CYCLONE ACTIVATOR
What is Cyclone Activator?
Cyclone is a program whose only purpose is to transfer files to and from DHL securely.

Cyclone is used instead of FTP; FTP is still an option for any vendor software

Cyclone is not involved in the shipping process

Cyclone runs as a service called ECEngine

Cyclone can be installed on any version of Windows that supports services

Cyclone requires Administrator rights to install the service
Through the use of the web mailbox, all connections originate from the client system connecting to the DHL Cyclone
server. The DHL implementation of Cyclone Activator requires only that the internet connection is able to query the web
mailbox server. Any files being delivered to the client from the server are delivered to a secure web mailbox on the DHL
server. The client system is configured by default to poll this web mailbox every 20 minutes for new files.
The web mailbox is akin to a person owning a post office box. A person sending a letter through the post office uses a
centralized location that is used by all patrons of that post office. A person receiving mail visits his numbered box at the
post office and uses a key to access a space available only to him and the post office. The person then takes whatever mail
delivered to him home himself.
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Firewall, Proxy & Network Appliances
The Cyclone Activator program is designed to function well with most proxy servers and firewall appliances in use. Most
firewall and proxy servers designed for access control and not content control will not interfere with the use of Cyclone
Activator.
Firewalls and proxy servers which exclude sites by default will need to include the Cyclone Server to allow for Cyclone
Activator to communicate with DHL. Also, any sort of packet filtering or traffic management appliance needs to allow
Cyclone Activator’s messages to go through.
S/MIME wrapped message sent over
http://cyclone-eu-prod.dhl.com:80
There are known networking issues with the following systems that prevent the full functionality of Cyclone Activator.
These issues include:

Microsoft Proxy and ISA servers require NTLM authentication. This connection method is not supported by
Cyclone Activator, which is a Java based program. This can be overcome by a local proxy app*

Watch Guard products filter S/MIME headers from Cyclone’s messages, creating a message to be sent to DHL’s
server without an addressee.
DHL can only assist in the identification of which issue may be preventing communication while using Cyclone Activator.
Full resolution of networking difficulties often require for the local IT staff to be contacted and may require networking
reconfiguration. Solutions to networking blocking problems can only be suggested by DHL and DHL cannot assist in their
implementation
Important notes about Cyclone Activator
When running the ramp tool, Cyclone’s installation application, it is doing more than just installing a program. It is the
registration of the system’s unit ID with the DHL Cyclone Server. Secure certificates are exchanged as a relationship with
the server is established.
All files sent and received by DHL and the end point user system are encrypted and signed with a secure certificate that
can only be decrypted by the matching one on the other end.
This means if Cyclone is reinstalled, new certificates are created, but cannot be imported due to an existing registration,
nullifying the previous registration.
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
You do not need Cyclone during testing for anything having to do with your shipping system, since Cyclone has
nothing to do with shipping. All files and information are provided to you.

Do not install Cyclone in a test environment. It will always communicate with DHL’s production environment. If
you have to install Cyclone in a test environment, contact 3PVImplementation@dhl.com to discuss options.

Do not reinstall Cyclone without contacting 3PVImplementation@dhl.com first.

Do not move Cyclone to another PC without contacting 3PVImplementation@dhl.com first.
Reinstalling, moving or changing Cyclone’s settings without contacting DHL first can invalidate its registration with the
server.
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Alert from DHL Express
Sept. 9, 2013
Vendor Support Teams-DHL Express has been growing exponentially over the course of the last 2 years. With growth comes change, and we have a couple that
will affect our 3rd party vendor systems.
The first change is that we have created a new Cyclone Activator installation tool. Cyclone is a DHL Express supported program that is
used to transfer files between customer shipping systems and the DHL servers securely.
What this means to you:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Please discontinue all use of the Cyclone Installation tools you are currently using after September 19th, 2013.
All current customers will be migrated to a new server. This change will be transparent to the customer with no interruption to
communication with DHL.
There will be no reinstall or configuration changes necessary to current customers.
All systems from this day forward will need to be installed using the new tool, named CycloneActivator2013.exe. This installer
will be available from me within a week and will be distributed using a download link. Please avoid installing ramp until you
receive a new installer.
The second piece of news is just a heads up that our Import Express account numbers, also known as 95/96 accounts, will be adding a
range starting with 94. No action is required right now; future SAS updates will include this change. The addition of this new account
range is tentatively planned for Q1 2015.
Please spread the word to your teams and colleagues. As always, I am here to support all of you in any way I can. The new installation
tool is not available yet, but will be within the next few days. Please call or email me if you have issues, questions or concerns.
Thank you,
-Lisa Blade
3PV Systems Integration Manager
DHL Express
1144 W. Washington St.
Tempe, AZ 85281
United States of America
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Phone: +1 480 636-2182
Mobile: +1 480 686-4158
Fax: +1 480 636-2025
lisa.blade@dhl.com
Skype: lisa.dhl
www.dhl.com
Announcement from DHL Express
10/28/2013
Valued Vendor Partner-Great news! The installation tool for Cyclone Activator has been updated. The installation process and user interface has not changed,
but you will find that it is much easier to use. The server side has also been upgraded.
You can download this installer at any time from the DHL Cyclone Site. https://ratingportal.dhl-usa.com/sites/DHLCycloneActivator
As always, please use me as your main DHL Express IT contact for support at any time.
Thank you,
-Lisa Blade
3PV Systems Integration Manager
DHL Express
1144 W. Washington St.
Tempe, AZ 85281
United States of America
Phone: +1 480 636-2182
Mobile: +1 480 686-4158
Fax: +1 480 636-2025
lisa.blade@dhl.com
Skype: lisa.dhl
www.dhl.com
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Installing Cyclone Activator on 64 bit Windows
Cyclone Activator has been installed and tested on all versions of 32 and 64 bit Windows operating systems released after
Windows 98. Basically, any windows OS that has support for services will work.
Sometimes it’s necessary to install the tool by using “Run As Administrator” on 64 bit Windows.
You can also right click on the installer and go to “run as administrator”.
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Installing Cyclone Activator
Note that when you run the installer, a command window will appear. This is the server that opens the local port that your
browser will be connecting to. Should you have an issue where the browser states “page cannot be displayed” it’s likely
that the command window was closed for some reason, usually. Rebooting has usually fixed this for me, otherwise it was
something like MacAfee or Norton.
If a proxy is required, a page requesting the info will appear. Fill out the form. The contact information at the bottom is
irrelevant.
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This means someone did not create a mailbox for the customer, or you have mistyped the unit ID number.
Check the unit ID number, if it is correct, contact DHL. You can continue the install, but ensure you make contacting DHL a
priority.
Hit OK then FINISH again.
This means the company name you entered is different than the one that is on the mailbox.
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This is only a problem if the organization shown is not the customer. If you’re off by a period, a space or something trivial,
hit OK then FINISH again.
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1.
Creating your profile and self-signed certificate
2.
Trying to send a message to cyclone-euprod.dhl.com
3.
Trading profiles and certificates with DHL
4.
Unpacking application
5.
Checking data ports for availability
6.
Installing application
7.
Importing own profile and certificate
8.
Importing DHL’s profile and certificate
9.
Changing data setting to async
10. Creating C:\3PVICS\cyclone_(up and
down)load_area
11. Alert Cyclone Server to load profile and
certificate
12. Installing ECEngine as a service
Now you’re ready to start testing.
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Diagnostics and Testing
Cyclone comes with a few utilities to help troubleshoot the program. The biggest thing to understand is that the
implementation DHL has for Cyclone has far surpassed the original purpose of the application, so there will be a lot of
things that just do not work or are not used.
All of these applications are available in C:\CycloneActivator\bin. They are each
launched with a batch file.
In Summary:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Administrator: Used to look at profiles and certificates, verify cyclone server
address and change the in and out directories
Start Server: Used to start Cyclone as an application. This would be in lieu
of starting ECEngine , which is Cyclone as a service
Stop Server: Needed to stop Cyclone gracefully, before stopping the
ECEngine service
Tracker: A gui interface to view the log file
View Server Log: A tail of the most recent log file
The best way to test if Cyclone is working is to follow these steps:
1. Open View Server Log
a. If there are error messages, troubleshoot
b. If it closes right away, that means that ECEngine has never run to
create server.log. It’s likely that ECEngine cannot start or is not
installed
2. Open the folder that cyclone uses as an upload area and create a text file.
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3.
Wait for the file to disappear while watching the server log.
4.
A successful send will eventually look like this
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a.
NEW:PACKAGER – Packager queue polls every 30 seconds. Found a new file. Moved it to the temp work
directory
b. PACKAGED:PARTNER – zipped, signed and wrapped the file and put it into the send queue
c.
SENT – The send queue polls every 15 seconds
d. Here is where you would get an error, but after 20 minutes (or within 1 if you restart the server) you
should see MDN RECEIVED: This is the confirmation that DHL got your message AND that you were able
to receive a file using the web mailbox. This is the same method used to download rates and routes.
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Reinstalling Cyclone
Cyclone can be moved to the new system as it is portable. Use the following steps.
OLD SYSTEM:
1.
Go to c:\CycloneActivator\bin\StopServer.bat and double click. Wait about a minute.
2.
Open the systems control panel by going to start, run and type “services.msc” and click ok.
3.
Find “ECEngine” right click on it and go to “stop”. Close the control panel.
4.
Navigate to c:\ and move the \CycloneActivator folder to the new computer however way you can. Ensure
that you delete or move the \CycloneActivator folder from its original location.
NEW SYSTEM:
1.
Move the \CycloneActivator folder to the root of c:\. NOTE the folder must be in the same location it was
on the old system. If you need it to be in a different path on the new system, such as another drive, we
will need to reinstall it, which means you will need to call me.
2.
Go to start, run and type “cmd” and click ok.
3.
Navigate to c:\cycloneactivator\util\ntservice
4.
Type in “ECEngine –I” (I as in Ice) It should state that the NT service has been installed.
5.
Open the systems control panel by going to start, run and type “services.msc” and click ok.
6.
Find “ECEngine” right click on it and go to “start”. Close the control panel and email me so I can verify that
everything is working.
Reinstalling is not recommended. Think of running the “installer” or as we call it “ramp tool” for Cyclone is more than just
installing a program, it is a registration linking your system to ours. Your registration must be uninstalled on the DHL
server if you need to reinstall.
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Graceful shutdown of ECEngine
There is a "best practices" method of gracefully stopping the Cyclone 4.2.x Server when it has been started as a Windows
Service. Most users go into the Services applet and issue the Stop command to the ECEngine service. That does indeed kill
the Cyclone Server by means of killing the Windows Service which invoked the Cyclone Server, but it does so without the
benefit of issuing a graceful shutdown command to the Cyclone Server. The telltale sign of this is in the server.log there is
no entry for a shutdown command prior to the next instance of a Cyclone Server startup initialization sequence.
Sometimes a consequence of this kind of abnormal shutdown is that it might take several attempts to get the Cyclone
Server to start back up again. In a worst case scenario, Cyclone's database can actually become corrupted. The most
common thing that is found is that dbeng6 does not close, and a new instance is respawned every time ECEngine is
restarted, resulting in several running instances of dbeng6.
Here's the best practice for stopping your Cyclone Server. Use the Start > Programs > Cyclone Activator > Stop Server
icon. Or use its equivalent StopServer.bat file in Cyclone's bin directory. Either of those means will issue the graceful
shutdown command to the Cyclone Server. Then go into the Windows Services applet and issue a Stop command for the
ECEngine service itself.
You only need a one-step graceful startup of the Cyclone Server by issuing a Start command to the ECEngine Service. But
you need to perform a two-step graceful shutdown of the Cyclone Server itself followed by a Stop of the ECEngine Service.
Now let me merge the above background information into commands you can issue from a DOS prompt.
From a command line, to achieve the two-step graceful shutdown of the Cyclone Server, please type the following
commands:
Stops the server
c:\CycloneActivator\bin\StopServer.bat
--(wait or "sleep" for two minutes)
ping -n 121 127.0.0.1 >nul
--Stop the service
net stop ecengine
Thereafter, when you are ready to restart the Cyclone Server via its ECEngine Windows Service you only need to issue the
following one command:
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net start ecengine
As you probably know, you can place these commands scheduled tasks to be executed automatically without manual
intervention.
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