DNS Configuration Requirements

Before you can install Advance, you must configure your DNS and SSL settings to enable access to the Advance applications. Your goal is to:

In this Topic Hide

  1. Prerequisites
  2. Quick Start
  3. Overview
    1. SSL/TLS Configuration
    2. App Domain
    3. Tenancy Moniker
  4. Configuration
    1. Configuration for the Advance applications
    2. Configuration for Advance tenancies
  5. Configuration Requirements Checklist
    1. Requirements checklist for using individual certificates with tenancies
  6. Example Configuration
    1. 1. Create your DNS records
    2. 2. Test your DNS routing
    3. 3. Create your TLS certificate
    4. 4. Create your site bindings
  7. Next step

Prerequisites

Before you begin this topic, you should:

Quick Start

See the Configuration Requirements Checklist for an itemized list of the things you must configure to get SSL and DNS working for Advance. The rest of the topic provides greater detail about configuration requirements.

Overview

There are two entities in Advance for which you need to configure DNS and SSL. These are:

Name Description Example URL
Advance applications The Advance applications, installed under IIS.
The Advance applications require that TLS and DNS is configured for the AppDomain (see below).		 https://server.yourorganization.com/HdaRoot (root application)
https://server.yourorganization.com/HdaApi (API application)
https://server.yourorganization.com/HdaAuth (authorization application)
https://server.yourorganization.com/HdaUi (UI application)
https://server.yourorganization.com/AssemblyService (core assembly service application)
 
In the example URLs above, server.yourorganization.com is the appDomain.
Advance tenancies The individual sites within Advance, created by you using the root application. Tenancies have their own sub-domain, named using the tenancy moniker (see below) that you specified during tenancy creation. You can create tenancies after Advance is installed.
Advance tenancies require that TLS and DNS is configured for their sub-domain.		 https://tenancy1.server.yourorganization.com/
 
In the example URL above, tenancy1 is the moniker, and server.yourorganization.com is the appDomain.

You will need to set up SSL/TLS and DNS for these two entities as below.

SSL/TLS Configuration

Advance requires you to set up an https binding in IIS. To do this requires TLS certificates. Either:

Using Individual Certificates with tenancies

If you decide to use individual certificates, there are some items that must be set up for each new tenancy you create. These are:

App Domain

The AppDomain is the full domain under which Advance is installed. This should be the same as the host used for your https binding in IIS.

In most cases, the AppDomain will be in the form:

{server name}.{internal Active Directory domain}

For example, where your server is server1234 and your internal Active Directory domain is yourorganization.com, the AppDomain will be server1234.yourorganization.com.

Tenancy Moniker

The tenancy moniker is the unique name for the tenancy that you specify during tenancy creation. The moniker defines the sub-domain that is used as the URL for the tenancy. This has the format:

{moniker}.{appDomain}

For example, where your tenancy has the moniker tenancy1, and your AppDomain is server1234.yourorganization.com, the URL for the tenancy will be tenancy1.server1234.yourorganization.com.

You will need to know the moniker if you are creating individual TLS certificates and HTTPS bindings for each tenancy.

Configuration

Configuration for the Advance applications

Generally, the Advance applications require the following DNS and SSL configuration:

Configuration for Advance tenancies

Tenancies are individual sites under an Advance deployment, created by you through the root application UI. You use tenancies to organize and separate the data for different areas of an organization. These tenancies require their own SSL and DNS configuration. Generally, the requirements are:

Configuration Requirements Checklist

The following checklist lists all the requirements you require to configure SSL and DNS for Advance.

  Name Type Description
1 TLS certificate TLS/SSL Either a wild card certificate or individual certificates for your AppDomain and each tenancy.
2 Application pool access to TLS certificate TLS/SSL The account under which the HotDocs Advance application pool runs must be able to read the TLS certificate.
3 DNS record for Advance applications DNS You must route the AppDomain (i.e. the domain under which Advance runs) to the IP Address of the server on which Advance is deployed.
4 DNS record for tenancy DNS You must route the sub-domains for your tenancies to the IP Address of the server on which Advance is deployed.
5 HTTPS binding for Advance applications IIS configuration An HTTPS binding for your AppDomain. This must be created using your TLS certificate, added to the IIS site to which Advance will be deployed.
6 HTTPS binding for tenancy IIS configuration An HTTPS binding for your tenancies' sub-domains. This must be created using your TLS certificate, on the IIS site to which Advance will be deployed.

Requirements checklist for using individual certificates with tenancies

Note: this section only applies if you are using individual TLS certificates for each of your tenancies. Each item below must be configured separately for each tenancy.

  Name Type Description
1 TLS certificate TLS/SSL An individual certificate for your tenancy.
2 Application pool access to TLS certificate TLS/SSL The account under which the HotDocs Advance application pool runs must be able to read the TLS certificate.
3 DNS records DNS You must route the sub-domains for your tenancies to the IP Address of the server on which Advance is deployed.
4 HTTPS binding IIS configuration An HTTPS binding for your tenancies' sub-domains. This must be created using your TLS certificate, on the IIS site to which Advance will be deployed.
5 Require Server Name indication IIS configuration An IIS setting, configured when adding a new HTTPS binding to your site. You must select this option when adding bindings for each tenancy.

Example Configuration

In this example, we will use a wild card certificate to configure https on your appDomain, server1234.yourorganization.com. You should substitute this example value for your own appDomain where necessary.

1. Create your DNS records

The process for configuring DNS records will depend on the service you use to manage your DNS. However, you should meet the criteria specified in the Configuration for Advance Applications and Configuration for Advance tenancies sections above.

2. Test your DNS routing

Assuming you know the IP address of your server, you can test that your changes to DNS routing were successful using the ping command.

  1. Open the Windows Command Prompt.
  2. Type ping server1234.yourorganization.com
  3. Press Enter; you should receive a 'Reply from' response that matches the IP address of your server.

Once you have finished the Advance installation process and created a tenancy, you can also perform this check to test routing to your tenancy sub-domain. For example, if you have a tenancy named tenancy1, you can use the command ping tenancy1.server1234.yourorganization.com.

3. Create your TLS certificate

In this example, we require a wild card certificate. The TLS certificate you use to configure your site bindings must allow requests to both the appDomain (i.e. server1234.yourorganization.com) and its sub-domains (i.e. *.server1234.yourorganization.com, which covers any tenancy you create in Advance). The account under which the HotDocs Advance application pool runs must have read access to the TLS certificate.

4. Create your site bindings

  1. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager on the server to which you will deploy Advance.
  2. Expand the top-level server node.
  3. Expand the Sites folder.
  4. Select the site to which you will deploy Advance (in this example, we will assume you are using Default Web Site)
  5. Click the Bindings link in the Actions panel (right column)
  6. Click the Add button.
  7. Select https from the Type drop-down list.
  8. In the hostname field, type your full AppDomain; for example, server1234.yourorganization.com
  9. Click the Select button.
  10. In the Select Certificate dialog, select the certificate you want to use; for this example, the certificate should be a wild card certificate
  11. Click OK.
  12. Click OK; you have now added a site binding for your appDomain. Next, you will add a site binding for your tenancies.
  13. Click the Add button.
  14. Select https from the Type drop-down list.
  15. In the hostname field, type your full AppDomain, adding an asterisk wild card for the sub-domain; for example, *.server1234.yourorganization.com.
  16. Click the Select button.
  17. In the Select Certificate dialog, select the certificate you want to use; for this example, the certificate should be a wild card certificate
  18. Click OK.
  19. Click OK; you have now added a site binding for your tenancies.

You are now ready to start installation of HotDocs Advance.

Next step