Installing Web Manager

Overview

The BlueZone ASP Web Manager comes complete with a setup program that will automatically install Web Manager on your Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, or Windows 2003 Server.  We strongly recommend that you use this setup program to install Web Manager.

If it ever becomes necessary to manually configure or change the ODBC Datasource, follow these instructions.

Configuring the ODBC Datasource

About the Datasource

The Web Manager application stores its state in an MS Access database file.  Web Manager's data access needs are lightweight, making the MS Access database an excellent choice for storing the data.  Unlike SQL servers, MS Access does not require a database server and therefore does not require database management knowledge or skill on the part of the administrator.

The server does not need to have the MS Access application installed.  The server accesses the database file via an Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) driver and ActiveX Data Objects (ADO).  These components are installed by default with IIS.

Creating the Datasource Name (DSN) Entry

Open the ODBC control panel by clicking on the Start menu and selecting Settings then Control Panel.  When the Control Panel folder opens, double-click the ODBC icon.

Click the System DSN tab.  Click the Add button.  The Create New Datasource dialog appears, select the Microsoft Access Driver (.mdb) from the list and make note of the version (3.5 or 4.0), click the Finish button.

The ODBC Microsoft Access Setup window appears.  Enter the Datasource Name, this is usually swmData (see Determining the Correct DSN below).  Optionally, you may enter a description.  Click the Select button to open the Select Database window, navigate to the location of the Web Manager application folder, open the access folder. In the left pane, you should see two database files, name swmData.mdb. Select the swmData.mdb file.

Click OK to close the Select Database window. Click OK to close the ODBC Microsoft Access Setup window. Click OK to close the ODBC Control Panel.

Your ODBC Datasource is now configured.

Determining the Correct DSN

Datasources are configured via the ODBC control panel as described above.  The Web Manager is then configured to use a specified datasource. This configuration is determined by the value in the setup.ini file in the main Web Manager application directory.

Open the setup.ini file in a text editor. Look for the datasource variable and make note of its value, it should appear like: datasource=swmData.

If the datasource value is not the same as the datasource name configured in the ODBC control panel, then return to the control panel and alter the datasource name to match the value in setup.ini.

Configuring ODBC Datasource to Access Database on Networked Machine

You may wish to run the Web Manager on one machine and host the data on another machine.  This is very easy to do with ODBC but, requires that the appropriate permissions be granted to IIS to access data across the network.

  1. Place the Access (.mdb) file on target network machine in a non-root (not C:/) folder. We recommend creating a folder on the root and placing the database inside the folder.

  2. On the web server, determine the Anonymous Access Account that IIS is using.  This is usually of the form IUSR_MACHINENAME . See "Determining the Anonymous Access Account" below.

  3. Share the target folder to the Anonymous Access Account.  The minimum permission is Change permission.

  4. Set permissions on target folder for the Anonymous Access Account.  The minimum permission is Change permission.

  5. Create an ODBC datasource pointing across the network to the Access database.

NOTE  You can test the permissions by logging onto the Web Server using the Anonymous Access Account.  If you are not able to access the database via this account, then neither will IIS be able to do so.

Determining the Anonymous Access Account

IIS uses an NT account to access all network resources.  A default account is created when IIS is installed.