ReliaSoft API Ante Service

The ReliaSoft API is installed with your ReliaSoft desktop applications. If you plan to run the API on a Windows desktop environment, no additional setup is required. However, if you plan to run the API on a Windows server, you must use locally hosted licensing and you'll need to install the ReliaSoft API Ante Service on the server. The service acts as a bridge between your license server and API clients, allowing the implementation to scale up.

There are three architectural components to making the server-based API calls work: the license server, the API Ante service, and your API client program. All of these components may run on the same machine or on separate networked machines.

Prerequisites

The API Ante service is based on WCF technology and requires .NET Framework 4.6.1 or greater to run. Communication between the service and clients is done over TCP and is secured point-to-point via Windows authentication; therefore, the service and any clients must have domain user credentials to run successfully. Also, your server OS and .NET Framework 4.6.1 must be 64-bit.

Before installing the API Ante service, be sure to have configured your license server according to these instructions.

Installing the ReliaSoft API Ante Service

You may need assistance from a system administrator to complete the installation.

1. Run ReliaSoftAPIAnteService64Pack_1.0.0.0.exe and extract the Ante service files to a location of your choice.

2. On the computer where the API Ante service will run, create or configure a domain user that has permission to log on as a service and to access the network.

   For this user, set the environment variable HBMUK_LICENSE_PATH to the value PORT@HOST where PORT and HOST are the port and hostname for the license server. (See DistributionFiles\set-license-path.bat for an example of setting this environment variable.)

3. In the DistributionFiles\ directory, right-click the install-service64.bat file and choose Run as administrator. [1]

   You will be prompted for a login name and password. Provide the credentials of the user configured in step 2. Prepend the domain name like so: DOMAIN\USER.

   To check whether the installation was successful, look for the following output:

    

   ...
   Beginning the Install phase of the installation.
   ...
   Service RSAPIAnteService has been successfully installed.
   ...
   The Install phase completed successfully, and the Commit phase is beginning.
   ...
   The Commit phase completed successfully.
   
   The transacted install has completed.

4. Start the service. The following case-sensitive arguments may also be provided:

   • /P - The port on which the service will listen for API clients. Default is 64132.

   • /V - Verbose logging. Some messages will not be published to the Windows event log without this flag.

   An example usage: /P 8532 /V

5. Make a firewall rule to open the port used in step 4.

6. Optional admin settings:

   • To create a simple filter for capturing messages from the service, open the Windows Event Viewer, then choose Action > Import Custom View and select RSAPIAnteService_CustomView.xml from the provided distribution files.

   • To configure automatic restart upon error/failure, open the Windows Services tool. Find the ReliaSoft API Ante Service in the list and view its properties. On the Recovery tab, choose Restart the Service in the First failure, Second failure and Subsequent failures fields, and select the Enable actions for stops with errors check box.

   • Consider configuring the service to automatically launch at startup.

7. On the computer where the API client will run, two environment variables must be set:

   • The API client must be able to find the license server. Set the HBMUK_LICENSE_PATH variable to the same value used in step 2 for the API user. (See DistributionFiles\set-license-path.bat for an example of setting this environment variable.)

   • The RS_ANTESERV_PATH variable tells the API client where to find the Ante service. Use the PORT@HOST format where PORT is the value from step 4 and HOST is the hostname of the computer where the service was installed in step 3. (See DistributionFiles\set-anteserv-path.bat for an example of setting this environment variable.)

      

[1] The install scripts assume that the installer program (InstallUtil.exe) is located at the default .NET Framework install location. If the install fails, first open the script and make sure the supplied path is correct for your .NET Framework installation. If the path is incorrect, find the location of InstallUtil.exe and copy its full path into the script. Then save and try running again.