Generating remote settings files

Most standard users will probably run siguanet-desktop in order to query SIGUANET data through the siguanet_quest client. The siguanet_quest extension encompasses several hundreds of functions useful in terms of data aggregation. The client inside siguanet_quest provides a tree view interface that allows users to easily navigate across different levels of aggregation, either spatial or non-spatial, retrieve well organized sets of figures within a particular aggregation level, and render and print maps that show detail information for the selected aggregated figure and building floor plan. In short, this is sort of a statically defined OLAP tool.
That's a big job for the database server, since tens of requests may be fired by a single user upon a single click. Therefore, we chose to develop a TCP client using Npgsql and SharpMap as data providers. Although we gain speed since there aren't any layers between the client and the database server, the disadvantage is that users in your organization must authenticate themselves against PostgreSQL. To avoid users manually logging in to PostgreSQL, application administrators should deploy siguanet-desktop with the remote settings download behaviour enabled. Read the Application configuration page for instructions on how to do so.
Here we'll go through the steps to generate and deploy remote settings files ( .srs ). These are XML files which store information on PostgreSQL connection parameters and user account. Remember that .srs files are encrypted using a symmetric encryption method as explained in the Things to do before you build page (you should have follow the instructions on that page before going ahead!). When configured to do so, instead of requesting users to manually configure a PostgreSQL connection, siguanet-desktop will download the proper .srs file from the predefined HTTP directory, decrypt it, build the connection string and connect to your SIGUANET database. All of it behind the scenes upon user login to the application. This way, the siguanet_quest client is ready to run.

Creating .srs files

Once you've set the symmetric encryption keys (read the Things to do before you build page if yo haven't done so) you must generate one .srs file per user profile by running SIGUANETDesktop.exe --srs from the command line. You'll be presented with a form resembling a typical PostgreSQL connection dialogue.