rapidscada-admin

A Linux command-line utility for administering Rapid SCADA v6 BaseDAT configuration files.

What is Rapid SCADA?

Rapid SCADA is an open-source industrial automation and SCADA system. It stores configuration -- users, roles, rights, and other tables -- in binary BaseDAT (.dat) files. Editing these files normally requires the Windows Administrator application. This tool fills the gap for Linux environments.

Why this tool?

• Automate user management from shell scripts and Ansible playbooks
• Inspect and modify user.dat without the Windows GUI
• Validate file integrity before and after changes
• Export/import user data as JSON for backup and migration
• No third-party dependencies -- pure Python standard library

Supported platforms

• Linux (primary target)
• macOS / Windows (should work, but untested)

Requires Python 3.11+.

Installation

From PyPI

pip install rapidscada-admin

Or with pipx (recommended for CLI tools):

pipx install rapidscada-admin

From source

git clone https://github.com/Shadow21AR/rapidscada-admin.git
cd rapidscada-admin
pip install .

For development:

pip install -e .
pip install pytest ruff

Verify installation

rapidscada-admin --version

Usage

Every command takes the .dat file path as a positional argument. No files are hardcoded.

rapidscada-admin <command> [file] [options]
rapidscada-admin users <file> <subcommand> [options]

User management

# List all users
rapidscada-admin users user.dat list

# Show one user (displays full details including password hash)
rapidscada-admin users user.dat show --user admin

# Add a user
rapidscada-admin users user.dat add \
    --name operator \
    --password 'S3cur3P@ss!' \
    --role 2 \
    --description "Shift operator"

# Delete a user
rapidscada-admin users user.dat delete --user operator

# Rename a user
rapidscada-admin users user.dat rename --old-name operator --new-name op2

# Change password
rapidscada-admin users user.dat passwd --user admin --password 'NewP@ssw0rd!'

# Enable / disable account
rapidscada-admin users user.dat enable --user admin
rapidscada-admin users user.dat disable --user admin

Export and import

# Export all users to JSON
rapidscada-admin users user.dat export > users.json

# Import users from JSON
rapidscada-admin users user.dat import --input users.json

Password hashing

Compute a Rapid SCADA password hash without modifying any file:

rapidscada-admin hash --password secret
rapidscada-admin hash --user-id 11 --password scada

Validation

Check a BaseDAT file for corruption, schema errors, and duplicate entries:

rapidscada-admin verify user.dat

Exit code 0 means valid, 1 means errors found.

Safety

Every mutating command follows a 7-step safety protocol:

1. Verify schema -- required fields (UserID, Enabled, Name, Password, RoleID) must be present
2. Create backup -- timestamped .bak file alongside the original, with automatic pruning (keeps last 5)
3. Write temporary file -- changes go to a temp file first
4. Re-read temporary file -- parse the file we just wrote
5. Validate -- check schema, duplicates, integrity
6. Atomic replace -- os.replace() ensures no partial writes
7. Preserve permissions -- original file mode bits are restored after replace

A malformed .dat file can prevent Rapid SCADA from starting. Always verify before and after operations.

Backup pruning

By default, a maximum of 5 backup files are kept per .dat file. Older backups are automatically deleted when this limit is exceeded. The backup filename format is <name>.YYYYMMDD-HHMMSS.bak.

Limitations

• Only supports BaseDAT format version 4.x (Rapid SCADA v6)
• Does not support editing the Windows Administrator application's in-memory state
• Password hashing uses MD5 (matching the Rapid SCADA protocol -- not a general security recommendation)
• Does not validate RoleID values against role.dat (role table is not yet supported)

Publishing to PyPI

This project uses Trusted Publishing (OIDC) -- no API tokens needed.

Setup

1. Create an account on pypi.org
2. Create the project at pypi.org/manage/project/publishing
3. Add a GitHub publisher:
   • Owner: Shadow21AR
   • Repository: rapidscada-admin
   • Workflow: release.yml
   • Environment: pypi
4. In GitHub repo settings, create an environment named pypi

Release

git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

The CI workflow runs on every push. The release workflow runs only on v* tags and publishes to PyPI.

Contributing

Contributions are welcome. Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch
3. Add tests for new functionality
4. Run pytest and ruff check before submitting
5. Open a pull request

License

MIT