Defining publishing servers

Do the following to verify or change the Publishing Server Code assigned to an installed publishing service:

1. Open the Asi.Scheduler web.config file in a text editor on the appserver or external web server. Default location is c:\AsiPlatform\Asi.Scheduler_[your instance].
2. In the <SystemParams> declaration, verify or change the value of the PublishServerCode key. The value must be a single uppercase letter from A to Z, and must be unique among all publishing services used by a given instance (database) of iMIS.

The iMIS installer automatically defines a corresponding publishing server for the default instance of the publishing service installed by iMIS. However, in some iMIS content management installation scenarios, you must manually install one or more additional instances of the publishing service at a command line.

1. Manually create a single corresponding publishing server for every publishing service that you have manually installed.
2. When you add a new publishing server, review the Publish on Servers property for all existing content folders to specify whether the rendered files from content records in those folders should be made available to the iMIS sites that are associated with these manually-created publishing servers.

When you install iMIS content management on a web server (or install an additional publishing service for each manually created IIS application or IIS website), you are prompted to specify a Publishing Server Code to uniquely identify the publishing service that is created during installation (it always defaults to the value A). When you define a publishing server in the iMIS content management environment to control the behavior of a specific publishing service, you use this code to link the publishing service to its corresponding publishing server.

The Publishing Server Code must be unique among all publishing services used by a given instance of iMIS. For example, your production iMIS server might use the code A to identify its instance of the publishing service, and you might also have three other external web servers located in different geographic locations whose Publishing Server Codes might be B, C, and D, respectively.

• You must be a member of at least one MasterAdmin content authority group (CAG).
• You must already have installed iMIS content management on one or more web servers and noted the Publish Server Code that you specified to use for the iMIS publishing service that was installed during that process.

Note: You must associate no more than one publishing server with each publishing service. If your environment has more than one IIS application or IIS website that is hosting iMIS sites on a given server, you must install one publishing service for each such IIS application and IIS website, and you must define a single corresponding publishing server for each publishing service. See Installing iMIS content management on web servers.

Note: Membership in the SysAdmin security role effectively grants the full set of Document system permissions and the full set of CAG permissions (you are effectively a member of a MasterAdmin CAG as well). However, to participate in web content authoring workflow, even members of the SysAdmin role must be an explicitly-listed member of at least one CAG.

• Multiple publishing services – Do the following to update the publishing servers dashboard when multiple publishing services are installed:
1. Publish some content.
2. Go to RiSE > Maintenance > Publishing servers. Note that one of the services will show in progress while the other service shows done. The content is published to both sites, but the dashboard is not updated correctly.
3. Stop the ASIScheduler pool on the system that shows that the service is still in progress.
4. Restart the ASIScheduler pool. The dashboard is updated.
• Single instance of a publishing service – Do the following if a single instance of the publishing service does not start or does not complete:
1. Reenable asiScheduler. Go to Start > Administrative Tools > Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
2. Go to Sites > Default Web Site.
3. Select the Asi.Scheduler_ [your  instance] application for the instance you installed, then right-click and select Manage Application > Browse. An ASP.Net page will open.
4. Close the browser. The Asi.Scheduler_ [your  instance] is now enabled.

1. In the Staff site, go to RiSE > Maintenance > Publishing servers.
2. If the Number of Pending Requests for a publishing server is a non-zero value, click detail to view the current publishing requests queue.
3. Change a request's priority in the queue by using the Priority drop-down list.
4. Click Save to process these changes.

1. In the Staff site, go to Continuum > Content reports.
2. Select a report.
3. Click Run.
4. If a query parameters window appears, specify the additional required parameters that you are asked for, and then click Run.

All iMIS content management reports are standard Document System report definition objects that are based on Intelligent Query Architect (IQA) queries. Some default reports are included with iMIS content management, and you can define additional reports using the techniques described in Reporting Essentials.

The publishing service is used by Site Builder when publishing new websites and when adding pages to an already existing website:

• iMIS uses publishing services to render and place files into the local file system of web servers that have been prepared to host iMIS content management websites. Currently, these files are:
  • Rendered output of a content record (browser-readable .aspx files)
  • Downloadable file attachments that are defined in a ContentFile content item
• iMIS does not push files to a publishing service when an iMIS user performs an action that publishes a content record. Instead, every publishing service regularly polls the iMIS database to check whether any publishing requests have been queued up for the corresponding publishing server. For more information, refer to Concept: publishing RiSE content.

An iMIS content management publishing server is an added control layer to a specific instance of an iMIS publishing service that provides important configuration information and enables sophisticated publishing control for content records developed with the Page Builder tool.

• Through the publishing server's assignment to the Publish on Servers field in content folders, the publishing service can determine which content records it should render when it finds publishing requests during each polling interval.
• Through the Local Protected Path and Local Publish Path fields in the publishing server definition, the publishing service can determine where to place specific types of files in the file system of web servers that have been prepared to host iMIS content management websites.

When you install iMIS on a server host, the installer automatically defines a corresponding publishing service/publishing server pair:

• A single default instance of the publishing service is placed on the server host, identified by a unique code string that you specify during installation.
• Connection information to the iMIS database is automatically defined by the installer.
• A corresponding publishing server is defined in the iMIS database and given a default configuration. Go to Maintenance > Publishing servers to change the default configuration.

These fields control the properties of publishing servers that are defined in the system.

Detail

(displayed only in the main list of defined publishing servers)

Lists the currently pending and recently completed publishing requests for the associated publishing server. You can cancel pending requests or change their priority in the publishing queue. Changes to pending requests are processed when you click Save.

Error log

(displayed only in the main list of defined publishing servers)

Lists the errors reported by the publishing server. You can remove errors from the list by selecting the corresponding checkbox and clicking Delete Selected.

Description

Specifies the name of the publishing server that is displayed in the list of publishing servers in your iMIS content management environment.

Publish Server Code

Specifies the unique single-letter identifier of the publishing service that this publishing server controls. This must be a single uppercase letter from A-Z, which means that you can define at most 26 different iMIS publishing services in your iMIS content management environment (one publishing service per IIS application or IIS website that hosts iMIS content management websites, with one corresponding publishing server per publishing service defined in iMIS content management to control each publishing service).

Local Publish Path

Specifies the root directory where the rendered .aspx files from published content records should be written on the server where the publishing service is running. This directory must be within the physical path of the IIS application or IIS website that hosts iMIS content management websites.

By default, this path is C:\Program Files\ASI\iMIS\Net.

For 64-bit systems, the path must be changed to reflect the installation path default of C:\Program Files (x86)\ASI\iMIS\Net.

The uploaded files are written to system-created directories below the one that you specify here. Each directory corresponds to a content folder in the iMIS content management content folder hierarchy. Uploaded files are placed into the directory that corresponds to the parent content folder of the content record in which the ContentFile content item is defined.

Local Protected Path

Specifies the root directory where the uploaded files defined in a ContentFile content item (for example, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, and so forth) should be written on the server where the publishing service is running. For security reasons, this directory must not be in the IIS Physical Path of any website, virtual directory, or application in IIS. In other words, the files in this directory must not be able to be linked to directly by web browsers. Instead, they are served to the client only after security permissions are verified.

By default, this path is C:\Program Files\ASI\iMIS\indexServiceProtected.

The uploaded files are written to system-created directories below the one that you specify here. Each directory corresponds to a content folder in the iMIS content management content folder hierarchy. Uploaded files are placed into the directory that corresponds to the parent content folder of the content record in which the ContentFile content item is defined.

IP Address

Specifies the IP address of the computer that is running the publishing service for this publishing server. This is usually the IP address of the iMIS application server. You can run this service on a different computer than the iMIS application server, but there is no real benefit in doing so because the publishing service is not resource-intensive.

Alternate Server IP Address

Specifies an additional IP address of the computer that is running the publishing service for this publishing server, used for web servers that associate themselves with more than one IP address. You cannot specify a value for this field unless you have already specified the Server IP Address.

Frequency

Specifies the interval, in seconds, at which the publishing server should check for new PublishPending requests.

Publishing Speed

Specifies the number of PublishPending requests that are attempted at the same time.

IIS Security

Specifies the authentication credentials for a Windows account that has permission to create, update, and delete content in the Local Publish Path that is specified in the Publishing Server Properties area.

These fields are required only when IIS security is used to protect IIS website content.

• IIS Security User Name – Specifies a windows user name.
• IIS Security Password – Specifies the password associated with the windows user name.
• IIS Security Domain – Specifies the Windows domain name if the Windows account being used is a domain account instead of a local account.