Installation - server/desktop

Owned by Henrik Dahl
Last updated: Aug 27, 2024
5 min read

Engrafo is a web-application that depends on:

  • a running Internet Information Server(IIS) - typically installed with your windows installation

  • a MS SQL Server (e.g. MS SQL Server Express or MS SQL Server) - Don’t worry, we will guide you through download and setup of this in the following

 

If you don’t have a license for Engrafo and want to try it out, please send a mail to: contact@engrafo.dk with “Free trial” in the subject-field. You will shortly after receive a download link and a license.

 

Installation steps

Installation steps for Internet Information Server(IIS)

If IIS is not present on your Windows installation you can activate it in “Windows Features”:

See also: Turn on IIS or Internet Information Services on Windows Server (thewindowsclub.com)

After activation of IIS you start IIS by typing IIS in the command line:

  • Add a website in IIS with a name like: engrafo

  • Set the “Physical Path” the folder that will contain the Engrafo-application

Click “OK”

Then under “Application Pool → Engrafo”, chose “Advanced Settings…” and set the “Identity”-property to NetworkService

 

  • For the installation with no windows authentication the Anonymous Authentication should be Enabled

  • For the installation with windows authentication the Anonymous Authentication should be Disabled and Windows Authentication set to Enabled on the specific website. In this way the application will use AD

If you don’t see “Windows Authentication” in IIS, then follow the guide below

To enable in Windows in websites you need to do

Enabling Windows Authentication on website

  1. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager

  2. Navigate to Server -> Sites -> Default Website -> Click on your website

  3. In Right-side panel, under IIS section double click on "Authentication"

  4. Select Windows Authentication and "Enable it.

If "Windows Authentication" is missing in IIS manager, proceed for next steps.

Enabling Windows Authentication feature in IIS

  1. Open Control Panel

  2. Click on Programs

  3. Click on Turn Windows features on or off

  4. Navigate to "Internet Information Services"

  5. Expand "World Wide Web Services"

  6. Under "Security" select Windows Authentication

  7. Click Ok, and then Restart your computer

 

Install ASP.NET Runtime Core 8.0

You might need to start/restart the service: W3SVC in the task manager

 

Installation steps for SQL Server

If you don’t have a running SQL Server you can download a Windows SQL Server here:

SQL Server Downloads | Microsoft

When Installing the SQL server, you can choose the Basic settings. (Engrafo will work with SQL server 2014 and forward and SQL Express)

 

We recommend that you use the SQL Server Management Studio, which can be downloaded here:

Download SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) - SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) | Microsoft Learn

  • Create a empty database, e.g. engrafoDB

 

The NETWORK SERVICE account (the user set in the Application Pool Identity) must be owner of the database (e.g. engrafoDB). In SSMS select New User… under security.

Chose “Windows user” and find the NETWORK SERVICE account

Under Membership make the NETWORK SERVICE account db-owner:

If you work with AD-groups, you can also make the NETWORK SERVICE account member of a DB-owner group.

 

Also remember to map “Logins” to the databases that should be allowed to Login in to.

 

Deploy Engrafo

  • Download the latest release of the Engrafo Knowledge platform.

  • Unzip the downloaded Engrafo-software to the ”Physical Path”. (e.g. c:\EngrafoApp)

If you don’t have a link for the software, please send a mail to: contact@engrafo.dk to get information about the possibilities for a free trial or the prizing plans.

To configure app-settings to point to the database you are using, you need to follow the below two steps:

  • Open “[Physical Path]\appsettings.production.json” e.g. “C:\EngrafoApp\appsettings.json”

  • Edit "DefaultConnection":  "Server=[ServerName];Database=[DatabaseName];Trusted_Connection=yes" to match your server name and database name.

eg:

 

(If you use “\” in the servername, you might need to use “\\”, in that e.g. \S \M is escape -characters.)

You can find the connection settings in SSMS. Right click the database and chose properties. (Servername and Database holds the information you need).

The application writes to a number of specific folders. Make sure that NETWORK SERVICE has the following credentials:

Start using Engrafo

From IIS you can browser the Engrafo-site:

First time you use the Engrafo system you might need to migrate the Database

Scroll down and apply migration. This will create the engrafo database

After migration refresh the page

 

 

By default you get a admin-user when you order a trial or license

This user has all the privileges to administrate and configure the system.

You can use this user to set op AD-groups so that you can assign different roles to different AD-users.

We strongly recommend that you create a new admin user and deactivate the default admin user.

If you have any issues please reach out to contact@engrafo.dk

 

You’ve done it! You’ve installed Engrafo!

Now head over to the section Just installed Engrafo - What now? and start using Engrafo