Tags:
Related
Recommended

Deployment using HTTP

Julian Wraith (former member)

Introduction

Tridion's Content Deployer is able to receive content on many different protocols, one of these is HTTP and its secure version HTTPS. The whitepaper outlines the basic setup required for a HTTP based Content Deployment. This document will cover basic architecture, setting up the publication target(s) and installation & configuration.

1. Read and understand the following information about the basic architecture

Tridion's Content Deployer can receive content transported across numerous protocols. One of these protocols is HTTP. This can be used in two forms, as normal HTTP or as secure HTTP called HTTPS.

The Tridion Content Management server publishes and the transports content to a presentation server. This transport process is what is being performed using HTTP.

Using HTTP has many advantages:

  • Firewall friendly protocol
  • Potentially more reliable deployment than other protocols
  • Both secure and non-secured possibilities          

2. Set up the publication target

Setting the target

To use HTTP as a publishing protocol your Publication Target must be set to publish to a URL

.

Within the Tridion Content Manager Explorer you can set a target to use HTTP. For this you must supply the following details:

  • URL
  • Domain & Username
  • Password             

The URL is the target webserver that will deploy the content, the username is the full username of the user that will be used to authenticate against the webserver and the password is that user's password.

Using HTTPS

The HTTP protocol will allow both HTTP and HTTPS transportation of content. To use HTTPS simply use a HTTPS enabled webserver to deploy to.

3. Setting up the HTTP content deployer

Tridion has two Content Deployers for HTTP; one for the Windows/ASP platform and the other for the J2EE platform.

Windows/ASP

On the installation CD-ROM under the directory "Content Delivery/windows/httpupload", you will find the files required to install a HTTP deployer on a Windows platform.

This installation consists of:

  • A single ASP page: httpupload.asp
  • A COM module: cd_upload.dll         

To install this you must first have an installation of IIS and the Tridion Content Deployer and all its prerequisites.

To install on the server that will perform deployment:

  1. Install the Tridion Content Distributor. See documentation
  2. Create a website document root on the server.
    e.g. d:\tridion\httpupload
  3. Copy cd_upload.dll and httpupload.asp to this directory
  4. Register the dll using the command
    regsvr32 cd_upload.dll
  5. Create a website in IIS pointing to that document root. Change the script timeout (Home Directory tab -> Configuration button -> App Options tab) to allow for the script to run for longer than default period of time. 
    Depending upon the size of your deployments the maximum size a ASP page can deploy may also need to be changed. In IIS 6.0 this setting is held in the Metabase XML. Consult the appropriate Microsoft documentation for more information.
  6. The URL for the deployed application should then be something like: 
    http://<hostname>/httpupload.asp, where hostname is the IP or DNS name of your deployment server.

J2EE

On the installation CD-ROM under the directory "Content Delivery\java\httpupload" you will find the files required to install a HTTP deployer on a J2EE platform.

This installation consists of:

  • A deployment WAR: cd_upload.war           

This WAR file only contains the files needed to add the functionality of the "upload" servlet, Additional files will need to be deployed to enable the servlet to run. To install this file you must first have an installation of a J2EE application server capable of running a java servlet.

To install on a J2EE application server that will perform the deployment:

  1. Repackage cd_upload.war and add the following files in the WEB-INF\lib:
    • cd_broker.jar
    • cd_core.jar
    • cd_deployer.jar
    • cd_link.jar
    • cd_transport.jar
    • xalan.jar
    • xercesImpl.jar
    • xmlParsersAPIs.jar
    • ezlicrun.jar             
  2. Depending upon the intended architecture more jars can be added (e.g. database connection libraries). See the Content Delivery Reference Guide for more information.
  3. Add the following files in the WEB-INF\classes
    • cd_broker_conf.xml
    • cd_deployer_conf.xml
    • cd_link_conf.xml
    • cd_licences.xml (available from Customer Support)             
  4. Deploy the WAR file to the application server
  5. The URL for the deployed application should then be something like:
    http://<hostname>/httpupload, where hostname is the IP or DNS name of your deployment server.             

Configuration

The configuration is exactly that of any normal Deployer with one exception. The HTTP based Content Deployer requires the following to be set in the Deployer Configuration file (cd_deployer_conf.xml):

<HTTPSRECEIVER MaxSize="10000000" />

This will allow a file of 10mbs to be uploaded and deployed using HTTP. This should be applicable to most situations, however, multiple larger PDFs can exceed this easily. 

For more details on configuration of the HTTP based deployment, please refer to the Content Delivery Reference Guide.