5 0 0:Customizing GUI

Overview

The SEP sesam graphical user interface (GUI) provides centralized administration and easy access to the configuration and management of SEP sesam and its environment. The GUI can be customized to your individual needs – you can set up different GUI layouts, change the default data size units and filter the displayed contents.

GUI configuration options

You can access the configuration options from the menu bar -> Configuration -> Defaults. Configuration provides different settings and parameters that define SEP sesam look and feel as well as its behavior.

The options in the Defaults window allow you to change UI mode, customize GUI font and tables, set the preferred date format, retention periods for logs and restore tasks, define advanced settings (Extras), configure default permissions, and add or modify SEP sesam keys in the global settings.

General tab

The following options are available:

• Show SEP sesam web client landing page on startup: By default, SEP sesam Web UI landing page is opened when the GUI is started. Deselect the check box to prevent it from opening automatically when starting SEP sesam GUI.
• Use HTTPS for opening links in the external browser: SEP sesam GUI opens the external links by using the HTTPS protocol. Note that you have to accept the SEP sesam REST server security certificate. This option is selected by default and cannot be changed.
• Sort case insensitive: You can enable the Sort case insensitive check box to ensure that upper- and lowercase letters are treated the same when sorting results.

• UI Mode: You can select the appropriate UI mode: simple or advanced. The appearance of the user interface does not change depending on the mode, but simple mode hides complex features and shows the user only a basic subset of options. Advanced mode provides all the features of SEP sesam, such as expert restore options, log level setting, etc. For details, see Selecting UI mode.
• Color theme: You can select light or dark color theme for the GUI.

• Restore mode: You can select which restore interfaces are available for restore and displayed in the context menu and toolbar. It is recommended to use the web-based Restore Assistant instead of the Legacy restore (deprecated) option, which refers to the GUI restore wizard. Compared to the GUI restore wizard, the online Restore Assistant provides some additional advanced restore options and allows you to restore your data from anywhere with the appropriate permissions. You can also keep both interfaces available by selecting Display both possibilities.

• Filter panels: You can select that filters are displayed/visible the whole time by enabling the option Show filter panels by default.
• Delay reloading data on filter change: You can specify a time interval, in seconds, to delay the reloading of data when a filter is changed. To disable this option and enable data to reload immediately upon filter change, set the value 0 (zero).

• Help: The field Link to WEB help file sets the path to the SEP sesam Wiki main page, thus providing the latest updated version of help topics online. Use the Test It button to check the access to help files.

Fonts and Tables tab

• Font: The predefined GUI font is plain. You can select Choose button to change the default font, font style and/or size.

	Tip
	You can reset GUI font settings to SEP sesam default at any time by using the Reset to Default button.

• Font used in tables and trees: You can change the default font (proportional) to non-proportional (monospaced).

• Table Striping: You can change the appearance of GUI tables by selecting one of the zebra striping options for tables from the drop-down list.

• Date range: You can set the date range for the displayed data by specifying the Maximum number of days for which the SEP sesam GUI will show the data. By default, it is set to -1 = unlimited.

Display Format tab

Under the tab Display Format, you can change the default setting for the date format as well as default setting for data size units. The data size can be specified either with decimal (KB, MB, GB, TB) or binary prefix (KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, etc.). For details, see Changing data size units.

Install/Update tab

The tab Install/Update allows you to set the desired Update mode. By default, SEP sesam does not check, download and install updates. An icon (yellow ↓) notifying the user that an update is available is shown for the respective client and a popup notification on hover suggests that there is a new version available.

The following options are available:

• Do not check or install automatically (default): If selected, updates are not checked, downloaded nor installed when a new version is available.
• Check automatically, but install manually: SEP sesam automatically checks for updates at SEP Download Center, and gets the list of all available packages, but you have to download and install them manually.
• Check, download and install automatically: If selected, updates are automatically checked, downloaded and installed, based on SEP sesam NEWDAY, when a new version is available in the SEP Download Center. This option may not be recommended depending on the configuration of your SEP sesam environment and its activity.

You can also update your SEP sesam Clients by using a SEP sesam custom package source which may be stored locally, on the network drive, or is available at specified URL. The advantage of using a custom package is that you have full control over the version that is getting installed. For details, see Using custom SEP sesam package source.

Retention Periods tab

You can set up the retention period in days for SEP sesam logs, readability check logs, calendar sheet entries and restore tasks. The retention period is the time period for which the SEP sesam retaines specified data. Once the retention period expires, the data is removed from the database and is no longer available. Click the arrows to increase or decrease the predefined retention time per file.

• SEP sesam logs: The default value for preserving the SEP sesam log files is 7 days.
• Readability check logs: The default value for preserving the readability check log files is 2190 days.
• Calendar sheet entries: The default retention time for past calendar entries is 35 days.
• Restore tasks: The default retention time for old restore tasks is 7 days.

Extras tab

In the Extras tab, the following settings can be activated:

• Switch off the scrolling for warning "30 days remaining for maintenance authorization": You can switch off the scrolling for notification about the pending expiration of updates. If there is no update permission, the notification never appears. After installing update, this option is reset.
• Provide selection of "broken backups" in the restore wizard: If this option is checked, you are allowed to perform a restore from incomplete, broken, or interrupted backups. By default, this selection is not provided.
• Number of trace log lines to display: The default value for trace log lines is 60. Click the arrows to increase or decrease the number of lines.
• RSS notification polling interval: The default polling interval for RSS notification is 720 minutes. Click the arrows to increase or decrease the polling interval.
• Compress LIS files: By default, the LIS files are compressed after 14 days. You can change the number of days after which the LIS files are compressed or deactivate the checkbox to prevent compression of LIS files.
• Globally activate Changed Block Tracking (CBT): By default, the CBT is enabled to provide change tracking thus saving disk space with optimized block level incremental and differential backups of VMDKs. Note that disabling CBT globally will affect your backup performance and use more disk space. For more details, see Changed Block Tracking (CBT).
• Maximum Logs Archive states: You can set the maximum size of the log files archive. The default is 25 MiB (0 = unlimited).
• Task name template: You can configure your own template to define the desired syntax of the backup task name. The backup task name is then generated automatically according to the new template whenever you create a new backup task. The template applies to all backup task types, except in the case that a different template has been entered directly into the SEP sesam database to be applied to the specific task type.

Permissions tab

You can configure the default permissons (ACLs) for all top level locations by simply selecting or adding the relevant user or group (ADMIN, OPERATOR, BACKUP or RESTORE), and enabling or disabling access (to locations) per user/group. For details on how to configure ACLs for a specific location or client, see Using Access Control Lists.

Settings tab

The Settings tab displays an overview of all internal GUI settings. You can insert or modify the keys, for example, to set up customized retention policy.

Rearranging the GUI layout

The SEP sesam GUI can be rearranged almost without limitation. You can adjust the layout of the GUI window by undocking, repositioning and rescaling individual panes of the main GUI window, including toolbars. You can simply drag and drop selected windows to create a customized GUI layout.

Managing layouts

You can save and manage layouts by clicking Window in the menu bar and selecting the Manage Layouts option.

Open the layout and arrange all windows and settings to your liking. Once you are satisfied, give the layout a name and save it. The layout identified with a green arrow (previously blue arrow) is the current layout. If you click Set as Standard the selected layout becomes the default layout (black check mark) and is automatically loaded for the current user the next time the GUI is started.

Changing the data size units

You can change the default setting for the data size units, which are specified with either decimal (KB, MB, GB, TB) or binary prefixes (KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB).

Setting the default data size unit

SEP sesam allows you to choose how your data size should be displayed (e.g, in TiB or TB). In previous SEP sesam versions, the data size was always displayed using decimal units.

1. Open the GUI and from the menu bar select Configuration then Defaults.
2. Click the Display Format tab (previously Data displays) and from the drop-down list Default data size select decimal or binary prefix.

Setting a different data size unit for the individual table

It is possible to change the data size units for each individual table, for example, in the context window Backups, Restores, Last Backup State, etc. This setting is only applied to the displayed data size in the individual table and is reset to the default data size when the user interface is closed.

1. Open the target context window, e.g., Main Selection -> Job State-> Backups, select the Data Size column header and right-click it.
2. From the Unit menu, select the preferred decimal or binary unit display.

Filtering displayed content

SEP sesam offers a range of filtering options depending on the context of the user interface. It provides built-in filtering with different filter types that ease the search for specific content items (date range and clients, state, type, task name, etc.) and allow you to quickly find the relevant items. When available, you will find the filter area on the right side of the GUI window.

Depending on the pre-selected GUI context, the following filter criteria are available (you can filter by one or more criteria):

Date range and clients

Filter the displayed jobs by date, by client and/or by location.

State

Show or hide particular states (in progress, failed, etc.).

Type

Show or hide different event types or their properties. The available options depend on the event type. For example, in the Backups window you can filter by events (NEWDAY, backup, migrations, etc.) and further refine the displayed results by backup level (when applicable; Full, Diff, Inc, Copy).

Task name

You can filter the backup tasks by name. They are displayed below the search field. You can select one or more tasks by holding down the CTRL-key and clicking the name(s).

Filter settings

Activate (default) or deactivate the automatic refresh of the results table.

Pools

Filter the media by media pools.

Loader

Filter the media by storage devices.

End of lifetime

Filter the media by their EOL. By default, this filter is disabled (EOL filter off).

Readability check

Activate or deactivate (media) filtering by readability check.

See also

Managing GUI – SEP sesam Web UI – SEP sesam Icons Legend

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