Installing NET Genium on the local computer

1. NET Genium installation procedure

• IIS installation and setup
• Download and unzip NET Genium to the destination directory
• Installation of Firebird database server (or MS SQL Server)
• Installing NET Genium

2. Installing IIS

2.1. Installing IIS on Windows 11

• From the “Start” menu, search for “Control Panel”.
• Switch the view to “Category” and select “Programs”.
• In the “Programs and Features” category, select “Turn Windows features on or off”.
• In the newly opened window, select for installation:
• Internet Information Services
  • Web Management Tools
    • IIS 6 Management Compatibility
      • IIS Metabase and IIS 6 configuration compatibility
      • IIS 6 Management Console (in case we will also install the SMTP Server)
    • IIS Management Console
  • World Wide Web Services
    • Application Development Features
      • ASP.NET 4.8
      • ISAPI Filters
      • ISAPI Extensions
      • .NET Extensibility 4.8
    • Security
      • Windows Authentication
• Confirm the selection with the OK button

3. IIS settings

3.1. Pin IIS to the taskbar

• Find “Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager” in the “Start” menu.

• In the bottom bar, right-click on IIS and select “Pin to taskbar”.

3.2. Turn off logging

• To prevent unexpected filling of the computer's disk, it is advisable to disable IIS traffic logging within your computer node.
• Go to IIS settings and select the top node of your computer (for example, “NELA-PC”) so that the settings are propagated to other child nodes, and in the “IIS” section, select “Logging”.

• Then, in the “Actions” panel on the right side of the window, click “Disable”. This will turn off logging of your computer traffic.

3.3. Identity settings

3.3.1. Setting the identity via the application pool defaults

3.3.1.1. Predefined “NetworkService” account

• Go to “Application Pools” and in the “Actions” section click “Set Application Pool Defaults…”, or right-click on the IIS desktop and select “Set Application Pool Defaults…”.
• In this way, you change the default settings for all application pools so that you do not have to set each application pool separately.

• Select “Identity” and click on the three dots on the right in the dialog box.

• Select and set “NetworkService” from the list.

3.3.2. Setting the identity for individual application pools

• If the identity has been set via the application pool defaults in the previous chapter, it is enough to just check its setting.

3.3.2.1. Predefined “NetworkService” account

• You can set the identity by right-clicking on “DefaultAppPool” and selecting “Advanced Settings…”.

• Select “Identity” and click on the three dots on the right in the dialog box.

• Select and set “NetworkService” from the list.

3.4. Default site directory

• The default site directory, or root, is the directory on the disk where the tree structure of subdirectories and files within a site is stored. By default, a clean installation of IIS creates a single site named “Default Web Site” that has “C:\inetpub\wwwroot” set as the default site directory. The default site directory settings can be changed, so it is up to the administrator to decide which directory to choose as the default site directory. Any number of sites can be created in IIS, with each site having its own default site directory.
• If you want to change the default site directory, follow the instructions below.
• Open the “Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager” application and right-click on the site named “Default Web Site” and select “Manage Website” –> “Advanced Settings”.

• Change the set physical path to the path you selected and press the “OK” button.

3.5. Set default directory permissions

• This step is important so that your NET Genium can write files to disk (for example, file attachments, cascading styles, log files, etc.).
• Before setting the permissions themselves, it is important to realize under which account the application pool is configured, see the chapter “Identity settings”, and therefore for which account we will set the permissions. Whether it is a predefined “NetworkService” account or your own technology account. The procedure below describes how to set permissions for the “NetworkService” account. This procedure also changes the default permissions for all other subdirectories.
• Go to the location of your default site directory, for example “C:\inetpub”, right-click on the “wwwroot” folder and select “Properties”.

• Go to the “Security” tab and click on the “Edit” button.

• Click on the “Add…” button.

• Then click on the “Advanced…” button.

• Search for “NETWORK SERVICE” via the “Find Now” button and click the “OK” button.

• Highlight the “NETWORK SERVICE” user group, check “Full control” and confirm with “OK”.

• If it is not possible to set the permissions of the default directory, follow the steps in the chapter NET Genium installation via “Setup.exe”.

4. Download and unzip NET Genium to the destination directory

• Download the archive with the latest full version of NET Genium from the URL:
  https://www.netgenium.com/download/netgenium4.zip.
• Extract the contents of the archive to the “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\netgenium” directory.

5. Database server installation – Firebird or MS SQL

• Before installing NET Genium, you need to install a database server, either Firebird or MS SQL Server. After installing the database server, you can continue installing NET Genium.
  • For instructions on installing Firebird, see the Installing Firebird 5.0 guide.
  • For instructions on installing MS SQL Server, see the Installing MSSQL guide.

6. Installing NET Genium

• NET Genium can be installed in two different ways:
  • Via “Setup.exe”
  • Via “IIS”

6.1. NET Genium installation via “Setup.exe”

• Run the “Setup.exe” program, which is located in the “bin” directory of NET Genium. After its first run, only the libraries will be created for it to run properly, then run “Setup.exe” again (“Setup.exe” must be run as an administrator).
• If you have a NET Genium license, copy your license file “license.txt” to the “Config” directory of NET Genium.
• The introductory window of the program looks like this:

• Check the options you want to select as described below:
• “Create virtual directory”
  • Check this option if you want to convert the NET Genium directory on disk to the IIS virtual directory (run the equivalent of a manual NET Genium installation performed in IIS).
• “Authorize a NetworkService account to write in the NET Genium directory”
  • Check this option if you want to set the rights for the “NetworkService” account to full access to the NET Genium directory. If you have set the rights according to the chapter “Set default directory permissions” for the entire “wwwroot”, it is not necessary (if this option is checked) to set the rights individually. Thus, the rights for each individual NET Genium are already preset.
• “Create database”
  • Check this option if you want to create a new database and your database server is located on the same computer as the application itself, resp. IIS. If the database server is located on another computer, the database on the database server must be created manually, and then the “ConnectionString.txt” file must be created in the “Config” directory of NET Genium, which contains the definition of the connection string to the database.
  • Specify what type of database you will use – Firebird or MS SQL Server.
  • Leave the “Automatic” option checked – the database will have the same name as the virtual directory or specify your own database name.
  • In the case of Firebird, select the directory where the database is to be stored (the default location is “C:\Firebird”).
  • In the case of MS SQL Server, select the instance in which the database will be created.
• “Authorize NetworkService account to access MS SQL database”
  • Check this option if you use an MS SQL database and your database server is located on the same computer as the application itself, resp. IIS.
  • Authorization consists of creating a login to the “NetworkService” account and assigning the “sysadmin” role.
• “Create a scheduled task for BackupServer.exe (server backup)”
  • Check this option if you want to automatically create a scheduled task for regular server and database backups.
• “Create a scheduled task for SqlBackup.exe (database backup)”
  • Check this option if you want to automatically create a scheduled task for regular database backups.
• “Create a scheduled task for FileBackup.exe (attachment backup)”
  • Check this option if you want to automatically create a scheduled task for regular file attachment backups.
• “Create a scheduled task for Update.exe (update)”
  • Check this option if you want to automatically create a scheduled task for regularly updating NET Genium to the new version.
• “Create a scheduled task for ResendEmlFiles.exe”
  • Check this option if you want to automatically create a scheduled task for regularly sending unsuccessful e-mails from the “SMTP” directory.
• “Create a scheduled task for RunScript.exe”
  • Check this option if you want to automatically create a scheduled task to run a script with a given ID, at a specified time, or with the option to repeat the task regularly twice an hour for 18 hours.
• Click on the “Set up” button to start the installation. When the installation is complete, the program displays a message about this fact.
• After successful creation of the database, the file “ConnectionString.txt” is created automatically.
• A “DefaultLanguage.txt” file is created in the “Config” directory, in which the abbreviation of the default portal language is placed. This will be the default language according to which all subsequently created NET Genium applications will be created.

6.2. NET Genium installation via “IIS”

• Only install via IIS if you have a NET Genium database created and you have a “ConnectionString.txt” file in the “Config” directory, which contains the definition of the connection string to the database.
• Find “Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager” via the “Start” menu.

• In the open window on the left, click on the tree structure of the drop-down list up to “Default Web Site”, select the directory on your NET Genium's disk, right-click on it, and select “Convert to Application” from the menu.
• This step assumes that NET Genium is expanded in the “netgenium” directory in the default site directory (for example, “C:\inetpub\wwwroot\netgenium”). See the chapter “Download and unzip NET Genium to the destination directory”.

7. Problem solving

7.1. NET Genium installation via “Setup.exe”

• If any problems occur during the installation of NET Genium with the “Setup.exe” program, their details can be found in the “Logs” directory in the “Install.log” file. These problems include:
• Problem: The IIS service is not installed.
• Solution: Install the IIS service (see chapter Installing IIS).
• Problem: The selected database system is not installed.
• Solution: Install the database server (see chapter Database server installation – Firebird or MS SQL).
• Problem: When creating the database, the setup reports an error: “Firebird: connection rejected by remote interface”.

• Solution: Check that you have actually made the change to the configuration file
  • “C:\Program Files\Firebird\Firebird_3_0\firebird.conf” (see the Installing Firebird 3.0, chapter 1.3 guide), or
  • “C:\Program Files\Firebird\Firebird_5_0\firebird.conf” (see the Installing Firebird 5.0, chapter 1.3 guide).
• Problem: Backward compatibility with IIS 6 and the .NET and ASP.NET extensions are not installed.
• Solution: Install the appropriate missing extension using the “Turn Windows features on or off” function (in the case of Windows 10) or by installing Server Features (in the case of Windows Server 2016).

7.2. First launch of NET Genium

• Problem: NET Genium is displayed without styles.
• Solution: If your NET Genium is displayed without styles, you either do not have the permissions of your default site directory set (see chapter Set default directory permissions), or the “Static Content” option was not checked during the IIS installation (see chapter Installing IIS on Windows 11).

• Problem: The form cannot be saved in NET Genium. When saving the form, the error “No message for error code 335544865 found” is displayed.
• Solution: Check if you have the FlameRobin program running. If so, close the program.