the server or PC on which C-Gate IoT Hub is installed. Please refer to the respective device manual for information on how to adjust the network settings. The network settings should be assigned according to your IT policy. You can check the connection by running a ping on the device IP from the server or PC using C-Gate.
3. Follow the C-Gate instructions on the C-Gate web interface to activate your licence. You can then configure your devices in the device view on C-Gate. Enter the corresponding IP addresses of the devices there.

If everything is set up correctly, the devices appear as online in the C-Gate device view.

If you are still unable to connect, please refer to our notes on firewall rules.

The following ports are relevant for accessing the C-Gate IoT Hub :

Without IoT Connector, the C-Gate IoT Hub additionally establishes connections to the following ports:

With QIROX Legacy Hardware (hardware older than V7) the following additional ports are used:

C-Gate can be brought up to date with a new container image.

Linux (Docker):

cd /opt/cloos/cgate/
docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

Linux (Docker-Compose):

cd /opt/cloos/cgate/
docker-compose pull
docker-compose up -d

Windows:

In the Start menu under the folder C-Gate there is an update script which performs an update to the current stable version.

Existing data is automatically migrated by the application when it is updated. Depending on the amount of data, the migration process may delay the start of the new application version by a few minutes. The application is not available during this time.

The C-Gate IoT Hub container is based on a current official Ubuntu base image and contains the following services. Only services with a corresponding port specification can be accessed from outside the container. Services without port specifications can only be accessed within the container and are therefore protected from external access.

• C-Gate IoT Hub Java Application (Port 4840/tcp, 5000/tcp/udp, 5005/tcp, 5010/tcp)
• C-Gate IoT Hub NodeJS Graph-Converter Service
• nginx Webserver (Port 8080/tcp)
• mongoDB Database

Downloaded .exe files are easily classified as a threat by Windows. The following Powershell command can be used to correct this classification for the file:

cd Downloads
Unblock-File -Confirm:$false '.\C-Gate IoT Hub Setup.exe'

If the installation or execution of included script files is still blocked, please install our Cloos certificate in your system and try again. Please make sure to select "Trusted Root Certification Authorities" as the location for the certificate during installation.

The new C-Gate installer for Windows automatically detects a previous installation with Docker Desktop and imports the data during the installation. After the installation, please make sure that your C-Gate installation works as usual. Afterwards, please delete the C-Gate container from Docker Desktop so that it does not start again automatically after a reboot.

With an older C-Gate installation under Windows, the access data to the CLOOS Docker Repository was partly not permanently stored. To fix the problem, please execute the following command in your WSL installation (Ubuntu) and enter the access data you received with your C-Gate licence:

podman login --authfile=${HOME}/.docker/config.json docker.cloos.de