LiveView - Installation Guide

Updated Server-side Requirements

The new LiveView uses the ASP.NET Core SignalR which needs Sticky Sessions on the load balancer to work in an environment which is hosted across multiple VMs. See ASP.NET Core SignalR production hosting and scaling for more information.

Installation

IMPORTANT: This is an ASP.NET Core project so it must be installed on it's own AppPool in IIS from all other ASP.NET Core components for everything to function correctly.

Using Web Deploy is the recommended way to both install and upgrade this component. Either set all the values in LiveView.WebAPI.SetParameters.xml or reuse the file when doing an upgrade.

1. Edit the file LiveView.WebAPI.SetParameters.xml and either change the values that are wrong for your system or copy in the values from the file used the last time. The default SetParameters.xml file should look like this:

   <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
   <parameters>
     <setParameter name="IIS Web Application Name" value="Default Web Site" />
     <setParameter name="PEPJDatabaseConnection-Web.config Connection String" value="Data Source={Database Server};Initial Catalog={Database Name};User ID={Database Administrator};Password={Database Administrator Password};Pooling=False;MultipleActiveResultSets=True;Application Name=EntityFramework" />
     <setParameter name="Redis Backplane Connection String" value="" />
     <setParameter name="Liveview Api Key" value="{ApiKey}" />
   </parameters>

2. After SetParameters.xml have been verified to be correct for your system run the command; LiveView.WebAPI.deploy.cmd /T to see what changes will be done on the file system. (Files changed, added, removed)

3. After this run the command; LiveView.WebAPI.deploy.cmd /Y to do the actual changes.

SetParameters.xml values

Name	Description	Example
IIS Web Application Name	The name of the IIS Web Application that the component should be installed to. Should be in format {SiteName}/{WebAppPath} where {SiteName} should be the name of the IIS site the webapp should use, and {WebAppPath} is the path of the webapp under the site.	BliksundPEPJ/LiveView
PEPJDatabaseConnection-Web.config Connection String	The SQL connection string to the main EWA database.	See https://www.connectionstrings.com/sql-server/ for examples
Redis Backplane Connection String	Optional connection string to the Redis server that the SignalR backplane should use. If no Redis database is configured, this line should be deleted which will make the SignalR use the SQL database as backplane.	ewaRedisServer.com:6379,password=REDACTED
Liveview Api Key	The API key that should be used for authentication when Insight connects to the LiveviewAPI via SignalR.	REDACTED

Appsettings

The appsettings.json and appsettings.xml files contains configuration values for the web application. The application will load settings from both files, but the load order is first the json file, then the xml file. This means that settings in the xml file will override settings in the json file. It should be totally safe to delete the xml file if you just want one source of settings, but it should be noted that the xml files is used by the connection string replacement in WebDeploy so it will re-appear every time the application is upgraded through WebDeploy.

List of valid properties that we actively use in the web application are described below:

Property	Description	Default Value
ConnectionStrings.PEPJDatabaseConnection	The connection string to the EWA database.	Data Source={Database Server};Initial Catalog={Database};User ID={User};Password={Password};Pooling=False;MultipleActiveResultSets=True;Application Name=EntityFramework
EncryptionSecret	DO NOT CHANGE	[Redacted]
ApiKey	API key that used for authentication when Insight connects to the LiveviewAPI via SignalR.	The key needs to be generated as a Guid format and provided to Insight's web configuration (the setting is named LiveViewApiKey)