App Environment Configuration for SharePoint (On · PDF fileApp Environment Configuration for SharePoint ... a different domain name for apps helps prevent cross-site ... Selecting

App Environment Configuration for SharePoint (On-Premises)

Pre-requisite for Saketa Apps

P a g e 1 | 21

Copyright Information

© Copyright Saketa. No part of this paper may be reproduced, transmitted, or disclosed

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and

recording, for any purpose without the express written permission of “Saketa”. All rights

reserved.


P a g e 2 | 21

Table of Contents

1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 3

2. DNS Configurations .................................................................................................. 3

2.1. Creation of DNS by Separate Domain or DNS forward lookup Zone ................. 4

2.2. Link the App Domain to the SharePoint Server .................................................. 8

2.3. Verification Step ................................................................................................. 9

3. Setting up Management Services ........................................................................... 10

3.1. App Management Services .............................................................................. 10

3.2. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service ...................... 13

4. Configuring App URLs ............................................................................................ 14

5. Creating App Catalog ............................................................................................. 15

References .................................................................................................................... 18

6. Appendix ................................................................................................................. 19

6.1. Appendix A (Setting up DNS configurations using a Sub domain in an existing

Domain) ..................................................................................................................... 19


P a g e 3 | 21

1. Introduction

An app for SharePoint is a small and isolated application that provides a specific piece of

functionality. SharePoint apps need to be added or removed from a site by the site owner.

Apps have their own, isolated URLs, which are separate from the URLs of the sites where

the app is being deployed to and where the app is being used. In order to provide isolation,

apps run in their own domain, instead of in the same domain name as your farm. Using

a different domain name for apps helps prevent cross-site scripting between apps and

SharePoint sites.

Each installation of an app has its own unique URL within the app domain. The app’s

URL is based on the following pattern “http://[app prefix][app hash].[app

domain]/[relative site url]/[app name]. When you add an app to a site, a subweb of that

site is created to host the app content. This subweb is not visible on the Site Contents

page though as a subsite.

For an app environment configuration, you need to follow four sequential process to

complete the set up. These four process are as below:

1. DNS Configurations

2. Setting up Management Services

3. Configuring app URL’s

4. Creating App Catalog

We will proceed further step by step.

2. DNS Configurations

You need to create a Forward lookup zone in DNS and map it to the SharePoint front end

server or the load balancer managing the front end requests.

You can use one of the two options for the app domain.

Option A – Register a new domain for the app domain configurations

Option B - Creation of a subdomain in your existing domain and use it as app domain.

Microsoft recommends that the app domain should NOT be a subdomain of the domain

that hosts the SharePoint Sites. For example, if the SharePoint sites are at contoso.com,

consider contosoapps.com instead of apps.contoso.com as the subdomain name.

However, practically both the options work and we leave this to the jurisdiction of the

administrator’s teams to decide on.


P a g e 4 | 21

2.1. Creation of DNS by Separate Domain or DNS forward

lookup Zone

To create a separate domain or DNS forward lookup zone follow the below steps:

Prior to creation, please verify that user account involved in creation of this configuration is a domain control administrator.

1. Click Start, point to “Administrative Tools”, and then click DNS.

Figure 1 DNS Manager Page

2. In DNS Manager, right-click “Forward Lookup Zones”, and then click New

Zone…..New zone welcome page is displayed.

Figure 2 New Zone Welcome Page


P a g e 5 | 21

3. In “New Zone Welcome “page, click “Next”. New zone wizard page is displayed.

Figure 3 New Zone Wizard Page

4. In New zone wizard page> Zone type; accept the default “Primary zone”, and

click “Next”.

Figure 4 Active Directory Zone Replication Page


P a g e 6 | 21

5. In “Active Directory Zone Replication” page, select the required replication

method for your environment (Default is “To all DNS servers in this domain”),

and click Next.

Figure 5 New Zone Name Page

6. In “New Zone Name” page, in the Zone name box; type the name for your new

app domain name (for example, mcatrinescuApps.com), and click Next.


P a g e 7 | 21

Figure 6 Dynamic Update Page

7. In “Dynamic Update” page, select the required type of dynamic updates for your

environment (Default is “Do not allow dynamic updates”), and click Next.

Figure 7 Completion Page


P a g e 8 | 21

8. On “Completion “page, review the settings, and click Finish.

If you plan to use apps on an internet-facing website, you have to buy this domain name! Furthermore, even if you only use it internally, it’s always better to buy it before someone else buys it and registers it in the public DNS.

2.1. Link the App Domain to the SharePoint Server

We now need to instruct our DNS to forward all the requests from created domain

lookup to the SharePoint Server hosting the apps. To do so, please follow the below

mentioned steps:

Verify you are logged in as a Domain Admin

1. In DNS Manager, under Forward Lookup Zones, right click the new app domain

name, and click “New Alias (Cname).

Figure 8 Settings Page

2. New resource record page is displayed.


P a g e 9 | 21

Figure 9 New Resource Record Page

3. In “New Resource Record” page, in the Alias name type “*”. In Fully qualified

domain name (FQDN) for target host, click “Browse”.

4. Navigate to the Forward Lookup Zone for the domain that hosts the SharePoint

sites and then navigate to the record that points to the server that hosts the

SharePoint site. Click OK.

2.2. Verification Step

To verify that the steps we performed till now are correct or not, kindly follow the

below steps.

1. Click “Start”, and then click “Command Prompt”.

2. In command prompt, type ping followed by a subdomain of the domain that you

created, and then press ENTER. (EX: ping vlad.mcatrinescuapps.com) where

“vlad” is a random word and mcatrinescuapps.com is your newly created

domain


P a g e 10 | 21

Figure 10 Command Prompt Page

3. If the ping command returns the correct IP address, then your wildcard for the

domain name is configured successfully. This domain name is required for

Configuring APP URL’s.

To know more details about option B including “Creation of subdomain in your

domain”, kindly refer Appendix A.

3. Setting up Management Services

After DNS configurations are completed, we require two types of management services.

These services includes:

1. App Management Services

2. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service.

We can create app management services from SharePoint itself, however due to

unavailability of any link on UI of SharePoint, we need to create foundation subscription

settings services using power shell script.

3.1. App Management Services

For app management services setting, please follow the below mentioned steps:

1. Navigate to Central Administration Site. In left navigation pane, click “Application

Management”.


P a g e 11 | 21

Figure 11 Central Administration Page

2. Under Application Management, click “Manage Service Applications”.

Figure 12 Manage Service Application Page


P a g e 12 | 21

3. In “Manage service application” page, in ribbon section click New. From the

displayed list click “App Management Service”. New app management service

page is displayed.

Figure 13 New App Management Service Page


P a g e 13 | 21

4. In “New App Management service” page, type the required name, chose an

existing authentication pool or create a new one and click ok. New service is

created.

3.2. Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings

Service

For Microsoft SharePoint foundation subscription settings service, we don’t have any

links on SharePoint user interface. So we need power shell script for creation of these

services. Power shell script needs to run in “Administrator – SharePoint 2013

Management Shell”. Its details are displayed below:

Once both the services are set up, they will be displayed in your administration

section as below:

#replace "technovert\username" with managed account

$account = Get-SPManagedAccount "technovert\username" $appPoolAppSvc =

New-SPServiceApplicationPool -Name AppSubscriptionServiceAppPool -Account

$account $appSubSvc = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication –

ApplicationPool $appPoolAppSvc –Name "Apps Subscription Settings Service

Application" –DatabaseName SubscriptionSettings_Service_DB $proxySubSvc =

New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplicationProxy –ServiceApplication

$appSubSvc


P a g e 14 | 21

Figure 14 Available Services Page

4. Configuring App URLs

For configuring app URL’s, you needs to follow below mentioned steps:

1. Navigate to Central Administration page. In left navigation pane click “apps”. Apps

detail is displayed.

Figure 15 Apps Page


P a g e 15 | 21

2. In apps detail, under “App Management”, click Configure App URLs. Configure

app URL page is displayed.

Figure 16 Configure App URLPage

3. Type the domain name which you have obtained after DNS service settings, type

app prefix and click ok. Configuration will be done successfully.

5. Creating App Catalog

The App Catalog site is a special site collection on a web application. Because each web

application can have an App Catalog site, a farm can have more than one App Catalog

site.to create an app catalog site follow the below mentioned steps:

1. Navigate to Central Administration page. In left navigation pane click “Apps”. Apps

detail is displayed.


P a g e 16 | 21

Figure 17 Apps Page

2. In Apps detail, under “App Management” click “Manage app catalog”. Mange

app catalog page is displayed.

Figure 18 Manage App Catalog Page

3. On “Mange app catalog”, on right hand corner select the web application and click

OK. Web application page is displayed.


P a g e 17 | 21

Figure 19 Web Application Page

4. In “Web application page”, type the name, browse the user name and user groups

as required, select a quota template and click ok.

5. App catalog with given name will be created and displayed.


P a g e 18 | 21

Figure 20 New Catalog Page

References

1) Configure an environment for apps for SharePoint (SharePoint 2013)

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp161236.aspx

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp161236.aspx


P a g e 19 | 21

6. Appendix

6.1. Appendix A (Setting up DNS configurations using a Sub

domain in an existing Domain)

To set up a DNS service, you can also create a sub domain in an existing domain

and then link it to SharePoint server. To create a sub domain, kindly follow the below

steps:

1. Navigate to “Start”, click “Administrative tools” and select “DNS”.

Figure 21

2. DNS page is displayed.


P a g e 20 | 21

Figure 22

3. On DNS page, right click on the name of your domain and select “New Alias

(CNAME)…”

4. Fill in “*.app” for “Alias name (uses parent domain if left blank)” and click “Browse”.

Double click on your server name and then double click “Forward Lookup Zones”

5. Under “Forward Lookup Zone” double click the domain of your SharePoint

environment.

6. For Example, in my case this is “solutions.com”, select “(Same as parent folder)”

and click “OK”.

Figure 23


P a g e 21 | 21

Selecting the FQDN of the domain in here will only work in single server scenarios. If you are using more than one server you should be pointing to the DNS record of the web server in here. This is either the DNS A record for the web server, or the DNS record of the primary cluster address for NLB environments.

7. You are now done with the DNS service settings and it should look like below

image.

Figure 24

Documents

App Environment Configuration for SharePoint (On · PDF fileApp Environment Configuration for SharePoint ... a different domain name for apps helps prevent cross-site ... Selecting