Superviseur — Installer guide

Desautel — Fire alarm supervision system | Commissioning and site configuration

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This guide takes a new machine through to a supervised site: installation, licence, accounts, panels, profiles, maps, backup. Read it in order for a first commissioning, then consult it section by section.

Day-to-day supervision is covered by a separate document: user guide.

Contents

1. Before you start
2. Install the software
3. Activate the licence
4. First sign-in and accounts
5. Access from the local network
6. Declare the panels
7. Declare a panel type
8. Build the maps
9. INIS network
10. Site settings
11. Back up and restore
12. Diagnostics
13. Update, uninstall
14. Roles and locks
15. Reference — locations, services, ports

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1. Before you start

The machine

System	Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
Rights	local administrator (per-machine installation)
Network	IP access to the supervised panels, or an available serial port
Power	the machine is meant to stay on: supervision only runs while it does

Nothing else needs installing: PostgreSQL, the .NET runtime and the web interface are bundled in the installer. An Internet connection is not required.

What to prepare

• The administrator account name and its password — asked during installation, and not recoverable afterwards.
• The brand the machine ships under, if the site expects one other than the default.
• For each panel: type, IP address and port (or COM port and serial settings), and Modbus slave id.
• The site map backgrounds (JPG, PNG or PDF).
• Each panel's INIS configuration file where available: it saves entering zones by hand.

Commissioning order

Install → activate the licence → create accounts → declare the panels → check communication → place the maps → back up.

Maps are built after the panels: they place zones and points that must already exist.

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2. Install the software

Run Superviseur-Setup-<version>.exe as administrator. The wizard steps through:

Page	What it asks	Note
Destination folder	installation path	C:\Program Files\Superviseur by default
Visual identity	the machine's brand	logo, colours and wording; no effect on behaviour or addressing
Administrator account	account name, password, confirmation	first installation only
Installation	—	lays down the files, initialises the database, registers the services

The account name is pre-filled with the brand identifier and stays editable: it is a sign-in identifier, not a technical constraint. It accepts only letters, digits, dot, hyphen and underscore.

The password serves two purposes: it opens the software's administrator account, and it is the password of the local database's PostgreSQL role. At the end of installation it is sealed to the machine, unreadable elsewhere; no plaintext copy is kept.

Write this password down and keep it somewhere safe. There is no recovery procedure: losing it means reinstalling.

What installation puts in place

• Two Windows services, automatic start, automatic restart after an abnormal stop: Superviseur-Service (application) and Superviseur-Service-PostgreSQL (database).
• An inbound firewall rule on port 5000/TCP, limited to the private network profile.
• Shortcuts in the Start menu and on the Desktop, which launch the desktop application.
• A taskbar icon: the service manager.

Check that installation succeeded

1. Both services are Running in services.msc.
2. The shortcut opens the application on the sign-in screen.
3. On failure: right-click the taskbar icon → View backend console. The same menu starts, stops and restarts the service.

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3. Activate the licence

A licence authorises one machine to run the software. It is signed by Desautel and bound to the machine's hardware fingerprint; it depends on neither the Windows session nor the installed brand. Without a valid licence, the supervision client shows its activation window instead of starting.

Activation circuit

1. On the machine — produce the request.

The activation window opens on its own when no valid licence is installed. It stays reachable from the taskbar icon → License…, including when the client refuses to start.

Fill in customer, site and contact, then Save request…: a .licreq file is produced. It carries the machine fingerprint, its network name and the installed version.

2. At Desautel — issue the licence.

Send the .licreq over. The operator opens the request, chooses perpetual validity or an end date, and returns a .key file.

Issuance happens at Desautel only: the signing tool never leaves the publisher, and the machine needs no additional tool.

3. On the machine — apply the licence.

In the same window, paste the token, import the .key file or drop it onto the window. The licence is checked immediately and the client starts without a restart. A rejected licence never overwrites the one in place.

File location

Searched in this order, the first writable location winning:

1. C:\ProgramData\Superviseur\license.key — covers every account on the machine;
2. %AppData%\Superviseur\license.key — fallback when the first is not writable.

Rejection reasons

Message	Cause
License not issued by Desautel	signature missing or invalid
License issued for another computer	the fingerprint does not match this machine
License issued for another product	licence for a different product
License expired on …	end date passed

Replacing a motherboard or system disk changes the fingerprint: a new licence is then required. A lost licence is requested again from Desautel without re-issuing.

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4. First sign-in and accounts

Sign in with the administrator account defined during installation. It opens the SuperAdmin role, the only one allowed to configure the site.

Then create the operating accounts from Settings → Users:

Role	For whom	Can
SuperAdmin	installer, configurator	everything: configuration, backup, diagnostics, reset, zone test
Admin	advanced operator	supervise, acknowledge, command, manage non-SuperAdmin accounts, edit site identity and INIS network
User	operator	supervise, acknowledge, command, consult history and reports

Do not run day-to-day operation under the SuperAdmin account and do not share its password: create named Admin and User accounts.

The SuperAdmin password has no in-service rotation flow; changing it goes through a controlled reinstallation.

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5. Access from the local network

The interface can be consulted from another machine on the network, in a browser, at the address shown by Settings → General → Local network access. It has the form https://<machine-address>:5000.

• The certificate is self-signed: the browser asks for confirmation on the first visit.
• The firewall rule laid down at installation only covers the private network profile. A machine classified as "public" will not answer until the rule is widened.
• Remote machines have no alarm sound until the tab has received a user interaction: browsers block unsolicited audio.

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6. Declare the panels

Settings → Panels → New panel.

General tab

Field	Purpose
Name	label shown throughout the application
Description	free text, optional
Profile	the panel type (§7); it decides addressing and supervised incidents
Colour	identification tint for the panel on maps and overview screens

Connectivity tab

Transport	Fields
Modbus TCP	IP address, port (502 by default), slave id
Modbus RTU	COM port, baud rate, data bits, parity, stop bits, slave id

The slave id must fall within the range declared by the profile; the interface states the expected range and refuses a value outside it.

A connection test checks that the panel answers before commissioning. Use it every time: it tells an addressing mistake apart from a powered-down panel.

Zones tab

Three ways to populate zones and points:

1. Import the INIS configuration — the panel's file fills in zones, points and labels at once. This is the safest route: labels then match the panel exactly.
2. Bulk creation — number of zones and points per zone, then renaming.
3. One by one — zone by zone, point by point.

Labels are authoritative in logs and reports. Fill them in before going live: history already written is not rewritten.

After declaring

• Supervision starts immediately, with no service restart.
• Check the readings on the dashboard, then with the raw scan (§12) if a state looks wrong.
• A panel can be paused rather than deleted for the duration of an intervention.

Deleting a panel also deletes its zones, its points and the data attached to them.

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7. Declare a panel type

The INIS-E16 and AVISS profiles ship with the application: they can be consulted, derived and edited — but editing a shipped profile takes it out of updates until "restore" returns it to its original state. A shipped profile cannot be deleted.

To supervise a panel of another type, declare its profile from Settings → Panel profiles (SuperAdmin).

What a profile describes

Tab	Contents
Identity	name, addressing mode, zone and point counts, slave id range, transport
Frame	address offsets, communication test address and length, write addresses, presence of an interface zone and line
Incidents	one incident per supervised state: free name, behaviour, and addressing of the table carrying it
System states	bits of the general parameters table, with logged event type and sound
Commands	the commands offered to the operator, enabled one by one
Review	summary of the regions actually polled on each cycle

The addressing mode decides what goes on a map: a conventional panel places only its zones, its points being detection lines covering a loop; an addressable panel also places each point.

An incident's behaviour, chosen from the catalogue (alarm, fault, out of service, test, evacuation…), drives the application's reaction everywhere: colour, sound, System State readout, map, reports, history.

A command the panel does not accept must stay disabled: offering it would send a code the panel ignores, with no visible effect for the operator.

Two rules to know

• Two incidents cannot read the same table: the second would overwrite the first with no error to signal it.
• Several incidents may share a behaviour — two distinct faults, for instance — provided each carries its own key. They then appear side by side, are acknowledged separately, and are each logged under their own name.

Method

The safest route is to derive a shipped profile close to the need, then adjust addresses and incidents. A new profile starts from the specification's exchange table, without the quirks of any given firmware. An inconsistent profile is refused on save, with the reason.

A profile set up once exports to a file and is picked up on another machine.

Reading direction of a table

A table is read the right way round by default: bit set = state present. Some equipment follows the opposite convention — the loop is closed at rest, and it is its opening that signals the state. This is the principle of fail-safe contacts: a cut wire shows up instead of passing for calm.

The "inverted logic (active low)" checkbox, in the Incidents tab, is set table by table. It applies to the raw read, before any splitting: it therefore holds for a table of one bit per entity as much as one register per entity, and the head position is subject to it like the rest.

The interface zone and line

Some panels carry an interface zone and an interface detection line of their own — on INIS-E16, the HMI zone and the HMI DI line. They are supervised and placed on a map like the others, but the profile must describe them at three levels.

1. Does the panel carry one? Two checkboxes, Frame tab: "the panel carries an interface zone" and "… an interface line". Unchecked, no interface entity is created.

2. Which tables describe it? Table by table, Incidents tab:

Setting	What it states
Head offset (zone, point)	how many positions precede entity no. 1 in this table. Zero when the table starts at entity 1
The head describes the system entity	the position thus reserved carries the interface entity's state, rather than plain padding

The two are independent, deliberately: a panel that carries an interface entity does not necessarily expose it on every table. A table may reserve the slot to align its physical entities without describing anything there. Ticked wrongly, this box would report as interface state a bit that is not one.

3. Which commands reach it? Command by command, Commands tab: "may target the system entity". Unchecked — the default for a declared profile — the target is not offered to the operator and the server refuses it. On shipped profiles the box is ticked everywhere except on zone disable and zone enable, which the INIS-E16 firmware ignores on its interface zone. The matching line commands do act on the interface line.

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8. Build the maps

Settings → Maps. Panels must be declared first: a map places zones and points that already exist.

1. New map, then a meaningful name — it appears on the tab and in reports.
2. Import the background: JPG, PNG or PDF. A PDF is converted to an image on import.
3. Place the elements from the library on the right, by drag and drop. It lists the zones and points not yet placed, grouped by panel.
4. Draw the zones: a zone is a polygon, click to lay down its vertices. Right-click a vertex to remove it.
5. Adjust: the bottom-right handle resizes the background without moving what is already placed — positions are expressed as a percentage of the map.
6. Save.

Worth knowing:

• A map saves only on command. Any exit with pending changes asks what to do with them.
• A panel may span several maps; it is outlined on each, around the elements found there.
• Zone and panel labels can be moved, resized and returned to their original position from the right-hand panel.
• The number of maps is not limited; their order is rearranged by dragging the tabs.

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9. INIS network

Settings → INIS network. Describes the links between panels of an INIS-E16 network: creating the network, assigning each panel to its slot, importing the link matrices.

The view is readable by every role, its editing open to Admins. It does not condition the supervision of a standalone panel: a site without an INIS network has nothing to fill in here.

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10. Site settings

Section	Contents	Role
General → Identity	site name, logo	Admin
General → Appearance	theme, scale	Admin
General → Sounds & alerts	alarm sounds and interface feedback, volumes; each sound can be replaced by a file and returned to the shipped one	Admin
General → Local network access	address for consulting from another machine	Admin
System settings	Modbus communication timeouts and polling rate	SuperAdmin
Maintenance	disk space cleanup, factory reset	SuperAdmin

System settings govern responsiveness and bus load. Change them only for a measured reason: too short a polling rate saturates a serial line, too long a timeout delays detection of a communication loss.

The logo and sounds uploaded apply to every machine: they are served by the service, not stored in the browser.

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11. Back up and restore

Settings → Backup.

The export produces an archive of the complete configuration: accounts, panels, zones, points, profiles, maps and their images, INIS networks, report templates, notes and general settings. The event history is included on request.

Take a backup as soon as commissioning is finished, then after every notable change.

Good practice: one backup a week, three generations kept, stored off the machine, and a restore proven at least once — an archive never read back is not a backup.

Restore

Restoring replaces the configuration in place. Accounts, panels, zones, profiles, maps, INIS networks, report templates and notes are erased and replaced by those in the archive. Back up before restoring.

• Shipped profiles nobody has edited are realigned on the code: an addressing correction shipped since the archive was written is not undone.
• The event history is not erased; only entries missing from the database are added.
• The regulatory audit trail is not part of the archive and is never rewritten.
• The page reloads once the import finishes; the service itself is not restarted.

Factory reset

Settings → Maintenance, SuperAdmin. Irreversible.

Erased	Kept
panels, zones and points	the administrator account created at installation
maps and uploaded images	the shipped profiles
INIS networks	the audit trail, where the reset records itself
event history, reports and templates
accounts created since installation
profiles declared on site

Reserve it for a deliberate wipe: repurposing a machine for another site, or an installation whose configuration must be redone from scratch.

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12. Diagnostics

Reserved for SuperAdmin, useful at installation, of no use in day-to-day operation.

Raw scan

Settings → Panels → Modbus scanner. Polls every table the profile declares — including those of a profile declared on site — and states, under each bit read, the entity it describes: system entity, zone 1, point 3.

That attribution is what makes an offset visible: a bit reported as "system entity" just after acting on zone 1 says the table is off by one.

Diagnostic console

Live stream of the frames sent and received, decoded. Used to check that a command actually goes out, and what the panel answers. It can be paused, cleared and resized.

Filters narrow the display without interrupting capture: by direction (out, in, info, error), by slave number, by full-text search, and a switch toggles between decoded and hexadecimal frames. A counter gives the number of frames shown out of the total captured.

Basic checks

Symptom	What to check
Panel unreachable	power, wiring, IP address and port, slave id, network firewall
Wrong or shifted states	profile addresses, head offset, reading direction (§7)
Command with no effect	is the command enabled in the profile, and accepted by the panel?
Interface unreachable from another machine	firewall network profile, port 5000

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13. Update, uninstall

Update

Run the new installer. It stops the services, replaces the binaries and keeps the data: database, maps, uploads, logs and sealed secret. The administrator account is not asked for again, and the licence stays in place.

Uninstall

Uninstallation first asks what to do with the site data:

• No — keep the database, the sealed secret and the certificate, for a later reinstallation without loss. This is the recommended choice.
• Yes — erase everything permanently: accounts, panels, maps, INIS networks, history and audit trail.

The purge is atomic: data and secret go together. Separating them would leave the PostgreSQL role and the secret out of step, and reinstallation would fail on authentication.

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14. Roles and locks

Access control applies both in the interface (visibility) and on the service (authorisation): what is hidden from a role is also refused to it by the API, and the refusal is written to the audit trail. A display-only lock would not be a lock.

Two commands are reserved for SuperAdmin:

• the reset, which clears the alarms of the whole installation;
• the zone test, which removes a zone's detection function for the duration of the operation.

The "Reset" button offered after an acknowledgement stays visible to everyone — it signals that the panel must be reset — but is clickable only by SuperAdmin.

Regulatory audit trail

An unalterable trail records sensitive actions with their author, role and address: sign-ins, account management, configuration, commands, exports, backups, resets, service start and stop.

• It is separate from the fire protection history and is exposed by no screen.
• It is kept for five years at minimum, then purged by age.
• It appears in neither backups nor exports.
• It is consulted on the machine, alongside the service, by the procedure in the technical guide.

The fire protection event history, by contrast, is never purged: neither automatically nor by an administrator. Only a factory reset erases it.

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15. Reference — locations, services, ports

On disk

Path	Contents
C:\Program Files\Superviseur\backend\	Windows service and embedded web interface
C:\Program Files\Superviseur\client\	desktop application launched by the shortcuts
C:\Program Files\Superviseur\manager\	taskbar service manager
C:\Program Files\Superviseur\pgsql\	embedded PostgreSQL
C:\ProgramData\Superviseur\pgdata\	database
C:\ProgramData\Superviseur\logs\	service logs
C:\ProgramData\Superviseur\Uploads\	logos, sounds, map images
C:\ProgramData\Superviseur\license.key	the machine's licence

The application secret is sealed in C:\Program Files\Superviseur\backend\appsettings.Crypto.prod.protected, unreadable outside this machine.

Services and ports

	Windows service	Port	Scope
Application	Superviseur-Service	5000/TCP (HTTPS)	machine and local network
Database	Superviseur-Service-PostgreSQL	5432/TCP	loopback only

Both services start automatically and restart on their own after an abnormal stop.