Installing a front-end web server

You install a front-end web server before you run the IBM® InfoSphere® Information Server installation program.

Before you begin

See the information about Implementing a web server plug-in to determine which web server and web server version to install.

About this task

The following steps describe how to install the IBM HTTP Server. Refer to the Apache HTTP Server documentation for information about how to install the Apache HTTP Server.

Procedure

  1. Determine a web server topology diagram and road map. See the information about Selecting a web server topology diagram and roadmap.
  2. Choose whether to install the web server locally or remotely:
    • For development and testing environments, you might prefer to install the web server locally on a computer that hosts an IBM WebSphere® Application Server Network Deployment managed node. When you do so, the web server plug-in file, plugin-cfg.xml, is automatically propagated to the web server by IBM WebSphere Application Server.
    • For production environments, install the web server remotely on a dedicated server. Because the front-end web server is typically outside the firewall in the DMZ, the front-end web server must be installed remotely on a separate dedicated computer. You manually copy the plugin-cfg.xml file to the computer where the web server is installed. (For more information, see Propagating the plugin-cfg.xml file to the front-end web server.)
  3. Install IBM HTTP Server. See the information about Installing IBM HTTP Server.

    If you choose to install InfoSphere Information Server by using a cluster member rather than a front-end web server, you can stop here and configure the front-end web server after InfoSphere Information Server installation.

  4. Install the web server plug-in module. See the information about Installing web server plug-ins.
    After you install the Workload Manager plug-in binary files, run the configure<webserver_name> script to create a web server definition in WebSphere Application Server.
    Operating system Script
    AIX® Linux® configure<webserver_name>.sh
    Windows configure<webserver_name>.bat
    Note: For remote installations, running the script also creates an unmanaged node.
  5. Configure the web server to accept encoded slashes.
  6. Configure SSL for the IBM HTTP Server, and configure SSL between the front-end IBM HTTP Server and the application server. See the information about Securing IBM HTTP Server and complete the following tasks:
    • Securing with SSL communications
    • Configure SSL between the front-end IBM HTTP Server and the deployment manager
  7. If you are using a port other than the default 80 or 443 for your front-end web server, add a virtual host entry with the same port value as your front-end web server. For more information, see Configuring virtual hosts.

What to do next

  • Ensure there are no errors seen in the front end web server and the WebSphere Application Server plugin log files. If there are any, they need to fixed before you can install InfoSphere Information Server.
  • You can install additional components such as backup load balancers, backup web servers, firewalls, and cache proxies. Refer to the external vendors' documentation.