Server Prerequisites and Dependencies

The items listed in this section form some of the dependencies required to run SilhouetteCentral.

It is not intended that this guide offer complete installation instructions for these components as each have their own complete guides. This guide provides instructions on required configuration options.

Standard configuration and security hardening of these dependencies are not included in this guide.

Add the Web Server role to Microsoft Windows Server (Internet Information Services IIS)

Prior to the installation of SilhouetteCentral you must ensure the server you are installing onto has Internet Information Server (IIS) installed and configured. IIS is an optional component of the Microsoft Windows operating system.

IIS has many optional features. Silhouette requires the following IIS feature set as a minimum:

Web Server > Common HTTP Features > Static Content (Web-Static-Content)
Web Server > Application Development > Application Initialization (Web-AppInit)
Web Server > Application Development > ASP.NET 4.71 (Web-Asp-Net45)
Web Server > Application Development > WebSocket Protocol (Web-WebSockets)
Management Tools > IIS Management Console (Web-Mgmt-Console)

Follow the instructions for adding features to IIS for your version of Microsoft Windows Server.

The names of the features in brackets above are the feature names used when working to install via powershell. For example:

Import-Module ServerManager

Add-WindowsFeature Web-Static-Content,Web-ASP-Net45,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-AppInit, Web-WebSockets

Installing using the powershell cmdlet to add features includes just the features listed, it does not include all components selected by default when installing using the Server Manager UI. For example, the components Web-Dir-Browsing, Web-Http-Errors, Web-Http-Logging and Web-Stat-Compression are selected by default when installing using the Server Manager UI.

Update .NET Framework 4

The SilhouetteCentral web application uses Microsoft .NET Framework v4.8, which must be installed on the server in addition to IIS. If .NET v4.8 is not already installed, .NET can be downloaded from https://dotnet.microsoft.com/. In some circumstances a reboot of the server may be required during or after the installation.

Refer to Microsoft's website for "How to: Determine which .NET Framework versions are installed?" to determine which versions of the .NET Framework are installed.

Windows updates can occasionally cause problems with installed .NET frameworks. Microsoft offer a "Microsoft .NET Framework Repair Tool" that detects and repairs frequently occurring .NET Framework issues. This repair tool should be run if SilhouetteCentral reports non-Silhouette related errors when trying to start.

Add .NET Core v3.1 Runtime

The SilhouetteTokenService component of Silhouette uses the ASP.NET Core v3.1 Runtime. A hosting bundle is available which includes the .NET Core Runtime and the IIS runtime support (ASP.NET Core Module) and it is recommended to install the hosting bundle.

Add VC++ Runtime

The SilhouetteCentral website requires that VC++ v14 runtime is installed (the version supported by Visual Studio 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022) to show the Help and About page. Server environments often already have the required runtime, however, the installer can be downloaded directly from Mircosoft if required, see https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe.