CSP Gateway Configuration Guide - InterSystems Documentation

Microsoft Internet Information Services Version 7 (IIS v7)
IIS v7 is constructed using a modular architecture as opposed to the “one monolithic Web server executable does everything”
approach used in previous incarnations. The idea is that customers, at installation time, select only the functionality they
need from the list of capabilities supplied by Microsoft. The Web server is constructed using a modular approach. Modules
can be freely added to (or taken away from) an existing IIS v7 installation. In other words, IIS v7 is architecturally similar
to Apache.
Third party companies (such as InterSystems) can add functionality to the Web server by creating custom modules working
to the new Native Modules API. The old ISAPI interface (for extensions and filters) which we have relied on in the past
for supporting the CSP Gateway, has been deprecated in favor of this API. However, in the interests of backward compatibility,
Microsoft supplies a module to support the ISAPI interface. Older versions of the CSP Gateway work through this
module.
Microsoft encourages vendors of ISAPI-based applications to rework them so that they can use the Native Module API
directly. It is envisaged that suitably reworked modules perform and scale better than their ISAPI-based equivalents.
Microsoft has replaced the IIS configuration “metabase” with a new XML-based configuration schema. Basically, there
is a core Web server configuration held in a single file which sets default properties for the whole installation. Defaults
held centrally can be overridden in individual web.config files that can be used to customize the configuration for each
virtual documents root and subdirectories thereof.
Improved security is a key feature of IIS v7 and many of the extra complications in configuring CSP to work with this new
server are related to tightened security.
The remainder of this section describes how to configure CSP to work through IIS v7. The configuration procedures for
both the new Native Module API and older ISAPI extension based approach are described. Later versions of the CSP
Gateway DLLs concurrently support both the new Native Modules interface and older ISAPI interface. Therefore, later
versions of what were the IIS ISAPI DLLs (CSPms.dll, CSPmsSys.dll, and CSPcms.dll) work with both IIS v7 (as Native
Modules) and previous versions of IIS (as ISAPI extensions).
The default location for the CSP Gateway Web server components are in install-dir\csp\. The examples in this section
assume that CSP Gateway Web server components are installed in:
C:\MyCache\csp\
Amend the following steps, as appropriate for your installation directory.
4.2.1 Installation
Install the CSP Gateway components and the CSP static files as follows:
1. NSD Module (if required)
• CSPnsd.exe
• CSPnsdSv.exe
The default location for these modules is:
C:\MyCache\csp
Given that this location is later mapped to a Web server virtual root it is better, from a security perspective, to install
these components in a separate location. For example:
C:\MyCache\nsd
To avoid disrupting existing Gateway installations on upgrading Caché, the installation procedures (for Caché v5.1
and later) place these modules in the following common location. This location is not related to a particular Caché
configuration.
C:\Inetpub\CSPGateway\nsd
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