QuickStartManager
Step 1: The LabRAD Manager
Overview
The LabRAD Manager forms the backbone of any LabRAD system. It authenticates connections, routes Requests among the different Server and Client Modules, and provides convenience features like unit conversion.
Starting the Manager
The LabRAD Manager is contained in a single executable - LabRAD-v1.1.3.exe - that does not require installation. You can grab it from the link here or find it in this project's download section. If you prefer the links in this document, please note that these links will take you to a page that allows you to choose your download mirror. Therefore, you should either open the download links in a new tab or browser window or simply use your "back" button to return to this page once the download has started.
Windows
You can either run LabRAD-v1.1.3.exe directly from your browser or you can save it to a location of your choosing and execute it from there. The Manager will save a small configuration file in the directory in which it is launched and create an empty folder in a location you can choose as described below.
Linux and probably MacOS
(Linux verified under KDE 3.5 on Debian Etch)
The Manager is almost perfectly happy to run under Wine ("almost" because of a minor cosmetic issue that does not impact performance). Save LabRAD-v1.1.3.exe to a location of your choice and use Wine to run it (please refer to your distribution's documentation for how to install X-Windows and Wine). From the command shell, you can launch the Manager by simply typing: wine LabRAD-v1.1.3.exe
You should now see a screen like this:
Configuration
There is really only one choice you have to make to run the Manager: You will need to come up with a password that Client and Server Modules will need to provide to be allowed to connect to the system. Enter it in the Password field and click on the green button to accept the configuration. Leave the other options unchanged for now. At any time, if you want to know more details about the options that we ignore here, click on the blue button with the question mark in the respective Manager Window.
Aside: Optionally, you can also change the directory in which the Registry Server stores its data. The Registry Server used to be a stand-alone server, but was included into the manager to provide the best possible performance. It provides a place to store all variable parameters that describe your system (much like the Windows Registry (hence the name), but much less obscure). For us it has proven immensely useful for building an extremely flexible setup.
Running the Manager
This step is very important and can be automatically done for you if you check Auto-Run in the previous configuration dialog: To activate the Manager, click the play button in the top left corner of the window.
Your window should now look like this:
At this point the LabRAD Manager is ready to accept connections.
~ Markus Ansmann, Dec 21st, 2007