Follow these steps to manually test the SSH connection:

1. On Room Alert Manager’s host system, open a command prompt window as an administrator. You may find it at the following path: Start–> All Programs–> Windows System (or Accessories)–> Command Prompt
2. Then, in the command prompt window, run this command: ssh [username@target IP or hostname]
   
3. You should be able to connect to the target system without needing to enter the user’s password. (If the key has a passphrase associated with it, you will be prompted to enter that.)
   
   • If the SSH connection fails for any reason (including if you get prompted for your user password) please skip step 4 and go straight to the troubleshooting recommendations below.
4. If you are able to successfully establish an SSH connection to the target server, you can try manually sending the shutdown/reboot command next.
   • To do so, enter either the shutdown or reboot command below that corresponds to the target server’s Operating System.
     • Windows System – Shutdown: shutdown -s
     • Windows System – Reboot: shutdown -r
     • Linux System – Shutdown: sudo shutdown -h -t 5
     • Linux System – Reboot: sudo shutdown -r -t 5
     • Mac System – Shutdown: sudo shutdown -h now
     • Mac System – Reboot: sudo shutdown -r now
       
   • After a few moments, you should get feedback that indicates whether or not the command was successful. (In our example, we successfully rebooted the target server.)
     

Your “authorized keys” file must be stored in the correct location with the proper file name & permissions.

• The file name & location depends on whether the user account is a member of the local administrators group or a standard user account.
  • For a standard user, the authorized_keys file is located in the .ssh folder of the user’s directory.
    On Windows systems, the path is C:\Users\UserName\.ssh\authorized_keys
  • For an admin user, the administrators_authorized_keys file is located in the system’s main ssh directory.
    On Windows systems, the path is C:\ProgramData\ssh\administrators_authorized_keys
• Only the local system and administrators security group should have permissions to access the administrators_authorized_keys file.
  • The example below shows the permissions of the file on our Windows system.

1. Open the sshd configuration file in a text editor, such as Notepad.
   • For our example, we’re opening the file located at C:\ProgramData\ssh\sshd_config in a text editor.
2. Locate the Authentication settings, and make sure public key authentication is enabled.
   • In our example, we needed to uncomment the line “PubkeyAuthentication” and set it to yes.
     
3. Restart the SSH Server daemon to apply the change.

• Ensure that local anti-spyware and anti-virus programs on both the target computer and Room Alert Manager’s host system allow SSH connections.
• Ensure that the firewall on the target system allows incoming remote SSH connections via TCP Port 22 (or whatever custom port you may be using).

OpenSSH includes log files that may offer additional clues—or even specific suggestions—for troubleshooting. Debugging can be enabled at multiple levels in order to print additional information to the log files. For more information, please see this Wikibooks entry: OpenSSH/Logging and Troubleshooting.

For example, this debug line in our log shows that we need to adjust the user permissions on our administrators_authorized_keys file.

To get the debugging lines to print in our log, we simply adjusted the #Logging settings within our sshd_config file.

On the target system, the sshd service should be set to startup automatically. These instructions show you how to do that on Windows.

1. Open Windows Services.  You may find it at the following path: Start–> Control Panel–> Administrative Tools–> Services.
2. Right-click on OpenSSH SSH Server in the list of programs, and then select Properties.
   
3. In the service properties window, make sure Startup type is set to Automatic.
   

Use an administrator user on the target server. If the target server is a Mac or Linux, you’ll need to enable sudo without a password.

You can do this by editing the admin group permissions within the ‘/etc/sudoers’ file so that the user permissions are: ALL = (ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL. If you don’t wish to grant the user full-access, you may configure limited access to only execute certain commands without a password. There are tutorials available online that walk you through this process.

In order to generate the keys, you need to have an SSH client installed on Room Alert Manager’s host system.

• There are a few ways to check if an SSH client is installed; one easy way is to open Windows Command Prompt and enter this command:
  ssh -V
  
• This command returns the current version of the SSH client that is installed on the machine.
• If there is no SSH client installed, the command will instead return: “‘ssh’ is not recognized as an internal or external command…”

The steps below show you how to install the OpenSSH client on Windows 10.

OpenSSH is built into modern versions of Windows as an “optional feature” (not installed by default). To install it:

1. Go to Windows Settings –> Apps and select Optional features.
   (If you already have the SSH client installed, it will appear in the list here.)
2. Select Add a feature at the top of the Optional Features list.
3. Scroll down to find “OpenSSH Client” in the list. Enable the checkbox beside it, and then select Install.

Running an older version of Windows that doesn’t have OpenSSH built-in?
You can download OpenSSH from here: https://github.com/PowerShell/Win32-OpenSSH/tags. (We recommend downloading OpenSSH-Win64.zip of the v8.9.1.0p1-Beta release or newer.) You can find installation instructions in this tutorial: How to Install an OpenSSH Server/Client on A Windows 2016 Server.

On the target server, you must have an SSH daemon (sshd) running in the background, constantly waiting for an SSH connection.

Select your target server’s OS tab below for instructions.

Next, generate a public/private key pair from Room Alert Manager’s host system.

After generating the key pair, you’ll share the public key with the target server. The private key should remain securely stored on Room Alert Manager’s host system.

These steps show you how to generate an SSH key pair through command prompt:

1. On Room Alert Manager’s host system, open a command prompt window.
2. Then run this command: ssh-keygen
   
3. You’ll see a message that the keys are being generated.
   
4. When prompted to select a location, you may press Enter to leave the default location (the .ssh folder on your user drive) or specify a path and/or filename.
   
5. Next, you’ll be prompted to use a passphrase to encrypt your private key files. Enter a passphrase or simply press Enter to leave it empty.
   
6. You’ll see a message showing where the keys have been stored, the key fingerprint, and the key’s randomart image.
   
7. In our example, there are now files id_rsa and id_rsa.pub in our .ssh folder. The first is the private key. The second is the public key—that’s what we’ll send to the target server.

Share the public key with the target server.

To use the SSH key pair created in the previous step, the contents of the public key must be saved to a file on the target server. The steps to do this vary, based on the target server’s OS.

The steps below show you how to deploy the public key on a Windows system in the most basic way—by manually copying & pasting the key’s contents. Alternatively, you may use PowerShell or another command line tool to deploy the public key. For PowerShell instructions, please see Key-based authentication in OpenSSH for Windows.

Please follow these steps to manually share the public key:

1. On Room Alert Manager’s host system, open the public key file in a text editor program, such as Notepad.
2. Copy the entire contents of the public key to your clipboard.
3. Then on the target system, either locate the existing “authorized keys” file or create one if needed.
   • The file name & location depends on whether the user account is a member of the local administrators group or a standard user account.
     • For a standard user, the authorized_keys file is located in the .ssh folder of the user’s directory.
     • For an admin user, the administrators_authorized_keys file is located in the system’s main ssh directory.
   • Note that only the local system and administrators security group should have permissions to access the administrators_authorized_keys file.
4. Open the authorized keys file in a text editor, such as Notepad, with administrator privileges.
5. Paste the entire contents of the public key at the bottom of the authorized keys file.
6. Save the changes to the file.
7. Restart the SSH Server daemon to apply the public key.

Before you configure Room Alert Manager to use this SSH key, it’s a good idea to manually check that you are able to do a basic SSH connection using key authorization. To do this, please follow the steps below:

1. On Room Alert Manager’s host system, open a command prompt window.
2. Then run this command: ssh [user@target IP or hostname]
   Example: ssh janesmith@192.168.123.45
3. You should be able to connect to the target system without needing to enter the user’s password. (If the key has a passphrase associated with it, you will be prompted to enter that.)
4. Additional information is available in our FAQ, How To Troubleshoot Server Actions In Room Alert Manager.

In the Images tab, you may adjust the time range of the images that appear on screen, enlarge an image to see more detail, and identify the image type.

Change the date range

• By default, this tab shows images captured during the Last hour. If your camera hasn’t captured any images within the last hour, the tab will appear empty until you adjust the time range.
  • In the time-range drop-down menu, you may leave the default, Last hour, or choose another time period.
    
  • If you would prefer a specific date range, you may instead select the calendar icon and pick start and end dates. Select Apply to apply your date range.
    

• Stored images are separated by date, and listed newest –> oldest.
  • As you can see in our example above, a person entered the room at 10:54:53 AM and exited approximately 3 minutes later.

Enlarge images

• You may click on an image in the list to open it in a larger window.
  • From here, you can easily use the right and left arrows to move between images.

Identify the image type

• Each image has either a yellow or blue circle icon in its upper left-corner.
  
  • A yellow circle icon indicates that the image was sent to Room Alert Manager as part of a motion detection event.
  • A blue circle icon indicates that the image was either captured in response to an alert condition, or manually by a Room Alert user.

The Live tab of your camera’s Details page includes the following:

• A live view from your camera
• The camera’s current Motion Status*
• A button to manually capture an image at any time

* This status can only update if your camera has already been configured to send images to Room Alert Manager when motion is detected.

When your camera detects motion, its Motion Status changes from “Not Detected” to “Detected for x seconds,” and the field gets highlighted in red, as shown below.

You may manually capture an image at any time by selecting the Capture Image button to the right of the live view. (You must then refresh the page before the newly-captured image appears in your Images tab.)

To downloads an Axis image from Room Alert Manager, please follow these instructions:

1. Within the camera’s Details page –> Images tab, locate the image you wish to download.
2. Then right-click on the image, and select Save image as…
   
3. Choose where you would like to save the image on your local computer, and then select Save.
   

To delete an Axis image from Room Alert Manager, please follow these instructions:

1. Within the camera’s Details page –> Images tab, hover your mouse over the image you wish to delete.
2. Then select the trash can icon that appears in the upper right-corner of the image.
   
3. Finally, select Delete in the confirmation box.
   

The usage statistics that Room Alert Manager sends to AVTECH include non-identifiable data about alert configurations, report configurations and more.

They do not contain potentially-sensitive information, such as MAC addresses, IP Addresses, Alert Names, Device Names, User Names, Passwords, Email Addresses, Phone Numbers, etc.

Below are examples of usage statistics sent from Room Alert Manager:

• system & applicationProperties
  
  • The system usage statistics include information such as the host operating system, its quantity of NICs, its quantity of cores, and its memory.
  • The applicationProperties usage statistics show whether the software is configured to use the default (main) database or an external database.
• mailSettings
  
  • The mailSettings usage statistics include information such as the mail server port, whether or not authentication is enabled, and whether or not a backup mail server is configured.
  • These usage statistics do not include the mail server’s hostname, the sender Email address, or authentication credentials.
• discoverySettings & pullSettings
  
  • The discoverySettings & pullSettings usage statistics include information such as the discovery interval, whether automatic discovery is enabled, the quantity of IP or NICs that have been excluded, and the quantity of manually-discovered devices.
  • These usage statistics do not include any IP addresses.
• firmwareUpdateSettings
  
  • The firmwareUpdateSettings usage statistics show whether or not the software is configured to automatically get the latest firmware files from RoomAlert.com.
• alerts
  
  • The alerts usage statistics include information such as the threshold, the channel type, the duration, the repeat interval, and whether or not the escalations are associated with a custom template.
  • These usage statistics do not include alert names, MAC addresses, device names, or the contents of custom notification templates.

• schedules
  
  • The schedules usage statistics include information such as the weekday and start and end times.
• users
  
  • The users usage statistics include information such as the user type (admin, manager or viewer), the user’s temperature scale, and whether or not multi-factor authentication has been enabled.
  • These usage statistics do not include the username, password, email address, or first & last name.
• deviceGroups
  
  • The deviceGroups usage statistics include information such as the quantity of groups and the quantity of devices per group.
• inventoryDevices
  
  • The inventoryDevices usage statistics include information about each discovered device, such as the device type, firmware version, and discovery source.
  • These usage statistics do not include the MAC address, device name, or IP address.
• pingDevices
  
  • The pingDevices usage statistics include information such as the ping type (ICMP or HTTP), port, and timeout version.
  • These usage statistics do not include the ping name, IP address, host or path.
• recipientGroups
  
  • The recipientGroups usage statistics include information such as the quantity of recipients and recipient type (email, text message, in-app message).
  • These usage statistics do not include email addresses or phone numbers.
• reports
  
  • The reports usage statistics include information such as the report date range, and quantity and types of channels.
• cellModemSettings
  
  • The cellModemSettings usage statistics include information such as whether or not the modem is using default settings.
  • These usage statistics do not include the COM port or service center number.
• pushSettings
  
  • The pushSettings usage statistics include the missed push threshold.
• relayConfigurations
  
  • The relayConfigurations usage statistics include information such as the relay or light tower’s trigger & clear configurations.
• axisDevices
  
  • The axisDevices usage statistics include information about each discovered camera, such as the model, firmware version, and minimum interval between image captures.
  • These usage statistics do not include the camera’s MAC address or IP address.

Sending usage statistics to AVTECH is a feature that can be turned on or off during the installation process (from within Room Alert Manager’s installer) or afterwards (from within its installation directory).

Select the tabs below for instructions.

During installationAfter installation

When you install Room Alert Manager v1.10+ (either as a new installation or as an update to a previous installation), you’ll see the following window in the installer.

• Keep the checkbox in the window enabled if you’d like to allow Room Alert Manager to send usage statistics.
• Un-check the box to prevent Room Alert Manager from sending usage statistics.

After installing Room Alert Manager, you can change this setting at any point by following these instructions.

These instructions require you to start and stop the Room Alert Manager service. This FAQ shows you how: How To Stop, Start And Restart The Room Alert Manager Service.

1. Stop the Room Alert Manager service.
2. Navigate to Room Alert Manager’s installation folder on its host system.
   • By default, it’s at C:\Program Files\AVTECH Room Alert Manager.
3. Locate the “config” folder and open it.
4. In the “config” folder, locate the “application.properties” file.
5. Open that file in any text editor, such as Notepad or Notepad++.
6. Locate the line that reads “avtech.usagestatistics.enabled”
   • Set this line to true to allow Room Alert Manager to send usage statistics.
   • Set this line to false to prevent Room Alert Manager from sending usage statistics.
7. When you’re done making changes, save the “application.properties” file.
8. You may now close Room Alert Manager’s installation folder.
9. Then start the Room Alert Manager service.