Building on last week’s Cogent DataHub v11 Security Enhancements Deep Dive blog, this post dives into a practical application of these security enhancement by focusing on the implementation of multifactor authentication (MFA) using a TOTP (Time-based One-time Password) key to secure a Remote Config connection to the DataHub. We will guide you through the process of setting up a built-in user with the “RemoteConfig” role, ensuring that remote access is equipped with the necessary permissions. To further strengthen security, we’ll integrate a TOTP key with an authentication app and define an IP pattern Principal to restrict access to specific source network locations. We’ll conclude by performing a successful login from a different system, thus verifying the effectiveness of our secure setup.
Software Toolbox Technical Blog
John Gonzalez
Recent Posts
DataHub V11: Enhancing Remote Config Access Security with MFA/TOTP
6 min read
By John Gonzalez on Aug 29, 2024 2:00:00 PM
Cogent DataHub V11 Security Enhancements Deep Dive
6 min read
By John Gonzalez on Aug 22, 2024 2:00:00 PM
As briefly shared in our blog “Cogent DataHub V11 Features to Be Excited About”, Cogent DataHub has expanded its security configuration and options in the v11 release, offering even greater protection and flexibility of data sharing. In this blog we will explore DataHub V11’s comprehensive framework for managing access through custom configuration of Organizations, Users with multi-Factor authentication (MFA), Active Directory Integration, Security Principals, Roles and Permissions ensuring that only authorized individuals can perform specific actions or access a specific set of data.
Expanding your IoT Impact with the TOP Server MQTT Client Driver
6 min read
By John Gonzalez on Jun 20, 2024 2:00:00 PM
Welcome back to our Summer of IoT blog series! In this third installment, we continue our journey through the fascinating world of IoT, delving deeper into the transformative technologies Software Toolbox has to offer for shaping our connected future. Today, we will be highlighting the TOP Server MQTT Client driver and demonstrating how it can effortlessly integrate real-time data from MQTT brokers into your existing industrial automation systems, such as your HMI, SCADA, MES, or Historian.
Flexible Control of Real-Time Device Polling Schedules
7 min read
By John Gonzalez on May 16, 2024 2:00:00 PM
The TOP Server OPC server is known for its ability to collect real-time data from a wide range of devices, using off-the-shelf industry standard protocols. However, challenges arise when not all devices can consistently share data in real-time due to limitations in connectivity mediums or networks. This is particularly evident in critical SCADA-heavy industries like Power & Utilities, Renewable Energy, Oil & Gas and Water/Wastewater, where precise control of polling is crucial due to their limited bandwidth availability. With traditional cyclic polling, for example "once an hour", you can end up with high bandwidth utilization at the top of an hour and the communications link being idle the rest of the time. Rather than do that, it's better to spread that usage out over the full hour.
The TOP Server Scheduler Plug-In is used to accomplish this spreading out of polling. With it, users can create a customized polling schedule for these devices for any TOP Server driver, which in turn optimizes communications between your SCADA, HMI, MES, or Historian and devices in the field. This eliminates the need to rely on your client applications or direct device configurations to achieve reliable collection crucial operational data from field devices.
Using TOP Server's Advanced Tags Plug-In: Calculations & Data Bridging
7 min read
By John Gonzalez on Mar 7, 2024 2:00:00 PM
TOP Server is widely used in automation for data collection from your industrial control systems. One of the many benefits of using TOP Server is that it ensures data integrity – meaning that the accuracy, consistency, and completeness of the data is maintained from your data source all the way up to whatever is consuming that data from TOP Server, such as your HMI, SCADA, MES, or Historian. While its capability to collect unchanged raw data from field devices is invaluable, it may not always align with the desired format, and there could be elective data massaging or manipulation required to meet your business demands. TOP Server can convert data types and even scale to engineering units, but what if you need more advanced data such Cycle Time, Maximum Temperature, Downtime Reason, etc.?
The TOP Server Advanced Tags Plug-in enhances functionality by providing added features to any TOP Server driver, such as mathematical operations and data bridging across protocols, thereby streamlining analysis processes and enhancing decision-making capabilities within industrial control applications.
In this article, we'll briefly introduce a few key features of the TOP Server Advanced Tags Plug-in that could serve valuable to you in your data collection processes.
Exploring Cogent DataHub's Alarm & Notifications Plug-In
5 min read
By John Gonzalez on Dec 14, 2023 2:00:00 PM
Cogent DataHub is primarily known for its extensive connectivity to OPC DA, OPC UA, OPC A&E, Databases, Historians, Excel, ODBC, DDE, Linux, Modbus and more. However, it is worth noting that this platform offers more than just connectivity. In this blog post, we'll cover the capabilities of DataHub’s Alarm & Notification Plug-In, which supports the configuration of custom alarms, events, and notifications. You can enhance your A&E Client applications by adding this feature to any DataHub License Pack, and generate alarms based on any data integrated into the DataHub, or simply send email/SMS alerts.
Video Tutorial: Getting Started with DataHub WebView
2 min read
By John Gonzalez on Sep 28, 2023 2:00:00 PM
Today's industrial automation users have a need for fast, responsive, easy-to-configure Human Machine Interfaces (HMI) that can economically deliver a rich user experience and make sure critical plant production information can be securely accessed by everyone in their organization from anywhere at any time.
Cogent DataHub® WebView™, a feature offered within the Cogent DataHub IT/OT data integration software, is an advanced HMI solution tailored to seamlessly integrate with your live data streams and eliminate any delays typically associated with HMIs that are dependent on databases. As a comprehensive solution that combines real-time data delivery, a robust web server, and an HMI designer into a self-contained package, DataHub WebView provides an excellent alternative for those seeking a cutting-edge HMI for process monitoring without committing to a significant investment in a complex SCADA system.
Tech Support Corner: Making TOP Server Config Changes While Active
2 min read
By John Gonzalez on Aug 3, 2023 2:00:00 PM
Have you ever wondered why certain features in TOP Server work the way you experience them, or how something might work in certain scenarios? Well this blog post tries to answer a few of those type of questions!
Anyone that has used TOP Server before has had to make edits to the configuration. While TOP Server allows changes to many settings while actively collecting and serving data, and makes it simple, there are things to consider to avoid disrupting operations. TOP Server has certain restrictions in place when making configuration changes, and while potentially frustrating, these are for your benefit and security. For example, perhaps you have tried to make a certain change, but observed that the setting immediately changes back and “doesn’t stick”. Or maybe you’ve logged onto your machine and were unable to make any configuration changes at all. Why is that?
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