I had a chance to work on BizTalk and I found it very difficult to start with as there are several security considerations that needs a lot of attention. In this article, I am going to explain how to configure BizTalk server and its related components to work with BizTalk Server 2006 R2.
Introduction
I have just started to learn BizTalk so if you find there is something that need correction or improvement, please feel free to provide feedback.
Let me explain the configuration in few steps.
Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006 Configuration Wizard
To ensure that everything is installed properly you should get green tick mark icon beside every list in this dialogue box. In the above image, you can see that BAM (Business Activity Monitoring) Portal is not installed properly as it has red icon beside it. BAM is a standalone application in the BizTalk that let you monitor the activity going on for a particular application in BizTalk Server so even if BAM is not installed, you can work with BizTalk Server. If any of the items are not installed properly, you can double click it and click “Apply Configuration” at top left.
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Configuring BizTalk Server related databases
When we install BizTalk Server 2006, more approximately 10 different databases are created in the SQL Server 2005. If there is any problem in configuring the proper access to the BizTalk account user, you will get strange errors; sometimes it’s hard to detect. Broadly if you are getting any error related that contains any of the database name, you should assume that the error is because BizTalk account doesn’t have proper permission in the database. To do that you need to add the BizTalk account into the above mentioned database users.
Go to Security tab of your database server and click on Logins, check that the BizTalk server account is into this.
How to check BizTalk server account?
At the time of installation of BizTalk Server, you are asked to provide the username that will be used to run all BizTalk server services, this is the BizTalk account and this accounts needs various types of permission to keep BizTalk services running properly. If you want to know your BizTalk account, go to BizTalk Server 2006 Administration Console and explore Platform Settings, click Host Instance, in the right side panel you will see the BizTalk server account name under Logon column.
Once you know your BizTalk Server account, you can add this to your database users. Once you have added this in the Logins (if it’s not available, right click Logins and click New Login … select and add it), double click it, you will get a dialogue box something like this
As a beginners, without going into too much
complications, I suggest to select database from top and at the bottom check
all checkboxes that starts with Capital letter role like BTS_ADMIN_USERS. I
know this is not a best practice but just for the sake of easy learning do that
and later on you can dig into each role type and uncheck roles for this
particular users.
Above steps ensure that the BizTalk account
as all permission to work with all databases related with BizTalk Server.
Configuring BizTalk Isolated Host Users (Win XP)
To avoid a lot of error that is hard to track and find out the reason , you need to ensure that your BizTalk Server account is a member of
BizTalk Isolated Host Users. To do that, go the Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management. Explore Local Users and Groups
and locate BizTalk Isolated Host Users in the right panel, double click and add BizTalk Server account into it (if not already there).
If for some reason, later point of time you are getting any error working with HTTP, SOAP adapters, you should try adding Everyone into
this group and test.
Configuring Component Services (Win XP)
While working with HTTP, SOAP adapter (Web Service/ WCF Services), you naturally host your services to IIS. These services will not work properly if they are not configured properly to run under appropriate users’ credentials.
When we create any web service that will be consumed in BizTalk Server or a BizTalk Server orchestration has been exposed as web service or WCF services, a virtual directly is created. These virtual directly needs to be setup properly to run under valid credentials.
Configuring your virtual directly
Open your virtual directly property and go to Virtual Directory tab, ensure that Execute Permission drop down is “Scripts and Executables” and Application Protection is “High (Isolated). Once you have changed Application Protection to High (Isolated), an entry is added to Component Services (Go to control panel > Administrative Tools > Component Services). Explore Component Services like figure below).
Locate your virtual directly in the right side panel, right click and select Properties. Choose Identity tab and click Browse button.
Select the BizTalk Server account, enter appropriate password and click Apply and OK.
Open your Virtual Directory properties and click on
Directory Security tab, click on Edit under Anonymous access and authentication
control. Select BizTalk Server account and click OK.
Some Common Errors
Error:
The receive location "File Receive Location" with URL "c:\bizTalk1sttest\Input\*.xml" is shutting down. Details:"The Messaging Engine failed while notifying an adapter of its configuration. ".
Solution:
When BizTalk service account has not Full Control over the input/output folder of the in case of you are using FILE Adapter.
Error:
A message received by adapter "FILE" on receive location "File Receive Location" with URI "D:\BizTalk1sttest\Input\*.xml" is suspended. Error details: The published message could not be routed because no subscribers were found. This error occurs if the subscribing orchestration or send port has not been enlisted, or if some of the message properties necessary for subscription evaluation have not been promoted. Please use the Biztalk Administration console to troubleshoot this failure. MessageId: {7E028B64-63C0-49C8-BB41-33EDD5087CB8} InstanceID: {4F92E2D4-9D97-41D2-BB50-D3DFB49DDD8A}
Solution:
Proper receive and send Pipeline is not configured. Generally, BizTalk prefer to communicate via xml so in most of the cases when you have Pipeline specified as “XmlReceive” and “XmlTransmit” for receive location and send port respectively, you should not get above error.
Thanks for reading and please feel free to write your feedback or suggest any other configuration issues related with BizTalk Server 2006 R2.