Moving from CGI to ISAPI with IIS 6 and Congos 8

[IanG]

Hi all,

Hoping someone knows the answer to this one.

Info: Windows 2003, IIS6, MSSQL 2005, Cognos 8 MR1: ReportNet

We want to move to ISAPI as we are running IIS and it sounds like it would help performance.

I've followed the instructions in the documentation and on the Knowledge base, but when I try to use the http://servername/cognos8/isapi URL I get the 'HTTP 500 Internal Server error' message.Ã,  I'm not sure where else I can look but I checked the Cognos logs directory and can't find anything complaining in there.

I have 'allowed' the unknown ISAPI extension in IIS, I have followed a couple of KB articles advice about creating new 'Application Pools' to no avail.

I'm really confused by this one...

If anyone has any ideas I'd be grateful!!

Many thanks,

Ian G

[sir_jeroen]

The url should be: http://servername/cognos8/cognosisapi.dll.

Btw have you made the necessary changes to the Configuration Manager?

With regards,

RA

[IanG]

The http://servername/cognos8/isapi URl forwards to:

http://servername/cognos8/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_action=xts.run&m=portal/main.xts&startwel=yes
which is where I get the 'HTTP 500 Internal Server error' message.  If I try http://servername/cognos8/cognosisapi.dll then I also get the error message.

In Cognos Connection I have changed the 'Gateway URI' to: http://servername:80/cognos8/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll, is there anything else I should do to it?

Thanks...

[sir_jeroen]

I would recommend you to contact Cognos Support. This is the best and fastest solution for solving this problem.

[sir_jeroen]

Btw... do you use Sharepoint Portal Services??

[IanG]

We are not using Sharepoint Portal Services.

I have already contacted my support, unfortunately we have bought through SSA Global and that means I have to go through them to get to Cognos support...Ã,  No solution so far...

Thanks for your efforts... :-)

[sir_jeroen]

But is CGI still working?

[IanG]

Yep CGI works.

(I'm through to Cognos support now, fingers crossed they can figure it out...)

It must be an IIS thing, but I can't see what I'm doing that isn't what is recommended...

[smiley]

Isapi is ticket on as allowed in IIS manager webserver extentions i asume?

[IanG]

Yep, Unknown ISAPI is allowed...

[sir_jeroen]

Have you solved this issue yet?
If not.. How about the security? I had a similar problem with the .cgi and it turned out to be caused by the IUSR_xxx (under anonymous access in IIS). Changing it to an administrator account worked... So it could be a problem caused by the security setting...

[IanG]

Sorry for the late reply, been caught up of other aspects of the project, and a holiday!

I too feel it might be security related.  However I have checked the Application Pool Indenity, and I have set it to "Local System" which I believe has full local admin rights, so it should be okay(?).

I did try a few time changing it to that of a domain user with admin rights, and that did not seem to fix it either.

[KrisK]

I ran into the same issue and it is not security related. From the install doc:

Run ReportNet and Cognos 8 at the Same Time

You must change the ports and the Web server alias if you want to run Cognos 8 and the earlier
version of ReportNet on the same computer and at the same time.
Other configuration changes may be required depending on your environment. If you use Portal
Services, you must specify the location of the applications.xml file. If you use an ISAPI gateway on
an IIS 6.0 Web server, you must isolate the Cognos 8 gateway to prevent a conflict with the
ReportNet gateway. You isolate the gateway by setting the application protection for the Web site
and virtual directories to High.

so there you have it!

[Darek]

Anything in the event logs?

[Darek]

Meaning both, IIS Application and Cognos 8. Usually it is a no-brainer and works much faster. Make sure your virtual directories are set as follows:

/cognos8 Read
/cognos8/cgi-bin Execute

Create a separate app pool and separate extension. Don't just allow everything. Keep it secure. That's waht IIS 6 was made for.

[shri]

I think you need to  modify  the default.html and index.html. By default these two files have URL assigned to cognos.cgi, change it to cognosisapi.dll. Hope it works


cheers
:)

[desicresnet]

as shri said change the html files

Open the default.htm and the index.htm files in notepad.  Both files are in the webcontent folder.    In both files, change the following: url=cgi-bin/cognos.cgi? etc...   to   url=cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll? etc...