Standard Installation

Included are instructions to install AuctionWorx on a single web server as a standalone instance.

This document will describe the necessary steps to successfully deploy an instance of AuctionWorx on a single server using:

  • Windows Server 2022
  • Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Express Edition

This step-by-step guide is designed to cover each of the important steps required to get a web server to run the AuctionWorx software. Ideally AuctionWorx is run in an environment where a separate database server can be used with ample resources fitting the expected traffic to the site.

 

Starting Point

For this guide we will be installing on a web server running Windows Server 2022. You can use previous versions of Windows Server as long as the versions being used are not older than what is described on the System Requirements page.

If running on Windows Server 2019 or earlier, installing .NET Framework 4.8 is required: Installing .Net Framework 4.8

Overview of Steps:

 

Install Web Server (IIS)

  1. To setup IIS or Internet Information Services, open the Control Panel and click the "Turn Windows features on or off" option underneath Programs.
  2. This will open the Server Manager and automatically launch the Add Roles and Features Wizard. Click Next.
  3. Select the “Role-based or feature-based installation” option and click Next.
  4. Select your server from the server pool (it should be the only one) and click Next.
  5. On the Server Roles section, check mark to include the “Web Server (IIS)” option and then click the “Next >” button.
  6. If another window comes up to “Add features that are required for Web Server (IIS)?” then click the “Add Features” button.
  7. On the Features section of the wizard, expand the “.NET Framework 4.8 Features” and select the "ASP.NET 4.8" feature, then click Next.
  8. On the Role Services section, scroll down the list and add “ASP.NET 4.8” and “WebSocket Protocol” by expanding Web Server (IIS) > Web Server > Application Development, then checking both of those features, then click Next.
  9. If another window comes up to “Add features that are required for Web Server (IIS)?” then click the “Add Features” button.
  10. Continue through the remaining sections by clicking the Next button.
  11. On the Confirmation page, check that the Web Server (IIS) and the ASP.NET 4.8 feature are included in the list and click the Install button.
  12. Wait for the installation process to finish and then restart the server when finished.

 

Install SQL Server Database

  1. Download SQL Server 2019 Express from Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/sql-server/sql-server-downloads

  2. Click the link that says "Download now >" under the Express header option.

Note: Full-Text Search is a SQL database feature that is a requirement for running AuctionWorx so, be sure to install this feature as part of the SQL Express installation.

 

Install SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS)

  1. Download the latest release of SSMS from Microsoft: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/ssms/download-sql-server-management-studio-ssms
  2. At the above website click on the “Free Download for SQL Server Management Studio” link and install SSMS (SQL Server Management Studio) with the default settings. When the installation is complete restart the server. If there are any updates needed after you reboot the system, install the updates and reboot the server again.

 

Copy AuctionWorx web files and set permissions

After installing IIS on the server, there will be a default folder created “C:\inetpub\wwwroot” for the “Default Web Site” in IIS. For the purpose of these instructions, we will use this default location.

Note: You can choose the location of all website files and any name of the web folder as long as you apply the proper folder location and consistent settings throughout the setup. Make sure that the folder you choose has granted “Read & Execute” permissions for the IIS_IUSRS group.

  1. From the AuctionWorx package copy over the full contents of the \Web folder to our target folder: C:\inetpub\wwwroot
  2. Next you will need to grant permission to allow the IIS_IUSRS group to have “Full control” permissions on the following folders within the web root:
    • \Content\Images\Logos
    • \Content\listingImages
    • \Content\images\Banners
  3. For each one of the above folders:
    1. Right click on the folder and select “Properties”:
    2. Select the “Security” tab, and then click the “Edit…” button:
    3. Select the IIS_IUSRS group and under the “Allow” column, checkmark the “Full control” permission. When done, click the “OK” button.
    4. Repeat for the remaining folders listed above.

Note: Make sure you repeat the above steps for all of these sub folders:

  • \Content\Images\Logos
  • \Content\listingImages
  • \Content\images\Banners

 

Configure SQL Server and Create the Database

  1. Open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) and connect to the SQL Server database.
  2. If not already done during the SQL Server installation, the SQL Server authentication mode needs to be changed to “SQL Server and Windows Authentication Mode”:
    1. On the side navigation panel, right click on the top SQL Server name and select “Properties”.
    2. On the Server Properties window that comes up, select the “Security” page and then under “Server Authentication” make sure that “SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode” is selected. When done, click the “OK” button.
  3. Back in the side navigation, right click the “Databases” folder and select “New Database…”
  4. Enter the database name and then click the “OK” button.

Note: You can choose the database name, as long as you reference it consistently throughout the setup process.

  1. Back in the side navigation, right click the “Security” folder and select “New >” and then select “Login…”
  2. On the New Login page, enter a chosen a “Login name”, Select “SQL Server Authentication” and enter in a chosen Password and Confirm Password. Be sure to also Uncheck the “Enforce password policy” option.

Note: The Login name we entered in this example is “SQLUSER” but you can choose any login name as long as you apply it consistently throughout the setup process.

The password we are using in this example is "sql123" but you should always use a complex secure password for the database connection.

  1. Next go to the “User Mapping” page, under the “Map” column checkmark the Database we just created. And with the Database highlighted, under the area titled “Database role membership for:” checkmark “db_owner”, when done click the “OK” button.
  2. Back in the side navigation, expand the “Databases” folder and just left click on the new database name to highlight it. From the top menu, select “File” and “Open >” and then “File…”
  3. From the files extracted from the AuctionWorx package, navigate to the folder “SQL” and open the file “AuctionWorx.sql”
  4. With the “AuctionWorx.sql” file open, verify that the database we just created is selected in the top toolbar and then Click the “Execute” button.

 

Edit Web.config

  1. Navigate to the website’s web root folder, where we previously copied over the AuctionWorx web file – In our example this would be in the folder: C:\inetpub\wwwroot

    Find the file “Web.config” and Open with Notepad or any available text editor.

Note: To work around not being able to edit the file directly, you may need to first make a copy of the Web.config file to the desktop, make and save your changes, and then copy the edited Web.config file back from your desktop to the web folder where AuctionWorx is installed.

  1. Editing the Web.config file, we will want to first find the database connection string setting, in Notepad by pressing Ctrl + F and then type "db_connection"
  2. Edit the “db_connection” database connection string with the SQL Server, SQL Database name, SQL Login, and SQL Login password:
    • your_server_name
    • your_db_name
    • your_user_name
    • your_password

    <add name="db_connection"
      connectionString="Data Source=your_server_name;
      Initial Catalog=your_db_name;
      user=your_user_name;
      password=your_password;
      Application Name=AuctionWorx;"
      providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />

    From our example steps in this document, the proper configured setting for db_connection would look like this:

    <add name="db_connection"
      connectionString="Data Source=SERVERNAME\SQLEXPRESS;
      Initial Catalog=AuctionWorx;
      user=sqluser;
      password=sql123;
      Application Name=AuctionWorx;"
      providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
  1. Next, we will want to find the License Key setting, if using Notepad press Ctrl + F and then type "your_license_key". Copy and Paste in the full license key provided when you purchased AuctionWorx.
  1. Next, we will want to find the BaseUrl setting, if using Notepad press Ctrl + F and then type "your_domain_name".

    Set the "BaseUrl" setting to the fully qualified domain name of your website, including the preceding protocol of "https://" (or "http://" if SSL is not available).
    For example, if your domain name pointed to your AuctionWorx installation is “www.auctionwebsite.com” and has a secure certificate setup then it would look like this:
    <add key=”BaseUrl” value=”https://www.auctionwebsite.com/” />

  2. The final required step editing the Web.config file is adding your SMTP outgoing email server setting. To find the smtp setting, if using Notepad press Ctrl + F and then type "yoursmtpserver".

    <system.net>
      <mailSettings>
        <smtp>
          <network host="yoursmtpserver" userName="username" password="secret" port="25"/>
        </smtp>
      </mailSettings>
    </system.net>