Our company has implemented a few installs of Ignition now and we plan to bring up a server with a copy of all the projects to aid in support and also future developement. The problem is our installs are different versions of Ignition, and I would guess I can’t install multiple versions on one computer, can I?
I am afraid if I upgrade all the projects, that we will try to do stuff on the old projects that has changed and end up chasing a few rabbit tails. Our customers have no plans to upgrade, so I know we will continue to face this.
We recommend using virtual machines in this scenario. You can use VMWare if you have it or VirtualBox (which is free, and you can use Ubuntu).
Besides that, you can install multiple Ignitions on the same computer. You should only have one of them running at a time though. To install multiple Ignitions you cannot use the Ignition installer, you have to use the Windows zip files that you can download from our website. Follow these instructions:
Download the Ignition Windows zip for the versions you need. Make sure you get the right architecture: 32 or 64 bit. Let’s say you are going to install 7.3 and 7.4.
Unzip the 7.3 Ignition to C:\Program Files\Inductive Automation\Ignition 7.3
Open the ignition.conf file located in the data directory in your text editor. Look for the linewrapper.java.command=javaReplace “java” with the path to your Java installation. Typically it is “C:\Program FIles\Java\jre6\bin\java.exe”.
In the same file look for the following lines (at the very bottom):wrapper.name=Ignition
wrapper.displayname=Ignition Gateway
wrapper.description=Ignition GatewayChange those to the following for 7.3:wrapper.name=Ignition73
wrapper.displayname=Ignition Gateway 73
wrapper.description=Ignition Gateway 735) Close the file. Now back in the install directory run the install-ignition.bat file (in C:\Program Files\Inductive Automation\Ignition 7.3). That will create a Windows service called Ignition73.
Follow the same steps for 7.4 creating a new service Ignition74.
Again make sure only one of them is running at any given time since they are using the same TCP ports. Let us know if you have any problems.
Again, it is highly recommended that you use virtual machines for this scenario. However if you still want to run them all on the same machine, you’d just start and stop the services as necessary from the windows services utility (control panel -> administrative tools -> services).
So, I am finally trying to implement this. I wish we had licenses of Windows to use for virtual machines, but I barely even have this Windows Server 2003 license on our server.
I have the 7.5.3 program in Program Files and did the install-ignition BAT, and the Ignition service installed, but when I run the launch-gcu.bat, the Gateway Control Utility showes both the web server and gateway are stopped.
Do I need to do another install to get everything installed and running? I thought about reverting to the usual EXE install, but didn’t know if it would still use the same service with the special name.
[quote=“jimjohnson”]So, I am finally trying to implement this. I wish we had licenses of Windows to use for virtual machines, but I barely even have this Windows Server 2003 license on our server.
[/quote]
Are you aware that M$ allows you to run 4 virtual windows machines with a single license as long as that are all on the same box?
Windows Server 2003 Standard - One License
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise - 1 host + 4 VMs, all using the same license. (Only allowed to use the host as a host for VMs, and can’t run anything else on it… Or you can use 1 host + 3 VMs, and can use the host for whatever you want.)
So, if you have an Enterprise license, I’d definitely go with VMs for Ignition. If it’s standard, you’re probably stuck with the one install.
