MA dot2 Locking/Protection Options

NateTheRiddler

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
Good morning, CB.

Today, I've come to ask if anyone knows how to protect my PAC's dot2 console from the forces of evil (volunteers with no knowledge of the console, but much willingness to push buttons and break things).

I'm aware of the MA+Fix key, but all that really does is keep people away who can't Google "how to unlock dot2." I'm looking more for password protection of individual showfiles (ideally), or if worst comes to it, some way to change permissions on the console. I've not found any such settings in digging through the dot2, and I've scoured the command line reference without any luck. I'm used to the MA2 series, so I'm bummed that limitation of privilege of any sort doesn't seem to exist.

Would love if anyone could prove me wrong. As an explanation, I'm the ALD at my PAC and I've been tasked with keeping a House of Worship client who uses our venue from tampering with our fixtures allocated for show. Now, while I could just unpatch their showfile, that just invites them to tamper more and figure out how to repatch them. We want to lock them to specified privileges (operate, not edit), or create a secondary showfile that is password-protected, that has all the dangerous stuff.

Much appreciation if anyone knows, and if the answer is "shoulda bought an MA2 series instead"....

I agree.

Disclaimer: I'm aware that many HoW clients are great people, as are their associated volunteers. But being a nice person does not, unfortunately, save you from also being an id-10-t, and id-10-ts are dangerous when given too much power. ;)


TL;DR: How lock console?
 
Its been a few years since I have used a Dot2, does it have the ability to log in as different users? On MA2 you can set a user to "playback" only rights.
 
Could you not simply save your show to a USB thumb drive and restore it after they use the facility? If they can't access the "golden" copy of the show file, they cannot mess it up.
I'm not so worried about the showfile (since I have backups upon backups). I'm more worried about untrained volunteers having the ability to access the patch, bring up intensity on fixtures they're not authorized to use, and then think they are allowed to focus those fixtures. If the fixture never turns on, they'll hopefully never try to focus it. See my thinking? Probably convoluted, to be honest.

AFAIK, this one one of the things that got thrown out the window to simplify the board. The closest thing you get to users is saving different showfiles.
I'm getting that impression from a lot of features on the dot2. It's a reason I dislike this simplified thing. Yuck. No offense to dot2 fans, I suppose. Different strokes for different folks.
 
This may be lame, but if you can isolate the power feeds to forbidden fixtures, kill the breakers or relays, and lock the breaker panel, maybeyou have achieved something of your goal?


Seems like a h2h with exec director of the how tenant is in order. They are probably prohibited from painting the stage or building bonfires, and this is no different. Respect the rules or the idiot gets banned.
 
You're trying to solve a social problem with a technical solution. That never works well
 

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