Month: August 2020

Step-by-step install Sitecore XP 10 to developer workstation using Sitecore Containers with Docker Compose

August 23, 2020 /

Last Updated on November 16, 2024 by sandeeppote

One of the highlights of newly released Sitecore Experience Platform (10.0) is that it brings support to rapid deployment and more efficient solution and team onboarding with modern Docker technology i.e. Sitecore Containers.

To know more about containers here is the official documentation from Sitecore on Containers

Lets get started to create a Sitecore XP 10 development environment using docker.

Before getting started please see Installation Guide for Developer Workstation with Containers

Topology user here will XP0 or per guide XP Workstation (XP Single)

Hardware and Networking Requirements-

Developer workstation requires 32GB RAM and 25 GB Free space with quad core or higher CPU

Required portRoleDescription
433 443TraefikHTTPS proxy
8079TraefikTraefik dashboard
8080TraefikHTTP proxy
8984SolrSolr API and dashboard
14330SQLSQL Server

IMPORTANT-

HTTPS proxy port for Traefik in guide is incorrect. As per the docker-compose.yml the Traefik is set to listen on 443 port and not 433.

Prepare/prerequisite for Sitecore XP workstation-

  • OS- Windows 10 1809 or later or Windows Server 1809 or later

Login to Azure portal to create a VM

Image – Select Image to Windows 10 Pro, Version 1809- Gen 1

Size – Standard_D8s_v3- * vcpus, 32GiB memory

Inbound ports– Select RDP, dont select HTTPS 443 as this will be used by Traefik as mentioned in previous section

  • Download and Install Docker Desktop for Windows

Download and install Docker Desktop for Windows. You can get Stable version from here

Setup should enable Hyper-V Windows Features

After installation Restart the machine, this should enable the Hyper-V feature

This should also have Docker running and should see the same in system tray

  • Switch to Windows containers

Right click on Docker icon and switch to Windows Container. See this link for more details as per guide

Download and Prepare for installation

  • Download and extract the Sitecore Container Deployment Package from the Sitecore Developer Portal and store it on your local workstation

Login to Sitecore portal before download

  • Copy and extract SitecoreContainerDeployment 10.0.0 rev. 004346-027.zip for e.g:- C:/SitecoreXPDocker

Navigate to C:/SitecoreXPDocker/ltsc2019/sitecore-xp0

  • Open .env file, we need to fill in this parameters before starting installation. You can find more details in guide for each option.
  • Download PowerShell script to initialize (init.ps1) the parameters from docker-examples. Parameter values in .env can be populated manually by individually executing the commands for required for each parameter in guide(see Appendices) but I would recommend to use init.ps1 as this is provided by Sitecore and hence tried and tested.

Folder structure should look like this-

  • Change parameter values in init.ps1 file.

Change the SitecoreAdminPassword, SqlSaPassword and host entries as per requirement. If you are changing host entries also ensure the same is updated in .env file for CM_HOST and ID_HOST parameters. Lets keep the default values.

  • Populate .env file using init command

Open PowerShell as a Administrator, navigate to the folder having init.ps1 file.

Execute init.ps1 script. You may have to set the execution rights to current user to execute the script-

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser Unrestricted
.init.ps1

Provide the path of license file

This should Install and Import SitecoreDockerTools and Populate the environment file.

Ensure to Switch to Windows Container before executing below command

Install

Execute docker compose command

docker-compose.exe up --detach

Installation complete-

Once command execution is complete, should see all the checks done and Sitecore dev. instance ready in 20 minutes

Open Docker Dashboard and should see Sitecore-XP0 running

Site listening to address- https://xp0cm.localhost/

Cleanup the workstation

To cleanup/stop workstation use following commands. You can find these in instllation guide

To stop a Docker Compose environment without removing its contents:

docker-compose.exe stop

To resume a previously stopped Docker Compose environment:

docker-compose.exe start

To remove a Docker Compose environment and all the non-mounted volumes

docker-compose.exe down

Hope this helps to install Sitecore XP 10 using Docker!!!

Step-by-step install Sitecore XP 10 using Sitecore Installation Framework (SIF)

August 18, 2020 /

Last Updated on November 16, 2024 by sandeeppote

Deployment Topology for installing Sitecore using SIF we are going to see here is XP Single Developer(XP0)

Another way to install is using Sitecore Installation Assistant (SIA). See this post to deploy using SIA

Use the Sitecore Installation Guide for hardware, OS ,database and other software requirements

Installation guide for Developer workstation

Download/Install following-

  • Windows Server 2019/2016 or Windows 10(64-bit)
  • Install Microsoft PowerShell 7.0.3 if not already installed
    1. PowerShell in installed with OS. Check version using this command
      • Get-Host | Select-Object Version
    2. Optionally install version 7.0.3 if version 5.1 or later is already installed
  • Install .Net Framework 4.8.0

Machine restart might be required whilst installation of above software’s

Step-by-step prepare and organize pre-requisite and installation files

  • Enable Contained Database Authentication

After installing SQL Server launch SQL Server Management Studio and run following-

EXEC sp_configure 'contained', 1;
RECONFIGURE;
  • Prepare the installation folder
  1. Extract downloaded XP Single Developer package to a folder e.g.:- sitecorexp10
  2. Extract XP0 Configuration files 10.0.0 rev. 004346.zip in same folder
  • Install SIF Module
  1. Open PowerShell as an administrator.
  2. Set unrestricted execution to current user
Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope CurrentUser Unrestricted

3. Register repository

Register-PSRepository -Name SitecoreGallery https://sitecore.myget.org/F/sc-powershell/api/v2

4. Install SIF

Install-Module SitecoreInstallFramework

5. After SIF installation check if the SIF 2.3.0 is installed

Get-Module SitecoreInstallFramework ā€“ListAvailable

To install specific version of SIF or run multiple version of SIF see this blog

6. Execute – Install-SitecoreConfiguration -Path Solr-SingleDeveloper.json

  • Install prerequisites before installing XP 10

Switch to the sitecorexp10 folder and execute following script 

Install-SitecoreConfiguration -Path .\Prerequisites.json
  • Install SOLR 8.4.0

1. Switch to sitecorexp10 folder. Open Solr-SingleDeveloper.json file

2. Change the Install Root for SOLR – DefaultValue

 "SolrInstallRoot": {
            "Type": "String",
            "Description": "The file path to install Solr. This config will add the prefix and solr version e.g C:\\Solr becomes C:\\Solr\\[SolrServicePrefix]Solr-8.4.0",
            "DefaultValue": "C:\\SOLR"
        },

3. Execute – Install-SitecoreConfiguration -Path Solr-SingleDeveloper.json

4. Check https://localhost:8983/solr/#/ if SOLR installed on SSL

Prepare and Execute script for installation

Open XP0-SingleDeveloper.ps1 file to update following-

  • $Prefix
  • $SitecoreAdminPassword
  • $SCInstallRoot – change path to the folder installers are available
  • $SolrUrl
  • $SolrRoot
  • $SolrService
  • $SqlServer
  • $SqlServer
  • $SqlAdminPassword

Copy license to the sitecorexp10 folder

Execute installation script – .\XP0-SingleDevelor.ps1

Hope the installation completes without any issues

Post Installation activities

Rebuild the search indexes and the Link database
After you install Sitecore Experience Platform, you must rebuild the search indexes and rebuild the Link databases.


To rebuild all the indexes:

  1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, click Control Panel, and in the Indexing section, click Indexing manager.
  2. In the Indexing Manager dialog box, click Select all, and then click Rebuild.

To rebuild the Link databases for the Master and Core databases:

  1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, click Control Panel, and in the Database section, click Rebuild Link Databases.
  2. Select the Master and Core databases and then click Rebuild

Step-by-step install Sitecore Commerce (XC) 10

August 17, 2020 /

Last Updated on November 16, 2024 by sandeeppote

Follow these steps to install Sitecore Commerce 10 On Premise. To successfully install refer to Installation Guide provided by Sitecore.

Login to Sitecore before starting download.

Download Installation Guide

Before installing Sitecore Commerce install Sitecore XP 10. See this blog to install Sitecore XP 10 using SIA. Say the XP site name is- sc10.sc.dev.local

Hosting Environment Requirements/ Download and Install following software-

  1. OS – Windows Server 2019/2016 or Windows 10 Pro(64-bit)
  2. Redis (Windows): 3.0.504
  3. .Net Framework – ASP.Net Core runtime 3.1.6 (Recommend to install v3.1.7 it has a security patch)
  4. Database – Microsoft SQL Server 2017 Express Edition (This should be already installed as a part of XP 10)
  5. Install Microsoft Web Deploy 3.6 if not already installed
  6. Install URL Rewrite using Web Platform Installer
  7. SOLR 8.4.0 (This should have already installed as a part of XP 10 install)
  8. Install PowerShell 6.0 or later is not already installed
  9. Web Platform Transformer (Download nuget package)

Download following Sitecore Software before XC installation–

Require login before downloading the Sitecore Softwares

Sitecore Experience Platform 10.0

Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA) 10.0

Sitecore PowerShell Extensions 6.0 for Sitecore 10.0

Before starting the installation ensure XP 10 instance is working and indexed. If not indexed rebuild all search indexes-

Also check if the SOLR is working and running on https-

Step-by-step installation process-

  1. Create a installation folder for XC – xcinstall for e.g.:- c:\scinstall
  2. Copy Sitecore.Commerce.WDP.2020.08-6.0.238.zip file to c:\scinstall folder
  3. Extract and copy all extracted files to the c:\scinstall folder
  4. Copy Sitecore Experience Accelerator. Copy Sitecore Experience Accelerator 10.0.0.3138.zip file c:\scinstall folder
  5. Copy Sitecore.PowerShell.Extensions. Copy Sitecore.PowerShell.Extensions-6.1.1.zip file to c:\scinstall folder
  6. Extract Web Platform Transfomer nuget package and copy Microsoft.Web.XmlTransform.dll to c:\scinstall folder
  7. Extract SIF.Sitecore.Commerce.5.0.49 to c:\scinstall folder
  8. Folder structure should look like this-
  9. Open Deploy-Sitecore-Commerce.ps1 file to update the following-
    1. $SiteNamePrefix
    2. $SiteName
    3. $IdentityServerSiteName
    4. $SiteHostHeaderName
    5. $XConnectInstallDir
    6. $MergeToolFullPath – Path of the Microsoft.Web.XmlTransform.dll
  10. Update DB related configuration
    1. $SitecoreDbServer – In case of named instance ensure you set double slash between the server and instance name “SQLServerName\\SQLInstanceName”
  11. Update other DB related settings
    1. $SqlUser
    2. $SqlPass
    3. $CommerceServicesDbServer
  12. [Optional] Update Sitecore domain or keep it default-
    1. $SitecoreDomain
    2. $SitecoreUsername
    3. $SitecoreUserPassword
  13. Update SOLR details-
    1. $SolrUrl
    2. $SolrRoot
    3. $SolrService
  14. [Optional] Update local account details
    1. $UserDomain
    2. $UserName
    3. $UserPassword
  15. Create Commerce Engine Connect Client Secret for the Sitecore Identity Server
    1. Copy below script to file to scinstall/SIF.Sitecore.Commerce.5.0.49 folder example XC10SecretClientCertificate.ps1
    2. Execute the script and copy secret key
$bytes = New-Object Byte[] 32
$rand = [System.Security.Cryptography.RandomNumberGenerator]::Create()
$rand.GetBytes($bytes)
$rand.Dispose()
$newClientSecret = [System.Convert]::ToBase64String($bytes)

Write-Host $newClientSecret

16. Copy the secret key to update $CommerceEngineConnectClientSecret variable in Deploy-Sitecore-Commerce.ps1

17. Execute Deploy-Sitecore-Commerce.ps1 script to install commerce

18. Once installed successfully login to Sitecore, you shall find the Business tool in Dashboard

19. Goto content editor and navigate to item- /sitecore/content/Sitecore/Storefront/Settings/Site Grouping/Storefront to change Host Name

20. Visit site to check if the default store front site is loading

21. Login to Business Tools

Issues–

  1. Error connecting Identity Server. See this blog to resolve if you receive error

2. Error whilst bootstrapping commerce ops

Resolution- Check or reset the service account credentials that are created for the app pools as part of deployment. You can find the credentials in installation script with variable name $UserName (CSFndRuntimeUser) and $Password. Try accessing the https://commerceops.sc.com site if there are any other errors.

Sitecore XP 10 identity server error – failed to start process with commandline ‘dotnet .\Sitecore.IdentityServer.Host.dll’

August 17, 2020 /

Last Updated on November 16, 2024 by sandeeppote

After installing Sitecore 10 using Sitecore Installation Assistant (see the blog here how to install Sitecore XP 10 usig SIA) you might find the Identity Server not working since it is not able to start the process with command line ‘dotnet .\Sitecore.IdentityServer.Host.dll’

You may see this error in Application logs.

You may also see Sitecore login been not redirected to identity server site instead redirects to XP login page.

To identify the problem first try manually starting the process in powershell. You can find command to start the process in error.

Navigate to the identity server site physical folder and execute this command

dotnet .\Sitecore.IdentityServer.Host.dll

This should tell the solution to the issue i.e. it needs AspNetCore version 2.1.16 to be installed.

Install SDK 2.1.804 from here, this also install Runtime 2.1.16 – https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core/2.1

Execute the command dotnet .\Sitecore.IdentityServer.Host.dll

This time the Identity Server should start.

Identity Server site is working now –

This will also help whilst installing the Sitecore Commerce 10.

Hope this helps.

Install Sitecore XP 10 using Sitecore Installation Assistant(SIA) in easy steps to development machine

August 4, 2020 /

Last Updated on November 16, 2024 by sandeeppote

Installing Sitecore 10 with Sitecore Installation Assistant (SIA) is quick and easy. Only manual prerequisite is to install SQL Server 2017

Please see through screens to install Sitecore 10-

Step 1- Install SQL Server 2017 and SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

Step 2- Download Sitecore 10 Graphical setup package for XP Single

Step 3- Extract the zip and start setup

Step 4-

Step 5- Install prerequisite. This should install SIF and Windows Server prerequisites including IIS and modules etc.

Step 6 – Once prerequisites are installed successfully yo may have to restart machine. Install Solr search service. Sitecore 10 needs SOLR 8.4

Step 7- After SOLR is installed enter the Sitecore settings along with SQL server details and SOLR details

Step 8 – Optionally select Sitecore modules (SXA)

That’s it and everything is managed by SIA to sucessfuly install Sitecore 10 on machine