Developing Provider Hosted App on SharePoint 2013 Part 1

In this blog I will write about how to configure your on premise 2013 SharePoint for App modal deployments. In my part 2 blog I will create a provider hosted app and publish it on SharePoint.  I will explain the steps consider SharePoint for Production environment.

Pre Requisite:

SharePoint 2013 is installed.  Https web application is already created on port 443 (or any port for simplicity I am taking default 443 port in this article).

Step 1: Provide a secondary IP Address to your SharePoint Machine

• Secondary IP for this article is 10.0.0.14
• Primary IP for this article is 10.0.0.12

1. Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
2. Click Network and Internet, and then click Network and Sharing Center.
3. Click the network interface (Local Area Connection).
4. Click Properties.
5. In the Local Area Connection Properties page, click Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4), click Properties, and then click Advanced.
6. Click Add.
7. In the TCP/IP Address dialog box, type the secondary private IP address in the IP address box. In the Subnet mask box, type the same subnet mask that you entered for the primary private IP address and then click Add.
8. Verify the IP address settings, and then click OK.
9. Click OK again, and then click Close.
10. To confirm that the secondary IP address has been added to the operating system, at a command prompt, run the command ipconfig /all.

Step 2: Create a forward lookup zone for the app domain name (for e.g.: SPComm.com).

1. Verify that the user account that performs this procedure is a local administrator on the domain controller.
2. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click DNS.
3. In DNS Manager, right-click Forward Lookup Zones, and then click New Zone….
4. In the New Zone Wizard, click Next.
5. In the Zone Type page, accept the default of Primary zone, and then click Next.
6. In the Active Directory Zone Replication Scope page, select the appropriate replication method for your environment (the default is To all DNS servers in this domain), and then click Next.
7. In the Zone Name page, in the Zone name box type the name for your new app domain name (for example, ContosoApps.com), and then click Next.

The New Zone Wizard shows the new domain name for apps.

1. On the Dynamic Update page, select the appropriate type of dynamic updates for your environment (the default is Do not allow dynamic updates), and then click Next.
2. On the Completing the New Zone Wizard page, review the settings, and then click Finish.

Step 4: To create a wildcard Alias (CNAME) record for the new domain name

1. Verify that the user account that performs this procedure is a local administrator on the domain controller.
2. In DNS Manager, under Forward Lookup Zones, right-click the new app domain name, and then click New Alias (CNAME).
3. In the New Resource Record dialog box, in the Alias name (uses parent domain if left blank) box, type *.

The Fully qualified domain name (FQDN) box displays *. followed by the domain name that you created for apps. For example, *.ContosoApps.com or *.Contoso-Apps.com.

4. Next to the Fully qualified domain name (FQDN) for target host box, type the FQDN of the server that hosts the SharePoint sites.

For example, SharePoint.Contoso.com.

Or:

For example, Contoso.com.

For example, SharePoint.

New Resource Record dialog box shows the wildcard alias for the app domain and the FQDN of the server that hosts the SharePoint sites (this should be with secondary IP address i.e. 10.0.0.14) 

5. Click OK.

Step 5: Create a wild card domain certificate with name same as wild card CNAME from above step.

Step 6: Configure Web Applications to Use the Secondary Private IP Address

To configure IIS to use the secondary private IP address

1. Open Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
2. In the Connections pane, expand Sites.
3. Right-click your website, and then click Edit Bindings.
4. In the Site Bindings dialog box, under Type, click http, and then click Edit.
5. In the Edit Site Binding dialog box, in the IP address box, click the secondary IP address (10.0.0.14) also select type as https.
6. In SSL certificate provide the wild card certificate generate above.
7. Click OK, and then click Close.

Step 7: Configure the Subscription Settings and App Management service applications

1. Verify that you are a member of the farm administrators group in Central Administration.
2. In SharePoint 2013 Central Administration, click System Settings.
3. On the System Settings page, under Servers, click Manage services on server.
4. On the Services on Server page, next to App Management Service, click Start.
5. On the Services on Server page, next to Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings Service, click Start.
6. Verify that the App Management and Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Subscription Settings services are running. The following illustration shows the Services on Server page where you can verify that the App Management and Subscription Settings services are running.

Services on Server showing the App Management and Subscription Settings services running.

1. Now setup proxy for these service applications

Open SharePoint Management Shell in Administrator mode and run following PowerShell command

$account = Get-SPManagedAccount "ManageAccount"

$appPoolSubSvc = New-SPServiceApplicationPool -Name SettingsServiceAppPool -Account $account

$appSubSvc = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplication –ApplicationPool $appPoolSubSvc –Name SettingsServiceApp –DatabaseName SettingsServiceDB

$proxySubSvc = New-SPSubscriptionSettingsServiceApplicationProxy –ServiceApplication $appSubSvc

For App Management Service

$account = Get-SPManagedAccount "ManageAccount"

$appPoolAppSvc = New-SPServiceApplicationPool -Name AppServiceAppPool -Account $account

$appAppSvc = New-SPAppManagementServiceApplication -ApplicationPool $appPoolAppSvc -Name AppServiceApp -DatabaseName AppServiceDB

$proxyAppSvc = New-SPAppManagementServiceApplicationProxy -ServiceApplication $appAppSvc

Step 8: Configure the app URLs to use

1. In Central Administration, click Apps.
2. On the Apps page, click Configure App URLs.
3. In the App domain box, type the isolated domain that you created for hosting apps (in step1).

For example, SPCommApps.com.

1. In the App prefix box, type a name to use for the URL prefix for apps.

For example, you could use “apps” as the prefix so that you would see a URL for each app such as “apps-12345678ABCDEF. SPCommApps.com”. The following illustration shows the Configure App URLs page after you have filled in the App domain and prefix.

Your SharePoint environment is ready to be used for App modal.

In Part 2 I will explain how to deploy a Provider Hosted App on SharePoint.

Download the attachment which contains images also for each steps.