Address SSO and ViewState Errors, if Necessary

SSO Authentication Blocks Print Preview or Export to XML

XFRACAS’s “Print Preview” and “Export to XML” features require DTD files that are installed on the web server. If you have implemented SSO authentication, it may block the website from accessing the DTD files and these features will not respond or will return a blank page.

To address this issue, modify the hosts file on the web server (e.g., C:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts) so the loopback/localhost IP address (127.0.0.1) matches the XFRACAS Server - IIS Prefix preference in XFRACAS. For example, if the prefix is “xfracas.servername.com,” then you would add the following line in the host file:

127.0.0.1 xfracas.servername.com

“ViewState” Errors When XFRACAS is Deployed on Multiple Web Servers

The XFRACAS Configuration File utility enables ViewState encryption and generates a unique machineKey for encryption. If you deploy XFRACAS on multiple web servers that have different machineKeys, it will result in broken images on some chart and dashboard pages, as well as “viewstate” errors in the XFRACAS diagnostic log.

If you are using a load balancer, you may be able to address the issue by setting up server affinity at the load balancer such that once a user’s web request is tied to a particular server, all requests from that user will continue going to that server.

Alternatively, you can copy/paste the same web.config file onto each of the XFRACAS web servers. You will need to repeat this whenever you change the website configuration.

1. On the primary web server, use the XFRACAS Configuration File utility to set the connection settings and other preferences (see Update the Configuration File).
2. After you click OK to save the changes, copy the entire file (e.g., C:\inetpub\wwwroot\XFRACAS\web.config) and paste it to replace the file(s) on the other web server(s).

If you prefer using Notepad (or another application) to manually update the web.config, make sure the machineKey, validationKey and decryptionKey are the same in all files. For example:

<machineKey validationKey="5FC44A043D987BDC849282A0506084F7A3D0952EE5F260D3277F018DFBABD424" decryptionKey="F0522BACBD1E791191F243B08C785B63DBB6E91C5480FE2114793C97BDD8DFA5" validation="AES" decryption="AES" />