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Deploying Websydian Applications on Microsoft IIS

Contents

Prerequisites

  1. Before continuing make sure you have Generated and Build your Websydian Application. 
    Successful Generation and Build of Websydian Applications.

Copy Websydian Application to the Web Server

  1. Create a directory on the Web Server where you will be installing the Websydian application. (The Websydian directory) e.g. C:\InetPub\wwwroot\webtutor
  2. Copy the files located in your "release" directory to the Websydian directory just created.
  3. Create a directory called html as a subdirectory to the Websydian directory. e.g. C:\InetPub\wwwroot\webtutor\html
  4. Copy your Document Templates to the html directory.

Copy Plex runtime files to the Web Server

  1. From your AllFusion Plex bin library copy the AllFusion Plex runtime DLL's to the Websydian directory.

    Further information on which DLL's to copy see the AllFusion Plex help.
  2. If using any Active-X controls make sure to copy these to.

Check the ini-file for the Dispatcher

  1. Open the ini-file located in the Websydian directory with the notepad.

    Check the section [HTML] for the following settings:

    [HTML]
    PATH=.\HTML\
    DATE=dd/mm/yyyy
    TIME=hh:mm:ss
    TIMESTAMP=dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm:ss

    Make sure the DATE, TIME and TIMESTAMP  has the correct format for your Websydian Application.

  2. In the ini file make sure to add the following information in order to suppress Plex dialog messages.

    [Message Box]
    Always Log=True
    Log File=c:\dialogmsgs.txt

    Where the "Log File" indicates the file to receive the content of the dialog messages. This is useful if tracing problems in applications running under the IIS.

Create a NT User Profile for the Websydian Application

When performing the final deployment on the Web Server make sure to create an individual local user on the Web Server, this user is to be used to service all Websydian applications on the Web Server.

If the deployment is done on a workstation running the Plex development environment the user to be used is the currently logged on user.

Some background is required to understand the reason for this.

As the Plex runtime loads required DLL's each loaded DLL is tagged with information about the user who loaded them. If another user on the same machine tries to load the same DLL it will fail.

Because the IIS is running as a service this can be thought of as another user.

 

In some cases we have found that a network user is required to run the Websydian Application under the IIS. Especially when using iSeries as back-end.

Setup a Virtual Directory 

  1. Open the Internet Services Manager.
  2. Create a Virtual Directory by right clicking the Web Site you which to use (Default Web Site) - Select menu item New -> Virtual Directory
    Follow any wizards shown.

    Make sure that the following settings are correct:
    Local Path should point to the Websydian Application directory.
    Application name is the name to refer when browsing your web site (e.g. webtutor >> http://localhost/webtutor/dispat.exe)
    Execute Permissions should be set to "Scripts and Executables" for running CGI programs.


  3. Go to the tab "Directory Security"

    Press the button "Edit" to open the window "Authentication Methods" and press the button "Edit" to show the "Anonymous User Account.

    If you created a new NT User Account in the previous step insert the user in the Username, Uncheck the Allow IIS to control password and insert the password for the NT User Account in the password field.

    NB: If deploying the Websydian Application on a workstation, insert the username and password of the developer.

If you wish to suppress the *.exe in the url you can do this by adding the exe file as a default document under the Documents tab. Remember to alter the URL reference in the document templates by removing the *.exe file reference.

For Microsoft Windows 2003 Server you will need to enable the processing of CGI programs in the Internet Information Manager.

Test the Websydian Application

  1. Logon to the NT Server as the user specified in the "Anonymous User Account" under the Virtual Directory.
  2. Open a command prompt window
  3. Change to the directory where your Websydian Application is installed.
  4. Set the environment variable REQUEST_METHOD to the value POST using the set command.
    SET REQUEST_METHOD=POST
  5. Start the dispatcher and redirect output to a file, e.g.
    DISPAT > TEST.HTM
    (assuming dispat is the name of your dispatcher)

    If you get any errors running the dispatcher, correct them and try again. When the dispatcher seems to complete normally (no dialog messages), check the contents of the output file test.htm, and ensure that it contains the expected HTML output.

Applying images and static pages to your site

The easiest way of handling images or static pages when deploying on the IIS is by setting the "Execute Permissions" to none on the directory html.

For images create a subdirectory under the html directory called images.

The reference to the images will be ../webtutor/html/images

Troubleshooting