I recently saw Alex’s prowess in setting up a Fully Qualified Domain Name within the Autodesk Vault 2016 beta. Configuring this feature means users can log into Vault from the internet in a secure and high performing way, all without using a VPN connection. I’d already been talking to him about writing a few posts for Design & Motion, so knowing how much I had struggled to decipher out of date Autodesk documentation in the past, I thought this would be the perfect first post for Alex. So it’s with great pleasure that the Design & Motion team introduce Alex Fielder to our readers. He’s a throroughly nice chap, you can read his bio to find out what he’s all about or you can have a chat with him on Twitter. Without further ado, here’s Alex’s cracking guide for setting up an FQDN for Autodesk Vault. Cheers Alex!
Decisions
Decide if you want open ( http: ) or encrypted ( https: ) access from your Vault, I will only be covering how to setup http: access today,
Common practice among larger organisations is to have web-facing servers in a demilitarized zone (DMZ), but since this is outside of the scope of this article, I will leave it for the reader to decide whether this is a method they are keen on implementing.
An area that requires some thought is the setup of user accounts (for remote access) and their permissions, but I will also leave that out for now.
A note about my setup: I’m using Windows 10 Technical Preview Build 9841 running on VirtualBox Version 4.3.12 r93733.
Host Network setup
Page 5 of the Advanced Configuration Guide (ACG) for Vault Server 2014 details how to change the default port during initial installation.
I made these changes after having installed Vault Server, so the steps detailed in this post will reflect that.
If there are other web-facing servers/services on the host network, then choose a port that will not clash with that. I set this up on my home network which has a Stora NAS with web access on port 80, and my router allows remote login on port 8080 (which also happens to be the alternate port mentioned in the ACG above), so I chose port 81 instead.
Windows Firewall
On the Vault Server, use the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security to add an inbound firewall rule for whichever port you chose to use (in my case port 81)
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Router Configuration
On the Vault Server, from the Command Prompt (CMD) run ipconfig /all to retrieve the Vault Server IP Address:
In the Host network router, add a port forward to the VaultServer-ip address for port 81:
The process for configuring port forwarding will vary depending on the router you have.
Don’t forget to click Apply or Save!
Internet Information Services (IIS)
In the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, select the Website that contains the AutodeskDM virtual directory. (My method differs from the Advanced Configuration Guide, because I am using Windows 10 Tech Preview instead of Windows Server 2008 R2/2012):
On the right hand side, under “Edit Site” select “Bindings” (circled above) and remove the existing port 80 row. Then click add and put in your chosen port:
As these changes are being carried out after installation it is also necessary to edit the web.config file for the AutodeskDM application. You can find this file here:
C:\Program Files\Autodesk\ADMS Professional 2016\Server\Web\Services
Open this file with your favourite text editor (I use notepad++) and search for the phrase “port=” in the document. On or around line 439 change:
<server port=”80″ sslPort=”443″ website=”Default Web Site” sslRequired=”false” />
To read:
<server port=”YourChosenPort#” sslPort=”443″ website=”Default Web Site” sslRequired=”false” />
So in my case it is:
<server port=”81″ sslPort=”443″ website=”Default Web Site” sslRequired=”false” />
Save and Close this file, then, returning to the IIS Manager window, click the “Restart” option on the right hand side to restart the Site.
Remote Client setup
Check if it is possible to load the Host-ip:PortNumber/AutodeskTC url in a browser, if successful the Autodesk Vault Thin Client log in page should appear:
The Server value for the login credentials above, would be Host-ip:PortNumber.
Logging in should then present you with this familiar page:
Install Vault Pro Client on remote machine. Check client <> server version compatibility.
It is likely that the Vault Pro Client install will require a system reboot, so after restarting the remote client machine, fire up the Vault Pro Client and put in the same credentials used for the Thin Client:
(I used Vault Pro 2014, but Vault Pro 2013 can also talk to Vault Server 2015)
It is imperative to remember to include the port number at the end of the server name if you did not use port 80 in all login areas.
Finally, here is a view of my office-based Vault Professional Client, logged into Vault Pro Server using FQDN:
Thanks for reading and I hope you find this useful!
