WebDAV Server Configuration

Use WebDAV server for sharing snapshots between Genesys Pulse and Genesys Pulse Collector when they are installed on different hosts and there is no other way to share the folder that contains snapshots.

WebDAV server requirements

Genesys Pulse requires the following set of WebDAV methods:

• HEAD—POST for snapshot and internal snapshot cleanup functionality
• MKCOL—POST for snapshot
• PUT—POST for snapshot
• GET—GET for snapshot, GET for snapshots and for heartbeat check during GET for healthcheck
• PROPFIND—GET for snapshot, GET for snapshots and internal snapshot cleanup functionality
• DELETE—internal snapshot cleanup functionality

The recommended web server with WebDAV support is lighttpd (the latest version) with WebDAV module.

Genesys Pulse configuration with WebDAV

Before configuring WebDAV-related options, make sure that you can access the snapshot and heartbeat folders using a web browser from your GAX hosts.

• Set the output-folder option in the [transport-file] section and the heartbeat-folder option in the [heartbeat] section in the Genesys Pulse Collector application object to local folders, because the WebDAV snapshot files are stored on the host where Genesys Pulse Collector is installed.

To enable Genesys Pulse to pull snapshots from a remote Genesys Pulse Collector instead of the local host, you need to configure the following Genesys Pulse Collector application options:

• For Genesys Pulse version 8.5.106 and higher:
  • Set the output-url option in the [transport-webdav] section to http://<WebDAV host>/<path to snapshots folder>
  • Set the heartbeat-url in the [transport-webdav] section to http://<WebDAV host>/<path to heartbeat folder>
  • Set the latest-snapshot-output-url option in the [transport-webdav] section to http://<WebDAV host>/<path to the latest snapshots folder>
  • Set the username option in the [transport-webdav] section to <username for WebDAV>
  • Set the password in the [transport-webdav] section to <password for WebDAV>

• For Genesys Pulse version lower than 8.5.106:
  • Set the external-output-url option in the [transport-file] section to http://<WebDAV host>/<path to snapshots folder>
  • Set the external-latest-snapshot-output-url option in the [transport-file] section to http://<WebDAV host>/<path to the latest snapshots folder>
  • Set the external-heartbeat-url in the [heartbeat] section to http://<WebDAV host>/<path to heartbeat folder>

Ensure the path to snapshots folder and path to heartbeat folder are relative to the Document Root of the WebDAV server. For example, if the Document Root is /var/www/ and the snapshots folder is /var/www/snapshots, then the URL is http://<WebDAV host>/snapshots.

Important

The Pulse Collector configuration must not contain the external-output-folder option in the [transport-file] section nor the external-heartbeat-folder option in the [heartbeat] section.

Installation and configuration of lighttpd on RHEL 6 or 7

Installation of lighttpd with WebDAV module

1. Enable EPEL: As root issue the following commands:

   wget http://download.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/6/x86_64/epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm rpm -ivh epel-release-6-8.noarch.rpm

2. Install lighttpd: As root issue the following command:

   yum install lighttpd

Configuration of lighttpd

1. If IPv6 is not supported or should not be used, then edit the file /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf and change server.use-ipv6 to disable:

   server.use-ipv6 = "disable"

2. To disable returning errors when the Expect header is in requests and to increase the number of supported parallel requests add the following lines to the /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf file:

   server.reject-expect-100-with-417 = "disable"
   server.max-fds = 2048
   server.max-connections = 1024

3. Make sure it runs under same user that Genesys Pulse uses or that a user that has read write access to Genesys Pulse Collector directories
   For this, you might need to adjust server.username and server.groupname in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
   Make sure that this user had access to all directories for lighttpd (for example, var.log_root,var.state_dir, var.home_dir) and others mentioned in /etc/init.d/lighttpd and in /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf
4. Enable WebDAV module by editing the /etc/lighttpd/modules.conf file and uncommenting the following line:

   include "conf.d/webdav.conf"

5. Change the configuration of the WebDAV module by editing the file /etc/lighttpd/conf.d/webdav.conf.

   Example of configuration:

   ## This configuration assumes that
    ## transport-file/output-folder = /genesys/collector_output/snapshots
    ## transport-file/external-output-url = http://<host>/snapshots
    ## heartbeat/heartbeat-folder = /genesys/collector_output/heartbeat
    ## heartbeat/external-heartbeat-url = http://<host>/heartbeat
    server.modules += ( "mod_webdav" )
    $HTTP["url"] =~ "^($|/)" {
      ## Specify full path to parent folder for snapshots and heartbeat folders
      server.document-root = "/genesys/collector_output/" 
      webdav.activate = "enable"
      dir-listing.activate = "enable"
    }

   You can also have webdav.activate = "enable" on the top level (not inside of $HTTP) if you want all files and directories in your server.document-root to be accessible through WebDAV.

6. Make sure that the webdav.sqlite-db-name parameter is commented out in webdav.conf.
7. Restart the lighttpd server:

   /etc/init.d/lighttpd restart

Installation and configuration of WebDAV extension for IIS 8 on Windows Server 2012

Important

Microsoft IIS configuration is complex and requires a competent Windows IIS administrator. Genesys does not provide support for IIS configuration.

Genesys Pulse Configuration Limitations

Anonymous Authentication is the IIS authentication method that can be used for Genesys Pulse.

Limitations when using IIS Anonymous Authentication

1. Only Genesys Pulse Collector is supported as a data collector for Genesys Pulse.
2. You must use cleanuptool from the Genesys Pulse Collector installation to cleanup old snapshots.

Important

To avoid issues with the cleaning process, disable the automatic removal by GAX by setting the GAX option snapshot_expire_timeout to 0 (zero) in the [pulse] section.

Enhance Authentication Security

You can improve the security of Anonymous Authentication by restricting access to WebDAV to explicitly specified IP addresses of hosts where Genesys Pulse is installed:

1. Install the IP and Domain Restrictions feature of IIS.
2. Using the IIS Manager, you can select the website that is configured to share Genesys Pulse snapshots in the Sites section of your host.
3. In the IP Address and Domain Restrictions section, click Edit Feature Settings in the Actions pane.
4. Set the Access for unspecified clients to Deny and click OK.
5. Click Add Allow Entry in the actions pane and specify the IP addresses of the hosts running Genesys Pulse in the Specific IP address field.

Installing the WebDAV extension for IIS 8

Install the WebDAV extension and enable it for your IIS instance according to the guide provided by Microsoft.

Configure the IIS website with WebDAV extension to work with Genesys Pulse

1. Open the IIS Manager.
2. In the Sites section of your host, select the website that shares Genesys Pulse snapshots with the Genesys Pulse components.
3. Go to the Authentication section and enable the Anonymous Authentication method. Disable all other authentication methods.
4. Go to the MIME Types section and add the following MIME types:
   1. Extension ".*" and MIME type "application/octet-stream"
   2. Extension ".gpb" and MIME type "application/octet-stream"
   3. Extension ".LZ4" and MIME type "application/octet-stream"
5. Go to the WebDAV Authoring Rules section, click the WebDAV Settings... link in Actions pane and change the value for Allow Anonymous Property Queries option to True.
6. In the WebDAV Authoring Rules section, add Read and Source permissions for all content and all users.
7. Edit your web site's Basic Settings... so that the Physical path property is configured to where Genesys Pulse Collector writes the snapshot and heartbeat files.