Using the Management Client in a web browser

As an alternative to installing the Management Client locally or starting the Management Client using Web Start, enable the SMC Web Access feature to start and run the Management Client in a web browser.

You can enable the feature on a Management Server or a Web Portal Server. Administrators log on using a web browser, and all features of the Management Client can be controlled in the web browser.

You do not need to install the Java Runtime Environment to run the Management Client. You can also connect to and administer multiple versions of the SMC. This removes the requirement to have the SMC and the locally-installed Management Client be the same version.

Access is configured in the properties of the Management Server or Web Portal Server in a similar way to configuring Web Start or the SMC API.

You can also enable the feature during the installation of the Management Server.

Limitations and recommendations

  • This feature is not available on the SMC Appliance.
  • Web browser support is limited to Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
  • It is not possible to log on using certificate-based authentication.
  • Interacting with the local file system is limited. Each user has a folder located at %installation%\data\%servertype%\webswing\users\admin%id% where %servertype% is datamgtserver for the Management Server and datawebserver for the Web Portal Server and %id% is the ID of the administrator in the database. Users can import or export elements to this folder, for example.
  • When you copy text, using Ctrl+C, you must manually allow the copy operation in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

  • SMC Web Access can consume resources. Especially if many administrators will be using the feature, we recommend that you enable the feature on the Web Portal Server.
  • If the Management Server or Web Portal Server is installed on a Linux platform, xvfb-run must be installed.
  • If the Management Server and Web Portal Server are installed on the same computer, we recommend that you do not enable SMC Web Access on both servers.