Introduction; What Is Crestron E-Control Mail; System Terminology And Topology - Crestron SW-MAIL User Manual

Crestron e-control Mail

Introduction

The term "server" does not imply
a need for specialized hardware.
Any PC meeting the minimum
requirements on page 11 will
suffice to run swserver.exe.
8 Introduction

What is Crestron e-control Mail?

Crestron e-control Mail (SW-MAIL) empowers any Crestron control system with the
ability to construct and transmit, and receive and view e-mail messages.
Simply by asserting specific signals, your control systems can send arbitrary text,
whole text files, canned messages, alerts, status updates, etc., to any e-mail address.
Messages can be sent to a control system for display and to assert specific signals.
The actual e-mailing is not carried out by the control systems themselves, but by a
remote e-e-mail host. The control system relies on intermediaries to translate
communications protocols and supply other services. One of these intermediaries is
the freely distributed Crestron e-control Software Server. SW-MAIL is a licensable
component of this "server" application (swserver.exe) which is hosted on a
standard PC running Windows
technologies:
Signal-level communications with the control system
Access to database tables
Access to external services (such as e-e-mail hosts) through the PC's network
connection.
The server is connected to the control system via either a serial cable through an
RS-232 port or an Ethernet network through a LAN port. To effect the latter type of
connection, the control system relies on an intermediary, the Crestron CNX Gateway,
to translate communications protocols.
To aid in making all this clear, the following illustrated discussion of system
terminology and topology should prove useful at this point.

System Terminology and Topology

This manual simultaneously discusses several different inter-connected computer
systems. To reduce confusion, throughout the manual, these systems are referred to
using the terms in the following table. (Also refer to the diagrams on the next page.)
Term
The system
or the control system
The server
or the software server
The gateway
or the CNX Gateway
The host
or the e-mail host
The control system(s) are connected to the server via direct RS-232 serial connection
or via TCP/IP to the gateway and thence via TCP/IP to the server.
®
95/98/NT and provides the following core
Explanation
One of a number of Crestron control
system(s), which may include any combination
of the following models:
- , -
CNMSX PRO CNMSX AV
The Crestron Software Server,
swserver.exe, which runs on a PC under
® ®
Microsoft Windows 95 or Windows NT
A communications conduit that sits between
the server and the control system(s).
An e-mail host used for exchanging mail with
the system and other e-mail clients.
Installation & Reference Guide — Doc. 5798
SW-MAIL
, ,
CNMS CNRACK
, and .
CNRACKX
®
.