Quick Installation Guide for a

Developer Workstation
A quick guide to installing the Sitecore XP Single topology.

June 22, 2021

Sitecore Experience Platform 10.1.1
Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

Table of Contents
1. Choosing a topology .................................................................................................................. 3
1.1. On-premise topology options .............................................................................................. 4
1.2. Sitecore XP developer installation options ........................................................................... 5
2. Server requirements .................................................................................................................. 7
2.1. Hardware requirements for a server running a single Sitecore installation .......................... 7
2.2. IIS requirements ................................................................................................................. 8
2.3. Operating system requirements .......................................................................................... 8
2.4. .NET requirements .............................................................................................................. 8
2.5. Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 redistributable requirements ..................................................... 9
2.6. Database requirements ...................................................................................................... 9
2.6.1. Microsoft SQL Server drivers and utilities ..................................................................... 9
2.6.2. Database collation ...................................................................................................... 10
2.7. Enable Contained Database Authentication ....................................................................... 10
2.8. Search indexing requirements .......................................................................................... 10
2.9. Installing Solr .................................................................................................................... 11
2.10. Antivirus software considerations ................................................................................... 11
2.11. Prerequisites for using the Sitecore Install Framework .................................................... 12
3. Installing Sitecore XP with the Sitecore Install Assistant ............................................................ 13
3.1. Download the Sitecore Install Assistant ............................................................................. 13
3.2. Review prerequisites and requirements ............................................................................ 13
3.3. Use SIA to install Sitecorer XP ............................................................................................ 14
4. Sitecore Installation Framework ............................................................................................... 16
4.1. Set up Sitecore Installation Framework ............................................................................. 16
4.1.1. Install the SIF Module using MyGet ............................................................................. 16
4.1.2. Validate the installation .............................................................................................. 17
4.1.3. Run multiple versions of SIF ....................................................................................... 17
4.1.4. Run a specific version of SIF ........................................................................................ 17
5. Install Sitecore XP Single Developer (XP0) using SIF .................................................................. 19
5.1. XP Single Developer (XP0) topology ................................................................................... 19
5.2. Download and organize the prerequisite and installation files ........................................... 20
5.3. Install the prerequisites ..................................................................................................... 21
5.4. Run the installation script for the XP Single Developer topology ........................................ 21
5.5. Rebuild the search indexes and the Link database ............................................................ 22
6. Uninstall a Sitecore Single Developer topology ......................................................................... 23
6.1. Uninstall a SIF configuration file ........................................................................................ 23
6.2. Uninstall the Sitecore XP Single Developer topology .......................................................... 24
7. Configure Azure Cognitive Search ............................................................................................ 25
8. Common issues ....................................................................................................................... 27

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

1. Choosing a topology

Before you install Sitecore Experience Platform, you must choose the topology or the type of instance
that you want to install.

Sitecore supports the following topologies for on-premise installations by default:

• XP Single Developer (XP0)

• XM Scaled (XM1)
• XP Scaled (XP1)

This guide describes how to install the XP Single Developer topology.

If you want to install one of the other topologies, download the installation guide for that topology.

You can configure the topology to match your business needs. There are several scalability options
that you can use to achieve better performance, cope with greater website demand, and manage
large amounts of website traffic. For more information about scaling, see Scaling options.

Azure Cloud supports additional deployment topologies. For more information, see the
documentation about Sitecore configurations and topology for Azure.

IMPORTANT
To deploy Sitecore XP in Azure Cloud, you must use Sitecore Azure Toolkit and the
appropriate Sitecore Azure WDPs.

This chapter contains the following sections:

• On-premise topology options

• Sitecore XP developer installation options

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1.1. On-premise topology options

The following topologies are available:

Deployment Description
topology

XP Single Use this topology for local development and testing.

Developer (XP0)
The Sitecore Experience Platform, runs as three single instances: Sitecore, xConnect,
and Sitecore Identity server. The Experience Database (xDB) is partially included in the
Sitecore and xConnect instances.

NOTE
For security and scalability reasons, in production environments, it
is best practice to use the XM Scaled (XM1) or XP Scaled (XP1)
configuration.

This option runs all the services on a single server.

XM Scaled (XM1) Use this topology if you are not planning to use the analytics and marketing features in
the Sitecore Experience Platform.

The Sitecore Experience Manager configuration (similar to CMS-only mode) runs the
Content Delivery (CD), Content Management (CM) server roles and the Sitecore Identity
server.

NOTE
When you select this topology, xDB and xConnect are not available.

This option runs the services on one or more servers.

XP Scaled (XP1) Use this topology if you are planning a fully featured Sitecore Experience Platform
installation.

The Sitecore Experience Platform configuration runs the following separated server
roles:

• Content Delivery

• Content Management

• Email Experience Dedicated Dispatch Server (optional)

• Sitecore Identity

• Processing

• xConnect Collection

• xConnect Collection Search

• xDB Reference Data

• xDB Automation Operations

• xDB Automation Reporting

• Sitecore Cortex™ Processing Engine

• Sitecore Cortex™ Reporting service

This option runs the services on one or more servers.

There are different ways to install Experience Manager (XM). You can use:

• Sitecore XM Scaled topology packages.

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

• Sitecore XP Single or the XP Scaled topology packages and then configure the installation to run
in CMS-only mode.
• Sitecore containers.

In a Sitecore Experience Manager installation, the functionality that you can use is different depending
on how you installed Sitecore XM.

NOTE
This document does not describe how to configure the Sitecore Email Experience
Manager. For more information, see the Sitecore Email Campaign Manager
documentation.

1.2. Sitecore XP developer installation options

You can use the Sitecore Install Framework (SIF) or the Sitecore Install Assistant (SIA) to install the
Sitecore XP0 topology.

Sitecore Install Framework (SIF) is a Microsoft® PowerShell module that supports local and remote
installations of Sitecore Experience Platform.

Sitecore Install Assistant (SIA) was introduced in Sitecore XP 9.2.0 and contains an intuitive graphical
user interface that guides you through the installation process. In addition to being easier to use than
SIF, it also:

• Optionally installs and configures the required version of the Solr search service.
Solr is a prerequisite for installing all Sitecore Experience platform topologies.
• Optionally installs Sitecore Experience Accelerator (SXA).
• Configures the Microsoft Windows Server options, configuration settings, and applications
required by Sitecore Experience Platform.
• Validates the specified installation parameters and settings.

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

The following is an example of a page in the Sitecore Install Assistant:

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

2. Server requirements

Before installing Sitecore Experience Platform, you must ensure that you have all of the requirements
and prerequisites in place.

If you are using Sitecore Install Assistant (SIA) to install Sitecore XP, most of the software prerequisites
and requirements are managed by SIA.

This chapter contains the following sections:

• Hardware requirements for a server running a single Sitecore installation

• IIS requirements

• Operating system requirements

• .NET requirements

• Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 redistributable requirements

• Database requirements

• Enable Contained Database Authentication

• Search indexing requirements

• Installing Solr

• Antivirus software considerations

• Prerequisites for using the Sitecore Install Framework

2.1. Hardware requirements for a server running a single

Sitecore installation
To run a single Sitecore installation, the minimum configuration requirements are:

• 4 core processor

• 16 GB of RAM

NOTE
The recommended hardware requirements are for running the software on a single
computer. For more information about running Sitecore on different kinds of
hardware, consult your Sitecore partner or technical sales representative.

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

2.2. IIS requirements

Sitecore Experience Platform can be hosted on the following IIS versions:

• IIS 10.0

You must use the version of IIS that your operating system supports. For more information about IIS
and operating systems, see Microsoft’s documentation.

Sitecore Experience Platform does not officially support any other ASP.NET web servers such as IIS
Express, or Mono Web Server.

Sitecore Experience Platform neither supports nor allows multiple IIS website definitions to point to
the same Sitecore web root.

2.3. Operating system requirements

Sitecore Experience Platform 10.0.0 - 10.2.0 is only compatible with the client and server operating
systems that support .NET Framework 4.8.0.

Sitecore Experience Platform can be hosted on the following Microsoft operating systems:

• Windows Server 2019

• Windows Server 2016
• Windows 10 (64-bit)

IMPORTANT
You must enable the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocol version 1.2 on all of your
Sitecore Experience Platform content management and Dedicated Dispatch servers
(DDS).

For more information about enabling TLS 1.2, see Microsoft’s documentation.

IMPORTANT
Run Windows Update and install all the appropriate service packs and security updates.

2.4. .NET requirements

Sitecore Experience Platform 10.0.0 - 10.2.0 requires .NET Framework 4.8.0.

Sitecore Identity server requires .NET Core 2.1.18 Windows Hosting Module or later.

You must apply any available updates to the .NET Framework on every Sitecore installation.

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

2.5. Microsoft Visual C++ 2015 redistributable requirements

Sitecore Experience Platform 9.0 Update-1 introduced a new prerequisite for the Microsoft Visual C++
2015 Redistributable. For more information, see Microsoft's documentation.

NOTE
This redistributable may already be installed with Microsoft Windows. Without it,
Sitecore Experience Platform will fail to start up with the message:

Could not load file or assembly 'ChilkatDotNet46.dll' or one of its dependencies. The
specified module could not be found.

2.6. Database requirements

Sitecore Experience Platform supports the following database servers:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2017

• Microsoft SQL Server 2019

• Microsoft Azure SQL

You must create the Azure SQL instance in advance and pass the address and the server
administrator credentials in the corresponding parameters when you run the installation.
For more information, see the Sitecore XP documentation.

NOTE
In Sitecore 10.1.0, the MongoDB session state provider is no longer supported. You
must use the Redis session state provider or the SQL session state provider.

In Sitecore 10.1.0, the MongoDB xDB Collection database provider is no longer

supported. You must use SQL Server.

2.6.1. Microsoft SQL Server drivers and utilities

The following SQL utilities are required by the Sitecore Install Framework and are installed
automatically during the automatic prerequisite installation process.

If you decide to install the prerequisites manually, you must also install them on the xConnect
application server before running the Sitecore Install Framework installation template for xConnect or
the Single Developer workstation.

You must install:

• Microsoft ODBC Driver 13 for SQL Server

• Microsoft Command Line Utilities 13 for SQL Server

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

2.6.2. Database collation

All of the databases in Sitecore Experience Platform use the SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS collation,
except the Reference Data database that uses the case sensitive Latin1_General_CS_AS collation.

This is because comparisons in the Reference Data database are case sensitive and they are not case
sensitive in the other databases.

2.7. Enable Contained Database Authentication

When you use Web Deploy Packages, you must ensure that the target SQL Server is configured to
allow users and logins to be contained at the database level.

To configure the target SQL Server:

1. Launch Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and log in as an administrator.

2. Run the following new query:

EXEC sp_configure 'contained', 1;

RECONFIGURE;

NOTE
For more information about the contained database authentication option, see
Microsoft's documentation.

2.8. Search indexing requirements

Sitecore Experience Platform supports the following search providers:

• Solr 8.4.0
Solr is the default search provider and supports both content search and analytics search. Solr is
required to use the Sitecore Install Framework (SIF).
• Azure Search
The Azure Search provider is supported and recommended for Azure Cloud PaaS deployments
only. Azure search supports both content search and analytics search.
In PaaS solutions, you can use Azure Search, Solr, or SolrCloud in Azure. In on-premise solutions,
the Sitecore Install Framework requires Solr to deploy. After the deployment you can switch the
indexing to use Azure Search. For more information, see the section Configure Azure Search.

NOTE
Azure Search was deprecated in Sitecore XP 10.0.0 and will be completely
removed in a future release. If you are starting a new Sitecore project, we
recommend that you use Solr as your search engine.

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

NOTE
Support for Lucene was removed in Sitecore XP 9.3.0.

For more information about how to install and manage these index providers in Sitecore Experience
Platform, see the Sitecore documentation.

Since Sitecore XP 9.2.0, Sitecore content search includes functionality for extracting text from media
files, including PDFs and Microsoft Office documents, that does not require any additional tools. This
functionality replaces the Adobe IFilter implementation that was used in previous versions by default.

2.9. Installing Solr

The standard Sitecore Experience Platform configuration requires Solr. The Sitecore Experience
Platform is secure by default, you must, therefore, enable SSL for Solr.

Before you run the Sitecore Installation Framework, you must:

• Install Solr and configure it to run as a Windows service.

• Enable and set up SSL for Solr.

The Solr-Singledeveloper.json deployment configuration file installs and configures Solr with
SSL.

For local testing and development, you can set up a self-signed certificate. The Apache Solr Reference
guide has more information about creating a self-signed certificate.

2.10. Antivirus software considerations

Some antivirus software can have a detrimental effect on the performance of ASP.NET applications,
including Sitecore. We recommend that you use only antivirus scanners that are certified for your
operating system.

For more information about the certified products, see the Windows Server Catalog website.

For optimal performance, ensure that the following folders are not scanned by your antivirus
software:

• The site root folder

• The data folder defined in the web.config file

• The folder that contains the actual Sitecore database files

• The C:\Windows\Temp or {app_pool user profile}\Temp folder

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

NOTE
Active file scans from antivirus tools can significantly impact the performance of search
indexing software. This can lead to poor user experience or slow system performance.
Consider turning off any antivirus tools or modifying antivirus settings on the search
index server to exclude the application data folders from scans. For more information
about your search indexing software, consult the related documentation.

2.11. Prerequisites for using the Sitecore Install Framework

To use the Sitecore Install Framework to install Sitecore Experience Platform in an on-premise
environment, you must download and install:

• Microsoft PowerShell® version 5.1 or later

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

3. Installing Sitecore XP with the Sitecore Install

Assistant

This chapter describes how to use the Sitecore Install Assistant (SIA) to install the Sitecore XP for
developing and testing purposes.

You can use SIA to install the:

• Sitecore XP Single Developer (XP0) topology.

• Sitecore XM Scaled (XM1) topology

To install the Sitecore XP0 topology with the Sitecore Install Framework (SIF), see Install Sitecore XP
Single Developer (XP0) using SIF.

This chapter contains the following sections:

• Download the Sitecore Install Assistant

• Review prerequisites and requirements
• Use SIA to install Sitecorer XP

3.1. Download the Sitecore Install Assistant

To download the Sitecore Install Assistant:

• After you download the file, unpack SIA and store it on the computer where you want to install
Sitecore XP.
The package includes:
• setup.exe - the SIA executable file.

• JSON configuration files.

• ZIP program files.

3.2. Review prerequisites and requirements

SIA requires .NET Framework 4.8.0.

Before you use SIA to install Sitecore XP, you must:

• Install SQL Server.

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

• Install all the operating system updates.

• Have a valid Sitecore license file.
• Ensure that your computer meets the minimum hardware requirements.
For more information, see Server requirements.

3.3. Use SIA to install Sitecorer XP

To use SIA:

1. Go to the folder where you unpacked SIA.

2. Run setup.exe - it runs with administrator permissions by default.

3. Review the information on the Welcome page and click Start.

4. SIA guides you through the installation process.

The left-hand panel contains the title of each SIA page. Green indicates that the page has been
completed and blue indicates the active page.

The following table contains a summary of the information required in each page of SIA:

Page Notes

Welcome Review the information on this page to ensure you are ready to start the installation
process.

Prerequisites This page installs the prerequisites:

• Sitecore Installation Framework (SIF) - a Microsoft® PowerShell module that

supports local and remote installations of Sitecore XP. This module is required.

• Windows Server prerequisites – the operating system applications and settings

required to run Sitecore XP.

To ensure that you have the latest version of SIF and that your operating system meets
the system requirements, we recommend that you select both options and click
Install.

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

Page Notes

Install Solr This optional page installs the Solr search provider. If you already have Solr installed,
click Skip. Otherwise, enter the appropriate information on the page and click Install.

If you choose to install Solr, Red Hat OpenJDK 8 (64-bit) is also installed.

Sitecore settings The Sitecore settings including the installation prefix, the administrator password, and
the location of the Sitecore license file.

Microsoft SQL The Microsoft SQL Server settings including the instance name, the admin user name,
Server settings and the admin password.

Solr settings The Solr settings including the service URL, the file system root, and the name of the
Solr Windows service.

Optional The optional Sitecore modules that you can install. Currently, Sitecore Experience
modules Accelerator (SXA) is the only available module.

Summary All the settings that you specified.

Review the information on this page and ensure that no changes are required. To
make some changes, click Back.

Validate This page checks that all the requirements are installed and configured correctly.

If all requirements are in place, click Install.

Install A summary of the installation process. An error terminates the installation process.

To review the installation process errors, as well as any errors that occurred, click Log.

Complete Tells you whether the installation has been successful.

If the installation has been successful, you can open the Sitecore Launchpad.

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

4. Sitecore Installation Framework

You can use the Sitecore Installation Framework (SIF) to install the Sitecore XP.

For information about how to use the Sitecore Install Assistant, see Installing Sitecore XP with the
Sitecore Install Assistant.

Before you can install Sitecore Experience Platform, you must set up SIF.

This chapter contains the following section:

• Set up Sitecore Installation Framework

4.1. Set up Sitecore Installation Framework

The Sitecore Installation Framework (SIF) is a Microsoft® PowerShell module that supports local and
remote installations of Sitecore Experience Platform.

SIF deploys Web Deploy Packages (WDP) by passing parameters to SIF configuration files through a
Microsoft® PowerShell module and is fully extensible.

The Sitecore Experience Platform is designed to be secure-by-default. For developer environments all
the required self-signed certificates are created automatically if you do not provide any.

In a production environment, you can provide your own certificates. In a non-production

environment, you can choose to have the module generate the certificates for you.

You must set up SIF before you can install Sitecore Experience Platform.

4.1.1. Install the SIF Module using MyGet

The Sitecore Gallery is a public MyGet feed where you can download and install PowerShell modules
created by Sitecore, including SIF.

To set up SIF:

1. In Windows, open PowerShell as an administrator.

2. To register the repository, in a PowerShell command line, run the following cmdlet:

Register-PSRepository -Name SitecoreGallery

-SourceLocation https://sitecore.myget.org/F/sc-powershell/api/v2

3. When prompted to install, press Y, and then press Enter.

4. To install the PowerShell module, run the following cmdlet:

Install-Module SitecoreInstallFramework

5. When prompted to install, press Y, and then press Enter.

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Update the Sitecore Installation Framework Module

When a newer version of the SIF module is available, you can update to the latest version by running a
PowerShell cmdlet.

To update the SIF module, run the following cmdlet:

Update-Module SitecoreInstallFramework

4.1.2. Validate the installation

After you install SIF, you can validate the installation to confirm that it is available for use.

NOTE
This validation only works if you have installed SIF to the All users (global) path.

To validate the installation, run the following cmdlet:

Get-Module SitecoreInstallFramework –ListAvailable

4.1.3. Run multiple versions of SIF

If you want to install a previous version of Sitecore Experience Platform on the same computer, you
must also have the required SIF version installed. PowerShell uses the latest available version of a
module in a session by default and you must import the specific version of SIF required for the
version of Sitecore that you want to install.

The versions of SIF that are compatible with Sitecore Experience Platform:

Sitecore Experience Platform Version SIF Version

9.0.X 1.2.1

9.1.0 2.0.0

9.1.1 2.1.0 or later

9.2.0 2.1.0 or later

9.3.0 2.2.0

10.X.X 2.3.0

To install a specific version of SIF:

1. Run the following cmdlet:

Install-Module -Name SitecoreInstallFramework -RequiredVersion x.x.x

2. Enter the appropriate value in the RequiredVersion parameter.

4.1.4. Run a specific version of SIF

To run a specific version of SIF:

• Run the following cmdlet:

Import-Module -Name SitecoreInstallFramework -Force -RequiredVersion x.x.x

You use the specified version for the remainder of the session.

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The next time you start a PowerShell session it automatically uses the latest available version.

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5. Install Sitecore XP Single Developer (XP0) using SIF

This chapter describes how to install Sitecore XP Single Developer (XP0) on a single computer using
Sitecore Installation Framework (SIF).

For information about how to use the Sitecore Install Assistant, see Installing Sitecore XP with the
Sitecore Install Assistant.

This chapter contains the following sections:

• XP Single Developer (XP0) topology

• Download and organize the prerequisite and installation files
• Install the prerequisites
• Run the installation script for the XP Single Developer topology

The Sitecore installation is a combination of .json configuration files and Web Deploy Packages
(WDPs).

You can download the relevant SIF configuration files and the WDPs for each of the topologies from
the Sitecore Downloads page.

SIF uses the .json configuration files to configure the environment and uses the WDP packages to
install the application and databases.

5.1. XP Single Developer (XP0) topology

The predefined XP Single Developer topology configures:

• A Sitecore stand-alone website that handles content management, content delivery, and
processing.
• The xConnect and xDB web services.
• The Sitecore Identity server - a stand-alone website that acts as an OpenID Connect compliant
security token service (STS).
• Search indexes on the Solr search engine.
• A Windows service that runs the Marketing Automation engine.
• A Windows service that runs the xConnect indexer.
• A Windows service that runs the Sitecore Cortex™ Processing Engine.
• The Sitecore Cortex™ Reporting service.
• The Sitecore content and xDB databases.
• A self-signed client certificate for secure communication between Sitecore and xConnect.

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• A self-signed server certificate for running HTTPS on the xConnect and xDB web services.

• A self-signed server certificate for running HTTPS on the Sitecore Identity server.

5.2. Download and organize the prerequisite and installation

files
The installation files must be located in a single folder. We recommend that you create a folder
named c:\resourcefiles.

To download installation files:

1. On the Sitecore Experience Platform download site, download Sitecore 10.1.1 rev.
005862 (WDP XP0 packages).zip. This file is listed in the Download options for On
Premises deployment section as Packages for XP Single.

2. Move this file to the C:\resourcefiles folder.

3. Unpack the ZIP file. The four files unpacked include:

• Sitecore 10.1.1 rev. 005862 (OnPrem)_single.scwdp.zip

• Sitecore 10.1.1 rev. 005862 (OnPrem)_xp0xconnect.scwdp.zip

• Sitecore.IdentityServer 5.1.1 rev. 00292

(OnPrem)_identityserver.scwdp.zip

• XP0 Configuration files 10.1.1 rev. 005862.zip

4. Copy the four ZIP files to the C:\resourcefiles folder.

5. Unpack the XP0 Configuration files 10.1.1 rev. 005862.zip file.

6. Copy the following unpacked files to the C:\resourcefiles folder:

• createcert.json

• IdentityServer.json

• Prerequisites.json

• sitecore-solr.json

• sitecore-XP0.json

• xconnect-solr.json

• xconnect-xp0.json

• XP0-SingleDeveloper.json

• XP0-SingleDeveloper.ps1

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5.3. Install the prerequisites

If you have manually installed all the prerequisites, skip this section.

To automatically install the prerequisites for any of the topologies on a single server:

1. Open PowerShell as an administrator and navigate to the c:\resourcefiles command line.

2. Run the following cmdlet:

Install-SitecoreConfiguration -Path .\Prerequisites.json

When the installation is complete, you might be informed that a server reboot is required.

5.4. Run the installation script for the XP Single Developer

topology
To simplify your installation, use a PowerShell script to install the Sitecore XP Single Developer (XP0)
topology.

To edit and run the installation script:

1. Save your Sitecore license file in the c:\resourcefiles folder as license.xml.

2. In the c:\resourcefiles folder, edit the XP0-SingleDeveloper.ps1 script and update
each line with the settings that are appropriate for your environment.
One of the settings that you must edit is SitecoreAdminPassword.
If you do not specify the Sitecore administrator password in the script and leave the example
value "SIF-Default" unchanged, a random password is generated for you. This password is
stored in the XP0-SingleDeveloper.log file, and displayed when the sitecore-xp0.json
file has been processed. To locate the password, search for Sitecore Admin Password.

IMPORTANT
The default Sitecore administrator password is not valid when you use this
script to install Sitecore XP.

3. Open PowerShell as an administrator, navigate to the c:\resourcefiles command line, and

run the following cmdlet:

.\XP0-SingleDeveloper.ps1

All the passwords for DB users and other secrets such as the Identity Server client secret and
the TelerikEncryptionKey are not displayed on the screen. They are automatically generated
and inserted into the appropriate configuration files.
If you add a DDS server, you must pass the generated passwords for the CM server to the DDS
SIF installation parameters. You can find the generated passwords in the installation logs and
in the App_Config/connectionStrings.config file on the CM server.
If the SqlCollectionUser parameter is not set to a custom value during the installation, the
prefix that is specified in the installation script is added to it.

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We recommend that you keep these scripts. You can use them to uninstall this topology.

5.5. Rebuild the search indexes and the Link database

After you install Sitecore Experience Platform, you must rebuild the search indexes and rebuild the
Link databases.

To rebuild all the indexes:

1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, click Control Panel, and in the Indexing section, click Indexing
manager.
2. In the Indexing Manager dialog box, click Select all, and then click Rebuild.

To rebuild the Link databases for the Master and Core databases:

1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, click Control Panel, and in the Database section, click Rebuild
Link Databases.
2. Select the Master and Core databases and then click Rebuild.

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6. Uninstall a Sitecore Single Developer topology

You can also use SIF to uninstall the SIF configuration files and the Sitecore XM Single Developer or
Sitecore XP Single Developer topologies.

This chapter contains the following sections:

• Uninstall a SIF configuration file

• Uninstall the Sitecore XP Single Developer topology

6.1. Uninstall a SIF configuration file

You can use SIF to uninstall a SIF configuration file on a local server.

To install a SIF configuration file on a local instance:

1. Launch PowerShell as an administrator.

2. Run the Uninstall-SitecoreConfiguration cmdlet, and specify the path to your SIF
configuration file.
For example, using the sitecore-XP0.json file:

Uninstall-SitecoreConfiguration –Path <configurationpath>\sitecore-XP0.json

Alternatively, you can pass in the parameters declared in the SIF configuration files by
prefixing their name with a dash “ -" in the command line.
For example:

Uninstall-SitecoreConfiguration -Path <configurationpath>\sitecore-XP0.json -SqlDbPrefix

SC.

In a PowerShell command line, you can pass additional parameters to control the uninstall
process.
For example, running the Verbose cmdlet increases the amount of information that is logged,
and the -Skip <taskname> cmdlet skips one or more tasks.

To correctly uninstall a SIF configuration, you must pass the same parameters that were used during
the installation.

The uninstallation is performed by a separate list of tasks within the configuration file. For more
information, see the SIF documentation.

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6.2. Uninstall the Sitecore XP Single Developer topology

To uninstall the Sitecore XP Single Developer topology:

1. In the XP0-SingleDeveloper.ps1 script, change the Install-SitecoreConfiguration

cmdlet to Uninstall-SitecoreConfiguration.
For example, change

Install-SitecoreConfiguration @singleDeveloperParams *>&1 | Tee-Object XP0-

SingleDeveloper.log

to

Uninstall-SitecoreConfiguration @singleDeveloperParams *>&1 | Tee-Object XP0-

SingleDeveloper-Uninstall.log

The example scripts contain this line already. You only need to uncomment and comment out
the appropriate lines.
2. Run the script and the topology is removed.

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

7. Configure Azure Cognitive Search

Sitecore Experience Platform supports Solr and Azure Cognitive Search as search providers.

IMPORTANT
In Sitecore XP 10.0.0, support for Azure Cognitive Search was deprecated and will be
completely removed in a later release.

In on-premise solutions, SIF and SIA require Solr. When the installation is completed, you can switch
to Azure Cognitive Search.

To configure Azure Cognitive Search for xConnect:

1. In the xconnect\App_data\config\sitecore\CollectionSearch folder:

Enable the following configuration file by removing the .disabled extension:

• sc.Xdb.Collection.IndexReader.AzureSearch.xml.disabled

Disable the following configuration files by adding the .disabled extension:

• sc.Xdb.Collection.IndexReader.SOLR.xml

• sc.Xdb.Collection.WebClient.SOLR.xml

2. In the xconnect\App_data\jobs\continous\IndexWorker\App_data\config
\sitecore folder, enable the following configuration files by removing the .disabled
extension:
• \SearchIndexer\sc.Xdb.Collection.IndexWriter.AzureSearch.xml.disabled

• \CollectionSearch
\sc.Xdb.Collection.IndexReader.AzureSearch.xml.disabled

3. In the xconnect\App_data\jobs\continous\IndexWorker\App_data\config
\sitecore folder, disable the following configuration files by adding the .disabled
extension:
• \CollectionSearch\sc.Xdb.Collection.IndexReader.SOLR.xml

• \CollectionSearch\sc.Xdb.Collection.WebClient.SOLR.xml

• \SearchIndexer\sc.Xdb.Collection.IndexWriter.SOLR.xml

4. In the \Search-indexer
\sc.Xdb.Collection.IndexWriter.AzureSearch.xml.disabled file, the
DataReplicationTimeoutMilliseconds setting is disabled by default.
If you use more than one replica, you must enable this setting.
5. In the following connection string files:
• xconnect\App_Config\ConnectionStrings.config

• xconnect\App_data\jobs\continuous\IndexWorker\App_config
\ConnectionStrings.config

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

Add (uncomment) and update the Azure Search connection string, the default name is
collection.search.

<add name="collection.search" connectionString="serviceUrl=https://

[service].search.windows.net/;indexName=[index name];apiKey=[API Key]"/>

To configure content search, see the following topics:

• Configure a search and indexing provider.

• Configure Azure Cognitive Search

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Quick Installation Guide for a Developer Workstation

8. Common issues

I get a 403.16 Forbidden error

• Check that your root certificate is in the Trusted Root Certificates Authority store of the Local
Computer, not the current user and that the Issued To and Issued By properties of the root
certificate match.

• Ensure you imported the certificates into the Local Computer’s certificate store, not the current
user’s certificate store.

• Ensure the certificate you created in IIS has a name that matches the site.
For example, CM_test.

• Ensure you pasted your thumbprint into a PowerShell command line window, and that you
removed the hidden character at the start of the string.

• Ensure your thumbprint is in uppercase letters.

For example: 3D703B5198D6D3CEE1D0C1B1BC9ECB6D34989BA4.
You can find the thumbprint in the following locations:

• Sitecore\App_Config\ConnectionStrings.config

• XConnect\App_Config\ConnectionStrings.config

• XConnect\App_Data\jobs\continuous\AutomationEngine\App_Config
\ConnectionStrings.config

• Ensure the self-signed certificate you created in IIS has the same name as your xConnect
instance.

• Ensure the client authentication certificate (under the local machine’s Personal store) has read
permissions for the IIS_IUSR group and the NETWORK SERVICE group.

My Solr index is empty

In the \xConnect\App_data\jobs\continuous\IndexWorker\App_data\Logs folder, check the
indexer’s log files.

If you have an error that says your remote certificate is invalid according to the validation procedure,
ensure that the indexer’s ConnectionStrings.config file is using localhost rather than
127.0.0.1 for the Solr core URL.

Microsoft.SqlServer.TransactSql.ScriptDom.dll is not installed

If this happens, you can see the following error: The SQL provider cannot run with dacpac option because
of a missing dependency. To resolve this issue, see this Knowledge Base article.

My Sitecore installation failed while I was using Skype

If you use Skype while you are installing Sitecore Experience Platform, it is possible that your
xConnect installation may fail. This occurs because Skype and Sitecore xConnect both use port 443,
which interferes with the installation.

If this happens, change your Skype configuration as described in Microsoft’s documentation.

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Failed installations
If an installation fails for any reason, you must clean up the partial installation before attempting
another installation.

To clean up a partial installation, run the configurations again with the Uninstall-
SitecoreConfiguration command with the same parameters as you used for the installation.

The createcert.json configuration file does not contain uninstallation tasks that remove
certificates because it is highly likely that the certificates, particularly the root certificates, are used
elsewhere.

To remove an incorrect certificate:

1. To open the Certificate Management console, in the Windows command prompt, enter
certlm.msc and press Enter.
To open the Certificate Management console for the Current User, enter certmgr.msc.

2. In the left pane, in the tree, expand the Personal node and select Certificates.
3. Select the incorrect certificate, right click it and then click Delete.
4. To remove the Root certificates, in the console, in the left hand pane, expand Certificates,
Trusted Root Certification Authorities, Certificates and select the incorrect certificate, right click it
and then click Delete.

After you have removed the failed installation, correct the errors in the launch script or configuration
files before attempting a new installation.

My Solr Schema is not populated

To populate the Solr schema:

1. On the Sitecore Launchpad, click Control Panel, and in the Indexing section, click Populate
Solr Managed Schema.
2. In the Schema Populate dialog box, click Select all, and then click Populate.

The Indexing Manager shows no results after rebuilding the indexes

This can happen if the Solr managed schema is not populated properly during deployment.

To solve this problem, re-populate the Solr schema.

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