Creating additional instance of PWA

[Guest]

OK, following on my earlier post, (1/26) I have gotten the EditSite tool and
have worked through the steps of KB823529. All appears to go well. However,
after finishing the tool, two things happen.

1. I cannot log to PWA to administer it. There is nowhere in the EditSite
Tool that prompts me to enter a password for that account, and the login
does not accept the password for the first instance of ProjectServer.

2. My project server url becomes
http://itadprojects/itadprojects/projectserver. In order to use the EditSite
Tool, I have to create a new Web Site in IIS Admin before running the tool.
I use a host header to identify the site, which is still bound to the same
IP addressort as the default website. My first instance of PS2003 is
installed on the default website. Why is the tool doubling the site name in
the setup?

Any help would be appreciated.

John Willard
Sr. IT Architect
VA Dept of Transportation

 

[Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)]

The administrator password is blank on new sites created with EditSite
From the URL, it looks like your creating your new site under the old one.
You should create it at the top level and give it a name other than
"projectserver" because that one is already taken.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the books on Project Server"
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

For Project Server FAQs visit
http://www.projectserverexperts.com

For Project FAQs visit
http://www.mvps.org/project

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[Guest]

Thanks for that info. I am unclear about the URL answer. I went into IIS
and created a new, empty website, called ITADProjects (the origianl
installation has projectserver on the default website). Then in the EditSite
tool, it asks me for a Site name, which I specify as ITADProjects, and asks
me to choose a Web Site to use, which I choose the newly created
ITADProjects.

Should I be using the default website -- thus getting something like
http://server_name/ITADProjects/projectserver? I cannot leave the Site Name
box blank, and the tool forces projectserver onto the end of the URL. Or at
least I do not know how to change that.

Thanks for the help.

John Willard

 

[Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)]

John:

From your post it appears that you might not understand the difference
between a top-level website, aka Virtual Server, and a second-level website,
aka Virtual Directory. It looks as though you're creating the latter, but
want to create the former. If you haven't removed the default website on
your server, then it's currently running on the default http port 80. In
order to create a new top-level site, you need to assign it to a different
port. Two sites can't respond to requests on the same port and the system
won't let you create a two sites on one port. Therefore, if you didn't
assign a port number when creating your new site, you didn't create a new
top-level site.

If you call your new top-level website ITADProjects, and call your new
instance ITADProjects, then the URL you would type is
http://servername:xxxx/itadprojects where 'xxxx' is the port number
assigned.

If you created a new website (virtual directory) under the default website,
the URL you would type is http://servername/itadprojects/itadprojects which
brings us back to your original scenario.

The key is that top-level sites are not called by name, they're called by
port and you only have to specify a port when you're not using the default
port 80, no matter what you call your top-level site. Think about it, you
don't type http://servername/defaultwebsite/projectserver for your original
site, do you?

You can mask the port numbers using host headers and a good router, but
let's not go there just yet.<g>

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the books on Project Server"
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

For Project Server FAQs visit
http://www.projectserverexperts.com

For Project FAQs visit
http://www.mvps.org/project

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[Guest]

Gary:

Thanks so much for taking the time to explain this. What I think I am
confused about is host headers. I understand about virtual sites vs. virtual
directories, but I understood that host headers allowed two or more web
sites to run on the same IP address and port number by making a CNAME entry
in DNS (although your comment about the router puzzles me. Do I have to make
a change in the routing table to make host headers work?). I must admit that
I have not done enough study on how host headers work, so I am off to google
right now.

That was what confused me. When I first installed Project Server, it asked
for the name of the PWA site, and I gave it the aliased URL of the top level
site. It then created the virtual directory under the top level site as
http://ipmdevps/projectserver (not, by the way, the behavior I was expecting
<g>).

So when I ran the Edit Sites tool, I expected to give it the aliased name of
a second top-level site and have it behave the same way. Instead, it asked
for the site name AND which web site to use. I gave it the site name
(ITADProjects) and pointed it to the virtual (top-level) server which I
created and also named ITADProjects, (complete with host header of the same
name a CNAME entry in DNS. EditSite created a second folder under the
virtual SITE and loaded the entire PWA folder hierarchy under that virtual
directory. It then created another folder under the second folder, named it
projectserver, and proceded to reference the entire folder hierarchy for PWA
under that virtual directory as well. This is NOT the behavior I was
expecting. Now, I can reach those sites with the following behavior --

http://itadprojects/itadprojects -- presents me with a default administrator
log in page which I can now use with a blank password <thank you>.
http://itadpdrojects/projectserver -- redirects to the URL
http://servername/projectserver, and logs me in as administrator.

So, is my understanding of host headers faulty? Or am I not properly
understanding what the Edit Site tool is doing. I am going to read
everything I can on host headers today.

Thank you for your patience in reading my posts and assisting me with your
expertise.

John W.

 

[Gary L. Chefetz \(MVP\)]

John:

The host header specifies the "respond to URL" when you're using shared
ports. For creating additional instances of Project Server, use one Virtual
Server. Project Server installs as a Virtual Directory, so why extend
virtual servers when virtual directories is it's design standard? My mention
of the router was not meant to suggest a dependency, I simply assumed it
would be part of your configuration. I'm programmed not to allow the thought
of connecting a server directly to the Internet cross my mind.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
"We wrote the books on Project Server"
http://www.msprojectexperts.com

For Project Server FAQs visit
http://www.projectserverexperts.com

For Project FAQs visit
http://www.mvps.org/project

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