Technical Notes

Installing the Reflection for the Web Portlet on a WebSphere Portal Server
Technical Note 2348
Last Reviewed 30-May-2008
Applies To
Reflection for the Web 2008 (All Editions)
Reflection for the Web version 9.6.531 through 9.x
WebSphere Portal version 5.x or higher
Summary

This technical note provides installation instructions for installing Reflection for the Web portlet on a WebSphere Portal Server.

Before You Begin

Before installing the Reflection for the Web portlet, you must have the following installed and configured.

• WebSphere Portal Server 5.x or higher
• Reflection for the Web must be running on an application server with sessions configured for your users. The following technical notes provide examples of installing Reflection for the Web on an application server: Technical Note 1779, Technical Note 1834, and Technical Note 2332.

Obtaining the RWebPA.war File

Prior to installing the portlet, you must obtain the RWebPA.war file, which you will use to install the Reflection for the Web portlet.

• If you have WebSphere Application Server installed, the RWebPA.war file is located in %WASHOME%\installedApps\RWebWASAS6Node01Cell\rweb_war.ear\rweb.war\WEB-INF\misc.
• If you do not have WebSphere Application Server installed, you can extract the RWebPA.war file from the rweb.war file located in the nonautomated directory of the downloaded product files (or on the Reflection for the Web CD). Use an archiving utility, such as WinZip, to extract the .war file.

Installing Reflection for the Web Portlet on the WebSphere Portal Server

With Reflection for the Web installed and configured on your application server, you are ready to install the Reflection for the Web portlet to the WebSphere Portal Server.

1. Copy the RWebPA.war file to a temporary directory on the WebSphere Portal Server.
2. Open a browser and log in to the portal with an account that has administrative rights.
3. Click the Administration option in the upper-right corner of the screen.
4. Click Portlet Management on the left pane to open the Manage Web Modules page.
5. Click Install and enter the path, including the filename RWebPA.war, or browse to the RWebPA.war file (for example, C:\temp\RWebPA.war or /u/local/RWebPA.war).
6. Click Next, and then click Finish.
7. Under Portlet Management, click Portlets. From the list of portlets, select “RWeb portlet.”

8. On the right side of the Portlet row, click the Configure icon to setup the portlet.

9. Two parameters are listed for the RWeb portlet. Make a note of the parameters and values listed; they will be used later.
10. To provide the correct URL for the portlet, you must delete the parameter RWebURL, and then add it back:
    1. Delete RWebURL.
    2. Under New parameter, enter RWebURL. (This parameter is case sensitive).
11. Under New value, enter the URL exactly as it was displayed in the example (for example, http://myserver:9080/rweb/LoginPage.do?appletOnly=true), but update the localhost name and port with the DNS name (or IP address) and port of the Reflection for the Web server.

12. Click Add, and then click OK.

You can now add the Reflection for the Web portlet to any of the WebSphere portal pages.

Configuring the Shared Secret between the Portlet and the Reflection for the Web Server

The RWebPA.properties file contains the shared secret that the portlet uses to authenticate to the Reflection for the Web server. The shared secret needs to match what is configured on the Reflection for the Web server.

1. Create a text file named RWebPA.properties at the location defined in the value of AC.RWebSSOSharedKeyPropsFile; see step 9 in Installing Reflection for the Web Portlet on the WebSphere Portal Server.
2. In the RWebPA.properties file add the following line:

3. Save the file.
4. Launch the Reflection for the Web Administrative WebStation.
5. Under Tools, click Access Control Setup > Configure.
6. Under “Choose authentication method,” click Portal, and then click Next.
7. Enter the shared secret (case sensitive) that was added to the RwebPA.properties in step 2, and then click Next.
8. Select the authorization method that best meets your needs and click Next.
9. Click Save Settings.
10. Click Access Mapper and assign the sessions you would like users to see.

Configuring the WebSphere Application Server

If you run Reflection for the Web on a WebSphere Application Server (WAS), then you must enable “URL rewriting” on the WAS server.

If you run Reflection for the Web on another application server (not WAS), skip this section and proceed to Adding the Portlet to the WebSphere Portal (An Example).

Note: At this time, you can enable "URL rewriting" on the WAS at the server level only, not at the application level.

1. Open and log in to the WAS Administration Console.
2. Click Servers > Application servers.
3. Click the server on which Reflection for the Web is installed.
4. Click Session management.
5. Select the "URL rewriting" check box to enable it.
6. Click OK.
7. Click Save to save the change to the master configuration.
8. Stop and restart the WAS server.

Adding the Portlet to the WebSphere Portal (An Example)

The following steps describe one way to add the Reflection for the Web portlet to a WebSphere portal page.

1. Open and log in to the portal with an account that has administrative rights.
2. Click the Administration option in the upper-right corner of the screen.
3. Under the left pane, click Portal User Interface > Manage Pages.
4. Click My Portal under the Title column.
5. Click the Edit Page Layout icon on the right of the Welcome page row.

6. In one of the three columns, click Add portlets.
7. Scan the list of portlets and select the “RWeb portlet” check box.
8. Click OK. The portlet should be added to the configuration of the Welcome page.
9. Click Done.

Test the Portlet

Follow these steps to ensure that the portlet works.

1. Log in to the WebSphere Portal server.
2. Select the web page to which the portlet was added.
3. Verify that Reflection for the Web sessions are listed in the portlet.

Related Technical Notes

1779	Installing Reflection for the Web with WebSphere Application Server
1834	Running Reflection for the Web with Caucho Resin on a Windows 2000 Server
2332	Deploying Reflection for the Web on BEA WebLogic