Previously, I posted on how to set up an all-in-one Creatio test server. Having recently tested a Creatio environment using PostgreSQL as the database, I wanted to post the procedure to create a PostgreSQL test server. I will also be highlighting some of other things I picked up while going through the installation multiple times. As before, I am basing things on the Creatio general deployment procedure posted on Creatio Academy. While I will be writing about them in the order listed, the first four steps can really be done in any order, but all need to be done before setting up IIS in step 5. The last two steps need to be done after IIS is setup, but it does not matter which of them is done first. Please refer to Creatio’s guide for specifics of each step.
For Step 1, download and install a Redis emulator. I have used the one from here, and also the one here, and both have worked just taking all the default settings. Then in Step 2, after installing PostgreSQL (download and documentation available here), you will need to create a PostgreSQL admin user with all user rights (I use sysdamin), and a service user with only public rights. (I use puser, which seems to line up with some of the out-of-the-box configuration Creatio uses.) When you restore a backup in PostgreSQL, you must restore to an existing blank database. Create a blank database with puser as the owner, then restore to that database from the backup provided by Creatio, using sysadmin as the Role name. (Note, if something goes wrong with the restore, you will need to delete the entire database and create an new blank one to restore to.)
For step 3, you will need to enable many Windows server features, as well as install several bits of supporting software from the list. While the documentation shows only some IIS features being enabled in the initial installation, there are other places in the documentation that instruct you to enable additional IIS features. The combined list of required Windows features adds up to the following: Enable all features of .NET 3.x, all features of .NET 4.x, and all features of IIS (except for WebDAV publishing and FTP). Also be sure to install all the required outside software. Then step 4 is just a reminder to make sure you server is fully updated.
Now that everything is in place, you can actually set up the Creatio site in IIS, which is step 5. Deployment of the Creatio website is reasonably straightforward. The files provided by Creatio are the exact files for the Cretio web client. Unzip (or move) the files to the desired location (I would suggest a sub-folder of the Inetpub folder). Then create a Creatio site in IIS pointed at this folder, and sub-site with an alias of “0” pointed at the Terrasoft.WebApp sub-folder of the Creatio folder. Next, go to Application Pools, and set the app pool running the Cretio apps to run as the service user. (If you do not already have a service user, create a Windows user for this purpose. While Creatio’s documentation lists the specific rights this user needs, you can instead just add that user to the local admin group, which is much quicker.) There are also several other settings to check in Creatio’s instructions. The only one I have actually needed to change is in Edit Feature Permissions under Handler Mappings, where I needed to add permission to Execute in addition to the existing ones. You should verify that the remaining required IIS settings are all correct, though in my testing they did not need to be changed from the default.
The last two steps involve editing the configuration files for the website. For step 6, the ConnectionStrings.config file needs to be edited so it points at the correct Redis and Creatio databases. For the Redis line, just set host equal to the name of the server, and set db equal to “0”. In the database line (db), set Server equal to “localhost”, set Port equal to “5432” (or whatever port you chose when you installed PostgreSQL), set Database equal to the name of the database, set User ID to “puser”, and set password equal to the password for puser.
Step 7 is to add a machine key to the web.config file, which is needed for Creatio to work. You need to download a PowerShell script here that will add the key to web.config. Unzip the UpdateMachineKey script to a convenient folder, open Windows PowerShell, and run the script from its folder as follows:
.\UpdareMachineKey.ps1 “[path to web.config]”
This will edit web.config to contain a machine key that will allow Creatio to function. At this point, they system should be ready to use. Depending on the last time you restarted various functions, you might need to restart IIS, or even reboot the machine. You are now ready to bring up the client in a web browser and log in as Supervisor.
