Commerce Server configuration

The Commerce Server Configuration wizard has the options of being run automatically after installation, or run independently at a later time.

The Configuration command line tool provides IT professionals a way to perform silent configuration and automate deployment configuration throughout an enterprise network. The Configuration wizard needs to be run on any machine that you plan to use to talk to Commerce Server, and performs the following tasks:

Creates the Commerce Server admin database, or connects the machine to an existing admin database. The connection string for this admin database is stored in the registry, and used by the Commerce Server Core. A machine can only talk to one admin database.
Configures Commerce Server Staging by enabling the Windows Service and assigning a service account to it.
Registers Performance Counters.
Registers COM & COM+ objects for all sub-systems, such as Catalog, Profiles, and Orders.
- Commerce Server Config, for the Administration API.
- Commerce Server Catalog Import Host, for handling Catalog import and export.
- Commerce Server Orders, for running the Commerce Server pipelines and Orders transactions.
- Commerce Server Promocode Generator, for generating promotion codes.
Creates the Widgets Virtual Directory in IIS, which is used by Commerce Server Manager to manage the Profile sub-system schema.

The Configuration wizard can also be run in silent mode with a configuration file to tell the wizard the various settings you need. Silent mode is the only way to avoid installing staging, which is accomplished by not adding the staging configuration node to the configuration file.

The switches for CSConfig are as follows:

/f Forces the configuration of all features, even if they are already configured.

/l Specifies a custom log file. A log file with a timestamp based name is created in the temp directory by default.

/r Applies the configuration to a comma separated list of features. This can be combined with /u.

/s Silently (progress bar only) configures the product features based on the settings in an xml file.

/i Silently (no progress bar) configures the product features based on the settings in an xml file.

/u Silently (progress bar only) removes the configuration for the product.

For example, the contents for a configuration xml file for the /s option:

<Configuration>
  <SQL ID="CommerceAdminDB">
    <Server>.</Server>
    <Database>MSCS_Admin</Database>
    <WindowsSecurity>no</WindowsSecurity>
   <UserName>sa</UserName>
   <Password>sa_password</Password>
  </SQL>
  <VirtualDirectory ID="Publishing" Create="True"/>
</Configuration>

To start the unattended configuration, open a command prompt, navigate to the Commerce Server install folder, type the following, and then press ENTER:

CSConfig.exe /<option name> <parameters>

For example, the following statement uses the CSConfig.xml configuration file to configure all Commerce Server features:

CSConfig.exe /f /l %systemdrive%\install.log /s CSConfig.xml

You can create a CSConfig.xml file by running the Configuration wizard manually, and then saving your settings at the end of the wizard. Or you can create your own by adding the following settings to a file:

<Configuration>
  <VirtualDirectory ID="Publishing" Create="True"/>
  <NTService ID="StagingService">
    <UserName>CSStageSvc</UserName>
    <Domain>MyDomain</Domain>
    <Password />
  </NTService>
  <SQL ID="CommerceAdminDB">
    <Server>SQLServer</Server>
    <Database>MSCS_Admin</Database> 
        <WindowsSecurity>yes</WindowsSecurity>
    <Password />
  </SQL>
</Configuration>

For the /r option, the following are the available features:

Feature.MS.CS.Core Commerce Server Pipelines

Feature.MS.CS.Marketing Marketing List Manager

Feature.MS.CS.Admin Administration Database

Feature.MS.CS.Catalog Catalog Import Host

Feature.MS.CS.PCGN Marketing Coupon Generator

Feature.MS.CS.Misc Profiles Schema Manager

Feature.MS.CS.Orders Orders COM+ Applications

Feature.MS.CS.PerfCounters Performance Counters

Feature.MS.CS.CsStaging Staging Service

These can be specified with the /r switch for CSConfig. The list of features to be installed needs to be within quotes and comma delimited.