External web server on JBOSS

[Bill Flesher]

External web server on JBOSS

Are any companies running 2008.1 with an external web server and cognos?

[Craig Christiane]

Hi Bill,

We have deployed 2008.3 on an external web server in a JBOSS environment. The newScale Web Tier is deployed in a DMZ.

The Cognos Reporting Server runs on the newScale Application Server however.

It is possible to separate the Web Server from the Application server, there are a few files that need to copied across to the Web Server and then some configuration is required on the Web Server, minimal though.

[Allen Cecil]

Don't know if this would help or not, but if this is running on Windows,there is a file at this location:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\hosts

where you can set up aliases to specific machine IP addresses. So you could see if aliasing www.newscale.ford.com to the IP address of the host machine where cognos resides MIGHT work. Worth a try.

[Craig Christiane]

Hi Chad,

To accomplish this on 2008.3 the following needs to be done:

Copy the following directory from the App Server to the External Web Server:

newScale\jboss-4.2.3.GA\isapi

Next modify the worker.properties file on the external web server to point to the application server.

The worker.node1.host; worker.servicelink.host and worker.jkstatus.host must point to the application server. e.g. worker.node1.host=external.webserver.com

Then configure IIS to have a

[Chad Chad]

Would you mind sharing what you did for 2008.3 for us?

[Chad Chad]

Yeah thats what we already did. Cognos hands off fine if we use the machine name for example someserver.ford.com (external) and someserver2.ford.com (internal) then we work just fine with cognos. Soon as we apply any alias to the config such as www.newscale.ford.com (external) www.newscale-int.ford.com(internal) cognos fails to authenticate. What did you do for that or was that even a issue for you?

[Craig Christiane]

We didn't come across that problem but there is also a table in the RequestCenter DB called dbo.CnfParams and there is CognosServer value where you can specify the name of the cognos server, we used this to change the port on which the cognos server was hosted.

[Chad Chad]

Yeah already tried that too. no luck there.

[Ed Contini - newScale]

Hi Chad,

Our development team advises that what you are describing is a known limitation of Cognos 7 Single Sign-On. We need to open a case wth the IBM Cognos Support folks to find out if there is a workaround for the configuration you are describing here. However, we need for you to formally open a case with newScale Customer Care before we can do so. Can you please open a case on this? Thanks!

[Chad Chad]

yep already did that one too......