rConfig Vector Prism – Portal Guide for Customer Users

rConfig Vector Prism Portal Guide: Daily Use for Customer Users

This guide is for customer users — the people who sign in to the Prism portal to view their network device configurations. If you run Prism, see Admin Guide instead.

The portal looks slightly different at every site because it’s white-labelled to your service provider. The screens, layout, and workflows are the same; only the logos, colours, and support links change.

Signing In For The First Time

Your service provider invites you over email. The invitation contains a one-time signup link that expires after 24 hours. If yours has expired, ask your administrator to resend it.

The first-time flow:

1. Click the link in the invitation email.
2. Set a password. Choose a long, unique one your password manager can remember for you.
3. Enrol two-factor authentication. You’ll be redirected to a 2FA setup page that shows a QR code.
   • Open an authenticator app on your phone (Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Authy, 1Password, or any RFC 6238 TOTP app).
   • Scan the QR code.
   • Type the 6-digit code shown by the app to confirm.
4. Save your recovery codes. Ten single-use codes are shown at the end of enrollment. Print them, paste them into your password manager, or write them on something safe. You’ll need one if you ever lose your phone.

After confirming 2FA you land on the Portal Dashboard.

Caution

2FA is mandatory. There is no skip option. If you lose your authenticator and your recovery codes, your administrator must reset 2FA for you — they cannot recover the codes themselves.

The Portal Dashboard

The dashboard at /dashboard is your home page after sign-in. It shows:

• Device count — how many devices your team can see.
• Activity feed — the most recent configuration snapshots across your fleet, sorted by timestamp.
• Support card — the contact info your service provider has configured (email, support URL, help center link).
• Stale data badge — appears if Prism is currently serving cached data because the upstream backup engine is unreachable. You’re seeing the most recent good data; the page tells you how old it is.

If your dashboard says “No devices yet”, contact your service provider — they need to map a tag to your team before any devices are visible.

Finding a Device

The Devices screen at /devices is the inventory.

• The list shows every device your team is allowed to see.
• Columns: name, type, IP address, last config timestamp, status badge, tags.
• Use the search box to filter by name or IP.
• Click any row (or the device name) to open the device detail page.

On a slow connection or shortly after sign-in, you may see a loading skeleton — the table fills in once data arrives. If the screen says the upstream is down, your service provider’s monitoring should already know; you can check back in a few minutes.

The Device Detail Page

Clicking a device opens /devices/{device}, which has:

• Summary card — the device’s name, type, IP, status, and tags.
• Latest configs tab — the most recent N configuration versions, no pagination, fastest to load.
• All configs tab — paginated history, sortable by timestamp.

Each row in either tab is a config version with: version number, upload timestamp, file size, CRC32 checksum, and a View button.

Viewing a Configuration

Click View on any config row. The viewer at /devices/{device}/configs/{config} shows:

• The full configuration text in a syntax-highlighted, read-only code block.
• Header metadata: version, device, timestamp, size, checksum.
• A checksum match badge (pass/fail) showing whether the stored file’s CRC32 matches the recorded value.

The viewer is read-only by design. Prism never writes to your devices and never proxies configuration changes through the portal.

Downloading a Configuration

Click Download on the viewer. Prism delivers the raw configuration as a plain .txt file with a filename pattern like {device}_{config}_{timestamp}.txt. You can save it, attach it to a ticket, or diff it locally.

Comparing Two Versions

Click Diff on the viewer to compare the current version with the previous one. The diff page renders a side-by-side unified diff with:

• Previous version on the left, current version on the right.
• Added lines highlighted in green, removed lines in red.
• Line numbers and a few lines of context around every change.
• A Download diff button that exports the diff as a .txt file.

Use this to verify a change you expected to see, or to investigate a change you didn’t.

Searching With The Command Palette

The sidebar has a Search button (or you can press Cmd+K on macOS, Ctrl+K on Windows or Linux). The command palette searches across:

• Device names.
• Configuration versions.
• Documentation pages your service provider has published.

Type two or more characters, use the arrow keys to highlight a result, and press Enter to jump.

The Time Widget

The clock at the top-left of the sidebar shows the current time in the locale and timezone your service provider has configured. Click it to see a popover that compares Prism’s clock against the rConfig server’s clock. If the two diverge by more than a second, a warning badge appears — that’s a signal your service provider should investigate, not something you usually need to act on.

Theme Toggle

The icon at the top right of the page toggles between light, dark, and system theme. Your preference is remembered in your browser. If the system option is selected, the portal follows your operating system’s appearance setting.

Your Profile

Click your avatar at the bottom of the sidebar and choose Profile, or visit /profile directly. From here you can:

• Change your name and email.
• Change your password.
• Manage 2FA: view recovery codes, regenerate them, disable 2FA (only allowed if your administrator’s policy permits).
• See your active browser sessions and sign out of any of them.

If you change your email, depending on your administrator’s policy you may be asked to verify the new address.

Managing Your Team

If your administrator marked you as the primary contact for your team, you’ll see a Team entry in the sidebar. From /team you can:

• Invite teammates by email.
• Cancel pending invitations.
• View team members and their roles.
• Promote or demote teammates.
• Remove a teammate from the team.

If you’re not a primary contact, the page returns a 403 and the sidebar entry won’t appear.

Exporting Your Data

Visit /account/data-export to download a ZIP of all the data Prism holds about you: profile fields, audit trail of your sign-ins and actions, team memberships. Useful for GDPR / SAR compliance. The job is queued; you’ll receive an email when the file is ready.

When the Portal Looks Wrong

A few things you might notice and what they usually mean:

• “Data may be out of date” badge. The upstream rConfig server is briefly unreachable; you’re seeing cached content. This is normal during short outages and clears the moment the upstream is back.
• “Connection is down” page. A non-cached page (like a single config body) couldn’t be fetched. Wait a few minutes and reload; if it persists, contact support.
• Empty device list. Your team doesn’t yet have any tags mapped to it. Contact your service provider.
• A device you expected isn’t there. The device might not carry a tag your team has been mapped to. Ask your service provider to check the tag mapping.
• A config you expected isn’t there. The most recent backup may not yet have run. Ask your service provider when the next scheduled backup will complete.

For anything else, the support contact card on your dashboard has the right channel.

Related Documentation

• Overview — What Prism is and how it relates to rConfig.
• Key Features — A complete catalogue of features.
• FAQ — Common customer questions.
• Troubleshooting — Symptoms and what they mean.
• Support — How to get help.