On-Premise | Communifire Documentation

This page describes how to set up Communifire on your own server(s). Communifire is a web application that operates using IIS and SQL Server. This guide includes the following sections:

• Environment - Describes the technologies that Communifire needs and supports
• Installation steps - Describes step by step how to install Communifire on your server
• Special notes - Describes special instances and troubleshooting
• Additional configuration options - Provides more articles regarding additional options and topics related to installation and configuration
• Upgrade information - Provides information about upgrading Communifire

Environment

Domain, SSL, & SSO

• Domain name must be chosen prior to setting up Communifire.
• SSL certificate must be installed in IIS prior to setting up Communifire.
• ADFS / SAML 2.0 SSO 
• Azure AD SSO 
• Active Directory SSO 
• Full list of Single Sign On (SSO) providers.

Hardware

• Windows Server 2012 R2 or above. Quad-core CPUs preferred.
• SQL Server 2016 R2 or above (Can be installed on the web server or on a separate server). Quad-core CPUs preferred.
  • SQL Server Management Studio
  • SQL Express can be used, but has a 10GB size limit. Once this limit is reached, you will have to upgrade. Communifire's database begins at 300mb. The growth of the database depends on the number of users and amount of content your intranet has.
• Solid State Hard-drive (SSD).
• Azure Web Apps are not supported. Azure enforces a 230 second timeout which prevents content from being indexed in our search engine.
  
  

Technologies

• IIS 8 and above (IIS v10.0)
• .NET Framework: ASP.NET 4.8 runtime
• HTML5 Websockets (Enable on your network devices)
• JAVA SDK for Elasticsearch Service (Step 13 below)

Network Ports

• Internet and/or Internal network to Web Server ports 80 & 443
• Web Server to SQL Server port 1433
• Web Server to Self port 9207 for Elasticsearch
• Web Server to licensing.axerosolutions.com port 443
• Web Server to SMTP server port 25
• Web Server to Active Directory Ports if AD enabled

TLS and Cipher Suites

We require that your IIS hosting VM uses TLS 1.2 with strong ciphers. This is for compatibility with our Licensing API and is a security best practice for your internal network management.

Recommended cipher suites are listed below:

TLS_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256

Backups & Disaster Recovery

We recommend backing up your Windows Server, Communifire folder, and SQL database daily. We do not have any recommendations for disaster recovery.

Supported Browsers

Communifire is a modern web application that uses HTML5 and CSS3 for enhanced usability on desktop computers as well as a vast array of mobile devices. The following browsers are supported:

• Microsoft Edge
• Mozilla Firefox 15+
• Google Chrome 22+
• Apple Safari 6+

Installation steps

1. Download Communifire: If you have purchased the on-premise version of Communifire, please Submit a private case entitled Company Name | On-Premise Installation.
   
   
2. Database creation: Create a new database in SQL Server and run DB_Scripts/Communifire_Database_Schema.sql on the newly created database.
   
   
3. Database user creation: Create a local SQL user or use an AD user. Give the new user db_owner permission for database created in step 2.
4. Database instantiation: You will now need to instantiate the database with default values by executing the following script in your Microsoft SQL Server database.
   NOTE: Be sure to replace the values in single quotes with your specific desired values. SMTP information can be added to Communifire through the web interface later.

   EXEC [Dyve_System_InstantiateCommunity] @ApplicationName = 'Your_app_name_goes_here',
       @ApplicationURL = 'http://www.your-application-url.com',
       @VirtualDirectory = '', @DefaultEmailAddress = 'email@email.com',
       @SMTPServer = '', @SMTPUsername = '', @SMTPPassword = '', @SMTPPort = 25,
       @AdminUserName = 'admin', @AdminPassword = 'Type Complex Password'

   NOTE: If you are installing CF as a virtual directory, add a forward slash ("/") before the virtual directory name. For example, for "http://your-site.com/community", set @ApplicationURL='http://your-site.com'  and the virtual directory name as follows: @VirtualDirectory = "/community".
    

5. Roles and Features: Open Server Manager on your web server and configure Roles and Features to the below settings.
   
   
   
   
   
6. IIS URL Rewrite: Install IIS URL Rewrite from Microsoft on your web server.
   
   
7. Modify hosts file: Usually most servers do not allow access to local sites from the server itself unless there is an entry in the hosts file. Communifire must reference its own URL, and the server must be able to see yourcommunifireurl.com.
   
   Run Notepad as Administrator and Open: %SystemRoot%\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
   
   Add:  198.192.37.88 yourcommunifireurl.com
   
   

8. Create site folder: Create E:\Websites\Yourwebsite.com\ and copy files in the \software\ folder of the .zip file to your new directory.
   
   

9. Database connection string: Update /CFConnectionStrings.config so that it reflects the credentials of your Communifire database.
   
   SQL user authentication:

   <add name="CommunifireConnectionString" connectionString="Initial Catalog=[DATABASENAME];Server=[IPADDRESS];User ID=[USERID];Password=[PASSWORD]"/>

   Windows AD user authentication:

   <add name="CommunifireConnectionString" 
          connectionString="Data Source=[IPADDRESS];Initial Catalog=[DATABASENAME];Integrated Security=SSPI;" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

   
   Optional: SQL Connection String in Registry 
   
   

    

10. Create Site in IIS: Create a new site in IIS and add proper bindings to your new site. http and https bindings are required.
    
    

11. Read/write permissions: If the app pool isn't using an AD user, IIS must have the ability to write to the /Assets folder. Navigate to the /Assets folder in Windows Explorer, right click the folder > Properties > Security > Add IIS Apppool\<apppoolname> and mark Modify permissions for this user.
    
    
    

12. App Pool Settings: Click IIS > Application Pools > Right-click application pool > Advanced Settings. Make sure the settings are as follows:

    • .NET CLR Version is v4.0
    • Enable 32-Bit applications is set to True (Note: For sites with a large number of users, such as 50,000 or more users, set Enable 32-Bit applications to False)
    • Idle Time-out is 0
    • Maximum Worker Processes is 1 (If set to more, caching issues will arise)
    • Disable Overlapped Recycle is set to True
    • Regular Time Interval is 41760
    • If AD account is used for SQL connection string
      • Set Identity to AD user. (domain/username)
      • Set IIS > Click on Site > Authentication > ASP.NET Impersonation = Disabled

    

13. Setup Elasticsearch: Refer to our Elasticsearch Installation Guide for how to set up and install Elasticsearch with Communifire.
    
    
14. Start Application Pool: After the site is up and running, you will notice an Invalid License page. Click the link to Manage Your License, which will redirect you to the admin section (use the same admin credentials as in Step 3), and enter the license key you have been provided. If you do not have a valid license key, please contact your Client Success Manager.
    
    
15. You're finished!
    You can now begin setting up your new intranet.

Special notes

• Unable to connect to SQL: There are many reasons why you may not to be able to connect to SQL. It is best to perform a telnet test. If telnet is unable to connect, check the firewall or make sure TCP/IP is enabled.
• License related issue: If your Internet connection has to go through a proxy server, the license verification may fail because the software will not be able to connect to the remote Communifire server for license validation. Adding the following to the web.config may work in such cases:

    <system.net>
      <defaultProxy enabled="true">
        <proxy bypassonlocal="true"
               proxyaddress="http://your proxy address here:8080/" />
      </defaultProxy>
    </system.net>

• File upload size restriction in IIS: While uploading bigger files, if you get an error message saying IIS has restricted upload limit, you may fix it by following these steps:
  
  (a) Extend the request length and timeout in the web.config as follows:

  <system.web> 
      <httpRuntime maxRequestLength="2000000" executionTimeout="100000" /> 
  </system.web>

  (b) For IIS 7: In IIS 7 on Windows 2008 Server, the web application will reject any file that is larger than 30 MB. This is a default limitation of IIS. You can increase the maximum file size by adding the following code to <system.webServer> in the web.config file:

  <security> <requestFiltering>
    <requestLimits maxAllowedContentLength="2000000000" />
   </requestFiltering>
  </security>

  With the above maxAllowedContentLength, users can upload files that are 2,000,000,000 bytes in size (approx. 2 GB). This setting will work right away without restarting IIS services.

  Alternatively, if the above methods do not work, you can fix the issue by running the "appcmd" command:

  C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\appcmd set config -section:requestFiltering -requestLimits.maxAllowedContentLength:100000000

  Or if you only want to set it for your app:

  %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set config "Default Web Site/<your app>" -section:requestFiltering -requestLimits.maxAllowedContentLength:10000000

• Performance setting: For better performance in production environments, set <compilation debug="false"> in web.config (in the installation directory).
• URL Canonicalization settings for improved SEO: To 301-redirect from http://www.site.com/default.aspx to http://www.site.com/, follow the instructions in this article for IIS7 and IIS6 Url Rewrite modules settings.
• Web Proxy Settings: When using a Web Proxy on your hosting server, add the following in your Web.Config file. 

  <system.net>
    <defaultProxy useDefaultCredentials="true">
      <proxy usesystemdefault="false" scriptLocation="http://<your_proxy_server>/<pac_file>.pac"/>
    </defaultProxy>
  </system.net>

• IIS log file management: As per this Technet article, it is recommended that you optimize the log files properly.
• It is recommended to have a custom name for the forms authentication cookie (the default name is .ASPXAuth). You can set the name by modifying the web.config's forms tag:
  

  <authentication mode="Forms">
          <forms loginUrl="login.aspx" 
                 name=".yourSiteNameASPXAuth" 
                 domain="yoursite.com" path="/"/>
      </authentication>

Additional configuration information

You can find detailed information regarding specific installation instructions on the following pages:

• Web Farm Installation 
• License Manager 
• SQL Connection String in Registry 
• Distributed Cache Providers 
• SQL Best Practices 

Upgrade information

Axero typically publishes one major version a year. Service versions, which contain bug fixes, are published monthly and sometimes weekly. Learn how to upgrade to the latest major version or service version of Communifire.

On-Premise Upgrade