Cognos Theme Designer - CAF Error

[Robl]

Hi,

I have theme designer installed.
It's an ISAPI instance so I know to use something like this "http://MyServer/IBMCognos/themedesigner/?gateway=http://MyServer/IBMCognos/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll ".

The problem is that the splash screen appears, then a few seconds later a CAF error message pops up.

If I use the incorrect URL I get the splash screen with a 404 error as expected.
I've tried with both the Json mimetype set as application\json and application\x-javascript

Any ideas?

[jsuptic]

I am having the same issue. What I first attempted was turning my CAF off (Cognos Configuration application > Security > IBM Cognos Application Firewall). Theme Designer worked! Of course having CAF off is not ideal. What you could do, if this works is that (depending on size of your company and if it is realistic to turn CAF off for a while) you could turn off CAF, design and publish your theme, then turn CAF back on. Not the greatest way to have to do things, but it is a work around... a ducktape style work around, but a workaround nonetheless :)
Jason R.S.

[cognostechie]

CAF (Cognos Application Firewall) is not the same as an Operating system firewall. It is not meant to prevent outsiders from getting into your system. It is only meant to impose certain restrictions on some capabilities of Cognos. If you turn it off, it may not have an adverse impact at all.

[sunosoft]

[size=0px]CAF (Cognos Application Firewall) is not the same as an Operating system firewall. It is not meant to prevent outsiders from getting into your system. It is only meant to impose certain restrictions on some capabilities of Cognos. If you turn it off, it may not have an adverse impact at all.[/size]

I got bit confused. My understanding about CAF was like -
CAF acts like a additional security for Cognos. It will validate each and every request originating from and terminating to application server/cognos server to make sure that request came from the host/node in your Cognos environment(which you can see under system tab). This will ensure that users will not be re-directed to some malicious website. So i believe this means its made to prevent attacks on Cognos. I will check documentation again to confirm if my assumption is wrong.

[jsuptic]

With CAF turned on I get a CAF error. With CAF off I get a 404 ... in Internet Explorer. However, it works just fine in FireFox.
So my fix that I would suggest.
1. Turn CAF off and restart the Cognos Service (the service not the server)
2. After CAF is off run theme designer in FireFox using
http://SERVERNAME/ibmcognos/themedesigner/?gateway=/ibmcognos/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll

And that is not a typo, it worked fine with ?gateway=/ibmcognos etc. etc.
Hope that helps.
Jason R.S.

[jsuptic]

One last reply from me.
If you absolutely must have/want to have CAF on then you can add the following two entries in your "Valid domains or hosts" entries in the IBM Cognos Configuration tool under Security > IBM Cognos Application Firewall.
http://SERVERNAME/ibmcognos/themedesigner/?gateway=/ibmcognos/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll#frag-logon
http://SERVERNAME/ibmcognos/themedesigner/?gateway=/ibmcognos/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll
Restart the service -- not the server, just the service. Then you should be ready to go.
Note: It is not a typo, again you need to use ?gateway=/ibmcognos/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll DO NOT PUT YOUR SERVER NAME... it does not work (at least not on my system).

What I found when I did this is that I MUST login to the Cognos portal first. Then after the login is complete open a window in FireFox and navigate to the second URL above. You will get a message stating something to the effect of "Null Null". Just ignore and close it and click on the New Theme Button.

Something I noticed is that after doing this I can now use IE as well as FireFox.
I hope that helps some people out. I know unsupported tools can be a pain, but once you get them working it is nice :)
Jason R.S.