Configure Cognos Analytics with your web server

You must configure your web server before users can connect to the IBM® Cognos® Analytics portal.

For IBM Cognos Analytics for reporting, you must also set the content expiry for the images directory in your web server so that the web browser does not check image status after the first access.

File permissions

The account under which the web server runs must have read, write and execute privileges to the Cognos installation location. Read access is required to the ./configuration directory for the cogstartup.xml file. Write access is required to ./logs if debug tracing is required. Execute access is required to the ./cgi-bin directory so that the SSO modules for Apache HTTP Server, IBM HTTP Server, or Microsoft Internet Information Services can be run by the web server.

Reference values for the configuration procedures

Refer to the following values where required:
  • server name: host name of the web server
  • port #: 80 (non-SSL) or 443 (SSL)
  • virtual directory name: ibmcognos
  • Cognos Analytics server name: host name of the IBM Cognos Analytics server(n)
    Important: If your environment contains more than one Cognos Analytics server, do not include the server running Content Manager service in the steps below. Include only Cognos Analytics servers that have the application server components installed and configured.
  • Cognos Analytics port #: 9300
Some or all of these URI settings are in Cognos Configuration, depending on the type of install used:
  • Gateway URI: For non-SSL use http://web_server_host_name:80/ibmcognos/bi/v1/disp. For SSL use https://web_server_host_name:443/ibmcognos/bi/v1/disp

    This is the URL for disconnected content such as links in PDFs, Excel, and Active Reports. It is also used in links sent by email.

  • Dispatcher URIs for gateway: http(s)://IBM_Cognos_Analytics_server_host_name:9300/bi/v1/disp

    This is the list of URIs that the Cognos Apache module or ISAPI code connects to when forwarding requests. Multiple entries are used for failover. Include all relevant IBM Cognos Analytics application servers.

  • Dispatcher URI for external applications: http(s)://IBM_Cognos_Analytics_server_host_name:9300/bi/v1/disp

    External applications such as Framework Manager connect on this URL to perform SDK operations.

Microsoft Internet Information Services

If you want to configure single sign-on (SSO), make sure that IsapiModule and WindowsAuthenticationModule are installed and enabled.

Install the Application Request Routing extension for IIS. For information about how to do this, see https://www.iis.net/downloads/microsoft/application-request-routing. This will also install the URL Rewrite extension.

URL Rewrite enables web administrators to create powerful rules to implement URLs that are easier for users to remember and easier for search engines to find. Application Request Routing enables web server administrators to increase web application scalability and reliability through rule-based routing, client and host name affinity, load balancing of HTTP server requests, and distributed disk caching.

If you are upgrading from Cognos Analytics 11.0.3 to Cognos Analytics 11.0.4 (or later) and you had modified server.xml to configure an sso/login path pointing to /ibmcognos/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll, remove the following entry from install_location/wlp/usr/servers/cognosserver/server.xml: 
<jndiEntry jndiName="glass/sso/login" value="/ibmcognos/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll"/>

For details on configuration for Active Directory Server, see Enable single signon between Active Directory Server and IBM Cognos components