Microsoft IIS

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Activate IIS

XperienCentral uses Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) to handle all the requests to the website. After a default install of Windows 2012/2016, IIS might not be available. Follow these steps to check whether IIS has been installed — If it has not been installed, install it.

1. Press the Windows key and navigate to the Control Panel > Programs > Turn Windows features on or off option.

2. Navigate to the Roles and then the Web Server (IIS) option in the left tree of the window.

3. On the right, details appear about the IIS installation. Scroll to the “Role Services” section and check whether the Application Development services have been installed. If not, use the “Add Role Services” option on the right to add these services to the IIS role (for XperienCentral the following services (at least) should installed: “ISAPI Extensions”, “ISAPI Filters” and “Server Side Includes”).
   
   

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Allow the use of the ISAPI Filter within IIS

By default, IIS blocks the use of ISAPI filters. Follow these steps to enable the ISAPI Redirect filter:

1. Open the IIS Manager. In the left pane, click on your server name. In the center of the screen a several options appear; double-click the option “ISAPI and CGI Restrictions”.

2.  In the right frame, choose the action [Add…] and enter the following values:
   
   

   • ISAPI or CGI path = D:\Program Files\Jakarta Isapi Redirector\bin\isapi_redirect.dll

   • Description = jakarta

   • Select the option Allow extension path to execute
     
     

3. Click [OK].

The ISAPI Redirect filter also needs to be added to the general configuration of IIS. Follow these steps to add the ISAPI filter to all websites:

1. Click on your server name in the left pane.

2. Double-click the option ‘ISAPI Filters’ and choose the action “Add…” on the right. Enter the following values:
   
   

   • Filter name = jakarta

   • Executable = D:\Programs\Jakarta Isapi Redirector\bin\isapi_redirect.dll
     
     

3. Close the IIS Manager.

4. Click [OK].

5. Open a command prompt and execute the command iisreset.
   
   

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Change the Default Settings for all Websites

In the properties overview of the server, three options have to be set that will apply to all other websites. The properties that have to be changed are the “Default Documents”, the “Logging” and the “MIME types”. These options are available when you click on the hostname on the left pane.

Changing the Default Documents

1. Double-click the option “Default Document”.

2. Move index.html to the top of the list. Remove the options index.htm, default.htm and iisstart.htm.

3. Click [OK].
   
   

Changing the Logging

1. Click on the server name in the left pane and double-click the option “Logging”.

2. Choose a “Monthly” logging period and change the “Log file directory” (for example to D:\Logfiles).

3. Click [Apply] to save the settings.

Changing the extra MIME Types

When a browser requests an object from the website, it is important that IIS returns the proper Content-type header in the response. To make sure that IIS serves all the files with the proper Content-type header, follow these steps:

1. Click on the server name in the left pane and double-click the option “MIME Types".

2. Add the .rss MIME type as text/xml.

3. Edit the .htm and the .html MIME types (add ; charset=utf-8 to the MIME type).

Configuring the Maximum Request Size (IIS 7)

In IIS version 7, there is a default maximum size of 30 MB that is allowed for uploads. Any request that exceeds 30 MB will return an HTTP 404.13 error. The maximum query size is set to 2048 bytes. This value is too low for the search engine of XperienCentral to function properly. To set the maximum size of a request and query string in IIS version 7 and up, follow these steps:

1. Click the server name in the left pane.

2. Select “Configuration Editor”.

3. Navigate to the section system.webServer/security/requestFiltering.

4. Open the "requestLimits" subtree.

5. For maxAllowedContentLength, set the size to the maximum request you want to allow. The size is measured in bytes, therefore if you want the maximum request to be 100MB, you would enter “100000000”.

6. For maxQueryString, set the size to the maximum request you want to allow. The size is measured in bytes, therefore if you want the maximum request to be 4KB, you would enter “4096”.

7. Save your changes.