Installing Office Server Extensions

Office Server Extension Installation Scenarios

You have many choices for customization when you install Microsoft Office Server Extensions (OSE) on your Web server. Depending on your environment and user requirements, there are three general scenarios for OSE installation:

• Standard workgroup installation
• Secure workgroup installation
• Centrally managed installation

Standard workgroup installation

This scenario applies to you when:

• You do not have a SQL Server to use with OSE.
• You want users with access to your intranet to use the Web Discussions and Web Subscriptions features on your OSE-extended web.
• You want only specific users to add content to your Web server.
• You want Netscape Navigator users to use the Web Discussions and Web Subscriptions features.
• You want users to browse Web folder contents by using the OSE Home Page.
• You want users to create Web Subscriptions for entire folders.
• You want users to create Web Discussions for documents published on other Web sites — that is, Web sites other than your OSE-extended web.

When you configure OSE for a standard workgroup installation, do the following:

• In the OSE Configuration Wizard, accept the defaults on the Create Windows Groups and Access Control panels. Then, if you want users to gain access to collaboration features anonymously, on the Access Control panel, select All users, including those without Windows accounts, select Allow Basic Authentication logins for Collaboration, and then select Enable Directory Browsing on this web site.
• Use the User Manager application to:

  Add users to the Admins group that the wizard creates. By default, users in the local computer Administrators group have administrative access to the Web site.

  Add users to the Authors group that the wizard creates. By default, the Authors group does not have members.

• Use Microsoft FrontPage 2000 to modify permissions on the Web site.

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Secure workgroup installation

This scenario applies to you when:

• You want to restrict access to Web Discussions, Web Subscriptions, and publishing documents on your Web site.
• You want to secure password transmissions.
• You do not want users to browse Web folder contents using the OSE Home Page.
• You do not want users to create Web Subscriptions to entire folders.
• You do not want users to create Web Discussions for documents published on Web sites other than your OSE-extended web.

When you configure OSE for a secure workgroup installation, do the following:

• In the OSE Configuration Wizard, accept the defaults on the Create Windows Groups panel. On the Access Control panel, select Members of the <group_prefix> Groups from the list, and then clear the Allow Basic Authentication logins for Collaboration and Enable Directory Browsing on this web site check boxes
• Click the Start button, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Office Server Extensions, click OSE Administrator (HTML) to open the OSE Administration Home Page, click Configure Web Subscription Settings, under Allow Web Subscriptions to, select Documents only, and then click Submit.
• Return to the OSE Administration Home Page, click Configure Web Discussion Settings, under Allow Web Discussions on, select Documents located on this server only, and then click Submit.
• Use the User Manager application to do the following:

  Add users to the Admins group that the wizard creates. By default, users in the local computer Administrators group have administrative access to the Web site.

  Add users to the Authors group that the wizard creates. By default, the Authors group does not have members.

  Add users to the collaborators group that the wizard creates. By default, the Collaborators group does not have members. Members of the Collaborators group can participate in Web Discussions and create Web Subscriptions.

• SQL Server user names and passwords that OSE uses are stored in the Microsoft Windows NT registry, in a log file named Owsconf.log. To provide increased security for user names and passwords, you must restrict remote registry access, and set the access control list (of the Owsconf.log file, which is located in C:\Winnt) to allow only the Administrators group and System account access.

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Centrally managed installation

This scenario applies to you when:

• You want multiple Web sites on the Web server.
• You want your collaboration databases stored on Microsoft SQL Server version 6.5 or later computers.

When you configure OSE for a centrally managed installation, do the following:

• For SQL Server 6.5 on the local computer, or a remote SQL Server, you must create a database for each Web site that you are extending with OSE. You must also give a user account full access to each database and then provide the OSE Configuration Wizard with the user account and password.

  For SQL Server 7.0 on the local computer, the OSE Configuration Wizard creates the database automatically, but you need to give a user account full access to the database that the wizard creates. When there is both a remote SQL Server 7.0, and a SQL Server 7.0 on the local computer, the user must have database creation rights in the master database, even if the database already exists.

  Whenever users have database creation rights, they automatically have access to the OSE database.

• Run OSE Setup with the /nd switch to suppress installation of Microsoft Data Engine (MSDE).
• OSE Setup starts the OSE Configuration Wizard automatically, but you can configure only a single Web site each time that you run the wizard. You must run the wizard for each Web site you want to configure.

To run the OSE Configuration Wizard

1. To start Microsoft Management Console with the OSE snap-in, click the Start button, point to Programs, point to Microsoft Office Server Extensions, and then click Server Extensions Administrator.
2. In the left pane, select the Web site that you want to extend with OSE.
3. On the Action menu, point to Task, and then click Configure Server Extensions.