Self-Host Installation

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Introduction

Key Survey application consists of two components: database and application. In the following instructions DB stands for Database Server and APP stands for Application server. Each application component can be physically located on a separate host or components can be installed on one server. In the latter case, consider DB and APP servers in the following instructions as one and the same server.

The default Key Survey installation schema:

Web server in front of Key Survey application

In the default installation option Key Survey runs on a standalone Apache Tomcat application server. This is the simplest way to get the application up and running. But you can consider using dedicated Web server as a front end to Key Survey application. In this case Web server can work as a reverse proxy. Web server running in front provides some benefits:

• usually Web server handles heavy traffic better than application server and can help protecting APP server from overload;

• for security reasons Web server can be placed into DMZ to handle raw traffic from Web clients;

• if you are going to run Key Survey site on HTTPS, Web server can offload SSL processing from APP server.

See Appendix A for additional installation options.

Before you begin

Before you begin, you must verify the following:

• Your environment should meet system hardware and software requirements described in the Key Survey System Hardware and Software Requirements.pdf file in the Installation Package.

• You should prepare the following information to successfully install and configure Key Survey application:

• Application Web site name (or IP if you are going to run it on IP);

• APP server IP or host name • DB server IP or host name;

• credentials to access DB on a DB server;

• DNS server IP or host name (for sending email);

• SMTP server IP or host name and credentials if needed (for sending email);

• Sender email address that Key Survey application can use in the "From" field in the system emails (update profile, registration, password reminder emails, etc).

Installation package contents

Key Survey installation package provided by WorldAPP Inc. includes the following items:

• Key Survey application with preconfigured Apache Tomcat config files

• Database dump;

• Install instructions;

• version.txt file that contains version information of provided Key Survey application.

Key Survey installation package is a ZIP archive named ‘keysurvey-standalone-VERSIONENVIRONMENT.zip'. Here VERSION stands for application version. ENVIRONMENT includes several acronyms separated by dash, those identify the environment the application should be installed on.

For example, keysurvey-standalone-9.6-win-tomcat90-mssql.zip means that the package contains:

• Key Survey version 9.6;

• database dump for MSSQL;

• config files for Tomcat 9.0.x;

• config files and scripts for Windows 2019 Server OS.

Extracting the installation package

If you have not extracted the Key Survey installation package yet, make sure destination disk partition has 1 GB of free space and extract the files from the installation archive.

Once extracted, you will find a ZIP archive with Key Survey application files 'keysurvey_app/keysurvey-standalone.zip' and Key Survey database dump 'keysurvey_database/'.

If needed, copy 'keysurvey_app/keysurvey-standalone.zip' and DB dump file to the appropriate folders on APP and DB management host respectively.

Firewall settings

Firewall should be properly configured between Key Survey components to allow Web clients (survey designer, respondents) to work with application and to allow Key Survey components communicate with each other.

To master a Firewall for default Key Survey installation, see the following traffic flow schema.

The idea is to allow traffic flow from 'Source' to 'Destination' on 'Destination Protocol/Port'.

Use the APP-to-DB lines according to the type of your DB.