Chandler
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Chandler user guide

Welcome. This guide explains how to use Chandler, step by step. It is written for everyone on the team, not just engineers.

You can read it in the code repository or inside Chandler: click Help at the top of any page.

In a hurry? The Quick reference lists everyday tasks on one page. Questions people often ask has short answers to common questions.

What Chandler is

Chandler is where ExactNet staff give customers the right to use our products: Portolan, Trawler and Driftnet.

It does three jobs:

  • It keeps a list of our customers and their licenses. A license says which product a customer may use, and until when.
  • It hands out updates. When we publish a new version of a product, customers who are covered for updates can download it.
  • It keeps a record of every change, so you can always see who did what.

Customers never see Chandler. Their copies of our products talk to it by themselves, in the background. We call each copy an install.

The name comes from ships: a chandler supplied ships with what they needed before they sailed.

Who it is for

Chandler is for ExactNet staff only. Customers never sign in to it.

What you can do depends on your permissions:

  • Viewers can look things up.
  • License admins manage customers, licenses and staff access.
  • Release publishers publish new versions of our products.

Getting started explains each permission.

How Help works

There are three ways to get help inside Chandler:

  1. The ⓘ buttons. Next to fields, statuses and buttons you will see a small ⓘ. Point at it, or move to it with the Tab key, to see a short explanation. Each one has a Learn more link to the right part of this guide.
  2. Help for this page. The link at the top of every page opens the part of this guide about the page you are on.
  3. Search. On any Help page, type a word into Search help. It finds page titles and section headings.

If something is still unclear, ask in the team chat or tell engineering. Tell us which page confused you, so we can improve it.

The pages in this guide

Getting started

  • Getting started: signing in, what each permission lets you do, and how to ask for access.
  • The dashboard: the first page you see, and how to read the status card.

Customers and licenses

  • Customers: adding, finding and editing the companies we sell to.
  • Licenses: issuing, renewing, suspending and revoking licenses, and what each date means.
  • Credentials: the secret codes that let a customer's install check its license and download updates.
  • Offline installs: sending a license file to a customer without internet, and what suspension means for them.

Releases and updates

  • Releases: what a release is, its states, and how to publish or withdraw one.
  • Publishing a new version: how new versions reach Chandler, and the publisher tokens build systems use.
  • Customer downloads: which customers get which release, and how to send an offline package.

Keeping things safe

  • Staff and access: signing someone out everywhere, and turning someone's access off.
  • The audit log: finding out who did what, and exporting the list.

Reference