InstallPortal

CaseTalk Portal

The entire portal software is controlled with a ISAPI dll, static files and a database configuration. The portal may be downloaded from the website as CaseTalkPortal.zip.

Unpacking

Once the portal software is extracted from the zip file. The folder structure should resembled the above.

 portal\
   dist\
   ftp\
   msodbcdiag17.dll
   msodbcsql17.dll
   msodbcsqlr17.dll
   Portal_Isapi.dll
   Portal_Isapi.ini
   web.config

IIS Prerequisites

1. IIS needs to contain the ISAPI feature.

Portal Files

To install the portal in IIS, follow the steps below:

1. Create a Application Pool called CaseTalkPortal which has No Managed Code and Classic pipeline mode.
2. Make sure the CaseTalkPortal pool has the advanced settings set to Enable 32 bit applications.
3. Under the Default Website add an Application which is hooked to the CaseTalkPortal Application, and points to the physical folder portal\.
4. Once CaseTalk Manager is run successful, copy the CaseTalkManager.ini from the roaming profile folder into Portal_Isapi.ini for proper database connection configuration.
5. In the portal_isapi.ini add the line "homepage=\myportal" to the settings-section. This is used to navigate users to the proper startpage when clicking the Home. Please adjust to your appropriate setup.
6. To customize the introduction- and about-tab, please read the section at the bottom of this page.

IIS Configuration

1. Website Handler Mappings: Configure the ISAPI-dll to point to the portal_isapi.dll, and make sure it is executable. This is done through properties and feature permissions.
2. ISAPI and CGI Restrictions of the webserver: Add the portal_isapi.dll to the list and make sure it is allowed to be executed.
3. Website Default Document: Add the portal_isapi.dll as a default document name.

IIS Caching

For cache optimizations, the Output Caching can be tweaked to result in the following web.config:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
  <location path="dist">
     <system.webServer>
       <staticContent>
         <clientCache cacheControlMode="UseMaxAge" cacheControlMaxAge="00:30:00" />
       </staticContent>
     </system.webServer>
   </location>
   <system.webServer>
       <caching>
           <profiles>
               <add extension=".dll" policy="CacheForTimePeriod" kernelCachePolicy="CacheForTimePeriod" duration="00:30:00" varyByQueryString="content,v,name,p,icons,filetypes,keyword" />
           </profiles>
       </caching>
   </system.webServer>
</configuration>

The above can be edited by hand (make sure the file maintains the correct permissions for IIS), or done through various configuration screens using the IIS Manager:

Navigate to the Website Portal Folder and double click the Output Caching icon:

Navigate to the Dist folder and double click the Configuration Editor and add the following to mark the entire folder as static content:

Monitoring

For monitoring the Event Viewer of Windows can be used. Relevant logs are to be found under Windows Logs\Application with the source being CaseTalkPortal.

Customization

The file Portal_isapi.ini contains a few lines for database configuration and a more generic section.

 [Settings]
 Homepage=/portal
 introduction=/portal/ftp/introduction.html
 about=/portal/ftp/about.html

These lines allow customization of the portal glossary home page by injecting a specially crafted html file to be presented inside the introduction and about tabs.