Studio Server full installation

This article describes the installation of Studio Server on a system on which it is not yet installed.

Before you start

Before starting the installation, make a plan of what is needed: which features of Studio Server and its clients do you want to make use of and which additional (third-party) software does this require?

As a starting point, use the Compatibility Matrix to verify which software versions you need and if any upgrades are required.

Important: Use of WAMP or LAMP not supported
WAMP and LAMP are single-distribution packages for Windows and Linux that combine the installation of Apache, PHP, and MySQL. These make them potentially ideal for quickly setting up a new Studio Server environment. However, such packages are meant for development purposes and are not to be used in live production environments.
The use of WAMP or LAMP for installing a Studio Server environment is therefore not supported.

Upgrading InDesign and InCopy

When you are upgrading to a new version of Adobe InDesign or InCopy, keep the following in mind:

• All InDesign and InCopy users should use the same Adobe version. This is because documents created in a newer version cannot be opened in a previous version.
• Convert any InDesign and InCopy templates to the new version of InDesign and InCopy. Do this by opening the file and re-saving it.

Installation steps

The installation consists of various steps which should be performed in the following order:

1. Setting up the database
2. Installing and configuring PHP
3. Configuring the Web Server
4. (Optional) Configuring the ExifTool
5. Installing Studio Server
6. Installing ionCube loaders
7. (Optional) Determining the location of the File Transfer Server folder
8. Creating Studio Server database tables
9. Activating licenses
10. Initializing Studio Server plug-ins
11. Testing the Studio Server installation
12. Integrating Apache Solr
13. (Optional) Preview generation for additional file formats
14. Configuring Studio Server
15. Setting File Storage settings
16. Reviewing security settings
17. Customizing the interface
18. Setting up a Brand
19. Connecting to WoodWing Cloud Services
20. Planning periodic clean-up of the WebEdit folders for InDesign Server hosts

Step 1. Setting up the database

Install and set up the database for storing all Studio Server related data.

Step 2. Installing and configuring PHP

Step 1. Install PHP.

Step 2. Configure PHP by editing the php.ini file as described below.

Step 2a. Ensure that variables_order is set to EGPCS:

variables_order = "EGPCS".

Step 2b. Change the following settings to at least the shown values:

upload_max_filesize = 250M

post_max_size = 250M

memory_limit = 750M

Step 2c. Ensure that request_order includes "GPC", for example:

request_order = "GPC"

Step 2d. Add the correct time zone, for example:

date.timezone = Europe/Amsterdam

Note: For a full list of time zones, see http://nl3.php.net/manual/en/timezones.php.

Step 2e. Add the following entries and set the path according to your setup:

• session.save_path =
• upload_tmp_dir =

Note: Ensure that both folders have full Read and Write access enabled for the Web Server user, for example the Internet Guest User.

Step 3. Enable the following PHP modules:

• gd instructions
• exif instructions
• sockets instructions
• mbstring instructions
• soap instructions
• iconv instructions
• curl instructions
• zlib instructions
• xsl instructions
• openssl instructions
• bcmath instructions
• dom instructions
• xml instructions

Note about installing the JSON module (only applies to PHP 7.x, not to PHP 8.1 or higher): Although the PHP manual states that 'The JSON extension is bundled and compiled into PHP by default', it seems that this is not always the case for all CentOS/RHEL distributions. As a result, the Health Check for Studio Server may fail unexpectedly during the execution of its test items later in the installation process. To check if the extension is loaded, open the Health Check page once the server is fully installed and then open the PHP Info page. Search for 'json support' for which the value 'enabled' should be set. If that is not the case, install the JSON extension for PHP with for example the yum install php-json command as mentioned in the PHP documentation and restart the web server. Then open the PHP Info page once more to validate whether the JSON extension is loaded by PHP.

Step 4. Enable the DB module for PHP:

• For MySQL: Follow the PHP manual for installing the MySQLi driver.
• For MSSQL: Follow the instructions in the Microsoft documentation: Microsoft PHP Driver for SQL Server.

Step 5. Save the file.

Step 6. Restart the Web service.

Step 3. Configuring the Web Server

Take note of the following information, depending on the Web Server used.

Apache

To manually configure the Apache configuration files for PHP, edit conf/httpd.conf to enable PHP support in both the Load Module list and Add Module list.

Some Apache installations overrule the character set of HTML pages. As a result, accented characters are not displayed correctly by the Studio Server Maintenance applications. This can be fixed by changing or adding AddDefaultCharSet in the Apache configuration file conf/httpd.conf to:

AddDefaultCharSet UTF-8

–or–

AddDefaultCharSet off

Also set the DefaultType to:

DefaultType text/html

Note: The default Web page for Studio Server should be index.htm. However, for Apache it can be index.php as well in which case the Studio Server logon page remains empty. To avoid this problem, make sure the index.htm file is listed above the index.php file in the httpd configuration file.

Microsoft IIS

It is recommended to increase the maximum size that IIS allows for uploads. This is done by changing the 'Maximum allowed content length' setting.

Note: Reaching the limit can result in errors such as 'HTTP error 413' when for example a user tries to save a file to the database.

For information about changing this setting, see the following links:

• web-site-scripts.com: Increasing maximum allowed size for uploads on IIS7
• docs.microsoft.com: Request Limits <requestLimits>

Step 4. (Optional) Configuring the ExifTool

When images are uploaded, Studio Server extracts metadata. This metadata is used for populating basic metadata fields (such as author, credit, format, and so on), as well as specific fields such as width and orientation (used for cropping images).

The ExifTool is part of the Studio Server installation and can optionally be configured.

(Optional) Configuration

The order in which image properties are resolved can be based on the metadata containers (such as 'Exif', 'XMP', and 'IPTC') that are extracted by the ExifTool application.

Different metadata containers can contain different values for the same image attribute.

Example: 'Credit' => [ 'IPTC', 'XMP' ] means that first the 'IPTC' metadata container is used to resolve the 'Credit' attribute. If this gives a result, the 'XMP' container is ignored. Only in case of no result is the 'XMP' container used.

To do this, configure the following option:

• File: config.php file (recommended: config_overrule.php file)
• Name of option: EXIFTOOL_METADATA_ORDER
• Possible values: See below.
• Example:

if( !defined( 'EXIFTOOL_METADATA_ORDER' ) ) {
	define( 'EXIFTOOL_METADATA_ORDER', serialize(
			[
				'Author' => [ 'EXIF', 'IPTC', 'XMP' ],
				'Credit' => [ 'IPTC', 'XMP' ],
				'ColorSpace' => [ 'EXIF', 'XMP' ],
				'Comment' => [ 'XMP', 'IPTC' ],
				'DocumentID' => [ 'IPTC', 'XMP' ],
				'Description' => [ 'EXIF', 'IPTC', 'XMP' ],
				'DescriptionAuthor' => [ 'IPTC', 'XMP' ],
				'Copyright' => [ 'EXIF', 'IPTC', 'XMP' ],
				'Keywords' => [ 'IPTC', 'XMP' ],
				'Slugline' => [ 'IPTC', 'XMP' ],
				'Source' => [ 'IPTC', 'XMP' ],
				'Format' => [ 'File', 'XMP' ],
			]
		)
	);
}

Uncomment the attribute and change the order of the containers as needed.

Step 5. Installing Studio Server

Step 1. Download the Studio Server application from the software release page.

Step 2. Unzip the file.

The unzipped folder contains a folder named 'StudioServer' containing files such as index.php, index.html, index.htm.

Step 3. Copy the complete StudioServer folder to the server machine’s Web root folder (such as webroot).

Step 4. Create a folder named FileStore and apply access rights.

Tip: A typical setup would be to create a root FileStore and create the other directories in it.

Step 5. Verify the following options in the configserver.php file or the config.php file (recommended: config_overrule.php file):

The location of this file is:

<Studio Server path>/config

• Configure database access using the following options:

¹ The DBUSER is the single database user that is used by the application server to access the database. This database user account needs SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE privileges, plus ALTER TABLE privileges for the creation and deletion of custom properties. The application server itself authorizes all requests for the user logged on via the Studio Server user tables which are completely separate from the database users. Default is ‘root’. For MSSQL Server you could use ‘sa’ as default.

• Configure the web access using the following options:

• Configure file access using the following options:

• Configure the path to the ExifTool using the following option:

Step 6. Installing ionCube loaders

For security reasons, Studio Server uses ionCube to encrypt some of its PHP modules.

The process of checking the currently installed version of ionCube and guiding you through any upgrade steps is built in to Studio Server.

Step 1. Try accessing the Studio Server Health Check page by entering the following URL in a Web browser:

http://<your server URL>/StudioServer/server/wwtest

Example: http://localhost/StudioServer/server/wwtest

The installation of ionCube is automatically tested. During this process, you might see various progress bars appear. Depending on the result of the test, the following will happen:

• The Health Check page appears. This means that ionCube Loader is correctly installed. No further action is required.

• The ionCube Loader Wizard for Studio Server appears. This means that the ionCube Loader is not correctly installed or that an incorrect version is installed. The information provided on the page will give you an indication of the exact problem and how to resolve it.

Step 2. Repeat step 1 until the Health Check page appears. This is an indication that ionCube is correctly installed.

Step 7. (Optional) Determining the location of the File Transfer Server folder

The File Transfer Server is a feature of Studio Server which separates files from operational data during an upload or download process, resulting in a higher performance and lower memory footprint.

You can optionally move the File Transfer folder to another system to:

• Offload file traffic over HTTP to a dedicated server farm or network
• Let file traffic run over a dedicated URL, other than client-server service communication
• Offload the file traffic to the File Store to another physical file location

To do so, follow the steps as described in Installing the Transfer Server Folder on another system.

Step 8. Creating Studio Server database tables

Create tables in your installed database for storing data relating to using Studio Server.

Creating the database tables is an automated process that is triggered by running the Database Connection test on the Health Check page in Studio Server.

Step 1. In Studio Server, access the Health Check page:

Step 1a. In Studio Server, click Advanced in the Maintenance menu or on the Home page. A page with all advanced Maintenance features appears.

Step 1b. Click Health Check. The Health Check page appears.

Step 2. At the bottom of the page, click Clear All.

Step 3. Only select the Database Connection test.

Step 4. Click Test.

The test is executed and the result is displayed next to the test. It should display “OK”.

Note: If the test fails, an error is displayed together with instructions for solving it. Follow the instructions and then run the test once more.

Step 9. Activating licenses

In order to complete the setup process of Studio Server, its license needs to be activated first. This allows you to access the Maintenance pages of Studio Server and allows users of client applications to log in to the Server. At this time, you might also want to activate all client applications.

For information about activating licenses for Studio Server and its client applications, see Managing licenses in Studio Server.

Step 10. Initializing Studio Server plug-ins

Many of the Studio Server functionality is provided through plug-ins. These plug-ins need to be initialized first.

Step 1. In Studio Server, click Server Plug-ins in the Maintenance menu or on the Home page.

The Server Plug-ins page appears and any installed plug-ins will be automatically registered.

Note: Because the plug-ins are registered while the page is opened, the process of opening the page can take a few moments.

Step 2. Make sure that the required plug-ins are enabled. If needed, resolve any conflicts.

Note: Normally, no conflicts should arise and no further action will be required after accessing the page.

Step 11. Testing the Studio Server installation

The setup is now ready to be tested.

Step 1. Open a Web browser and enter the URL for the installed server.

Example: http://localhost/StudioServer/

The log in screen appears.

Step 2. Log in using the following credentials:

• User Name: woodwing
• Password: ww

The main screen appears.

Step 1. Access the Health Check page:

Step 1a. In Studio Server, click Advanced in the Maintenance menu or on the Home page. A page with all advanced Maintenance features appears.

Step 1b. Click Health Check. The Health Check page appears.

Step 2. (Optional) In case not all licenses are activated yet, clear the check box for Licenses.

Step 3. (Optional) For those systems or features which are not installed yet (such as LDAP), clear their check boxes.

Step 4. Click Test.

The test(s) are executed and the results are displayed next to each test. They should all display “OK”.

Note: If a test fails, an error is displayed together with instructions for solving it. Follow the instructions and then run the test once more.

Step 12. Integrating Apache Solr

Solr is an open source enterprise search server based on the Lucene Java search library and is integrated by Studio Server to speed up the searching process.

Solr runs in a Java servlet container such as Tomcat or Jetty (included in the Solr distribution download).

Install and configure Solr as described in Integrating Solr in Studio Server.

Step 13. (Optional) Preview generation for additional file formats

Without installing additional components, Studio Server is capable of generating previews for images in JPG, PNG, or GIF format.

Support for additional image formats — such as PDF, TIFF and PSD — can be added by installing ImageMagick and/or Ghostscript.

For details, see Image preview generation in Studio Server.

Step 14. Configuring Studio Server

During the installation of Studio Server, the system was set up using default settings for use in a generic production environment. However, many more powerful features can be unlocked, mainly by making further changes to the configuration files, but also by making use of other technologies and third-party applications.

For an overview of the options that can be configured, use the following sources:

• The list in the Configuration sections of the Studio Server contents page.
• The comments in the configserver.php file. It lists many options, most of which can be easily implemented by simply un-commenting them.

See also Using a central file to configure Studio Server.

Step 15. Setting File Storage settings

By modifying the file storage settings you control the way the data is stored, including the following aspects:

• File name conventions
• Performance
• Files stored externally or locally

Follow the steps as described in About file storage in Studio Server.

Step 16. Reviewing security settings

By reviewing the security settings you verify and optionally control the way the stored data is secured (internally and externally), including the following aspects:

• Passwords
• User privileges
• SSL

For more information, see Security considerations for Studio Server.

Step 17. Customizing the interface

Specific aspects of the Server and client applications can be customized to match the look and feel of your company environment, including localization, terminologies used, colors, and icons.

Refer to the articles listed on the contents page for Studio Server, Studio, and Studio for InDesign and InCopy.

Step 18. Setting up a Brand

Now that Studio Server itself is fully up and running, it is time to define your publications, set up Publication Channels, user accounts, access rights and more.

See Setting up a Brand in Studio Server.

Step 19. Connecting to WoodWing Cloud Services

Note: This step is mandatory when Studio Server is used in combination with working with Digital articles in Studio.

The Digital articles that are created in Studio make use of various resources such as Component Sets, styles, custom swatches, and so on. These resources are stored in a central location in the cloud in a system named WoodWing Cloud Services.

Studio needs access to these resources so that users can do the following:

• Use the Digital editor
• Create a Digital article
• Create Component sets
• Map components
• Save swatches

Providing access is done by connecting Studio Server to WoodWing Cloud Services, as explained in Connecting Studio Servers and Assets Server to WoodWing Cloud Services.

Step 20. Planning periodic clean-up of the WebEdit folders for InDesign Server hosts

When installing a new InDesign Server host (or upgrading an existing InDesign Server host) to connect to Studio Server, the WebEdit folders should be cleaned periodically.

These folders are created by the InDesign Server preview script (provided by Studio Server) for each preview session.

When an InDesign Server host is busy, the WebEdit folder is created by another InDesign Server host.

To make maximum use of the InDesign Server capacity (and to not have the process delayed because of auto-cleaning operations) it is the responsibility of the system operator to periodically remove the WebEdit folders.

The more users are served, the more often this should happen. However, doing this too often can lead to inefficiencies. A good starting point is to clean the folder every 15 minutes and to remove all WebEdit folders in the InDesign Server Workspace folder that are older than one hour.

For Windows Server, two example scripts are provided: a clean-up script that does the actual cleaning and an installation script that makes it periodically run with help of the Windows Task Scheduler. The scripts can be found in the StudioServer/sdk/ids folder.

Further instructions can be found in the headers of the scripts.

Note: The scripts provided are a guideline for setting up the automated cleaning. Usage of it is at your own risk; support for these scripts is not provided by WoodWing.

The Workspace folder can be found in the following locations:

• Windows: %USERDATA%\WwIdsWorkSpace
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/WwIdsWorkSpace