The i365 User

All daemons powered by Cortex are executed on the system by the user i365. This user belongs to the Administrators group to run these services and does not have login privileges. The i365 user's password is randomly generated when Cortex is installed.

For security reasons it is best to avoid giving the i365 user a login privileges or reset it's password. Doing so may open your system up to intrusion and cause the Cortex system services to fail to start.

Additional Packages

The Windows version of Cortex does not install any 3rd party packages onto your system, though some of the more modern games may require you install DirectX 9 onto your server. This can be done easily by running Windows Update from your server's desktop.

Cortex services

The Cortex Windows services.

The Windows version of Cortex installs one system service for each backend service contained in Cortex. You may start and stop these at your leisure or to assist in troubleshooting. Note that the Cortex MTA service controls the Cortex mail server.

The Service Manager

Instance control and 24/7 operations required to run by Cortex (such as the High Resolution Timer, clustering daemon, and data polling for Instance history graphs) are handled by the Cortex Service Manager service. This service executes bin\Cortex_services.exe in the background and listens on localhost, port TCP/8364.

Filesystem Differences

The Cortex root directory in Windows is C:\i365. There are a number of files and directories specific to the Windows version of Cortex:

• The bin\ directory contains a number of helper programs and libraries that are described in detail in the next section.
• The hmailserver\ directory contains the mail server that Cortex uses to send event messages.
• The php\ directory contains the Windows version of Cortex's PHP and Zend Optimizer installations.
• The license file for Cortex is located in the Cortex root directory on Windows servers.

Maintenance in Windows

The Service Control Program

Unlike the Linux version of Cortex which uses a number of shell scripts for maintenance, Cortex in windows uses a single binary with a number of options to help you control, troubleshoot, and repair Cortex. Many of these options are used by the Cortex development and support teams for debugging, but the most used options are described below.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>c:\i365\bin\svcctl.exe

Service Control Binary:

This executable is used for emergency modification of Cortex settings.
It can also be used to display the command line parameters for instances
as well as multiple Cortex service control options.

Usage: svcctl.exe <OPTIONS>

    -install Install the Cortex System Services. (Cortex SQL,Web,Clustering)
    -remove Remove the Cortex System Services. (Cortex SQL,Web,Clustering)
    -start Start the Cortex System Services. (Cortex SQL,Web,Clustering)
    -stop Stop the Cortex System Services. (Cortex SQL,Web,Clustering)
    -resetAdminPassword <password> Reset the Cortex "admin" user's password.
    -getInfo <instance_id> Print out startup information for an instance.
    -resetSkin [all] Reset the default skin for the system.
    -getInstanceList List information for instances on the machine.

Setting the Admin Password

In times where you forget the Cortex admin user's password you can easily reset the password with the -resetAdminPassword option to bin\svcctl.exe.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>c:\i365\bin\svcctl.exe -resetAdminPassword

Reset the Cortex "admin" user's password.

Usage: svcctl.exe -resetAdminPassword <password>

       password   New password for the user.

Resetting the Skin

If you or one of your users uploaded a bad skin and set it to the default skin, rendering Cortex unusable, it is possible to manually set it back to the default skin with the -resetSkin option to bin\svcctl.exe.

C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator>c:\i365\bin\svcctl.exe -resetSkin /?

This script resets the local Cortex server to use the default skin.
This should be used in the case that the curent skin is broken and 
Cortex needs to be reset to regain access. The admin's skin is reset
to the Cortex default skin as well.

Usage: svcctl.exe -resetSkin [all]

       all   Reset all local user skins to the Cortex default skin as well.