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Configuring an Apache web server for Cognos 8 BI Server

by admin on May 13, 2008

The first post-installation task after installing Cognos 8 is to configure the web server gateway. This article will step through configuring Apache for use with Cognos 8. For Cognos ReportNet, the same instructions apply, but the directories will be different. Create the web aliases or virtual directories.

c8 represents where Cognos 8 is installed.

Find the httpd.conf file in the Apache/conf directory. Make a copy of this file as a backup. (Either copy it to another directory or make a copy with a different name.) Open the httpd.conf file in a text editor. At the bottom of the file, add the following lines:

ScriptAlias /cognos8/cgi-bin "c:/program files/cognos/c8/cgi-bin"

<Directory "c:/program files/cognos/c8/cgi-bin">

Options FollowSymLinks

AllowOverride FileInfo

Order Allow,Deny

Allow from All

</Directory>

Alias /cognos8 "c:/program files/cognos/c8/webcontent"

<Directory "c:/program files/cognos/c8/webcontent">

Options FollowSymLinks

AllowOverride FileInfo

Order Allow,Deny

Allow from All

</Directory>

Save the http.conf file and restart Apache. Going to the virtual directory (ex., http://localhost/cognos8) will now bring up the Cognos 8 welcome page.

Virtual directory File System Directory Permission Required

cognos8 c8/webcontent read

cognos8/cgi-bin c8/cgi-bin execute

Notes:

� The ScriptAlias section must be before the Alias section. � The actual directory path has quotation marks around it because of the space in the path; otherwise, the quotation marks are not necessary. � By default, access to any directories on the server is denied by Apache. The <Directory> section explicitly allows Apache to access

the Cognos 8 directories. If this is mis-configured, then you will see the a 403 error, and “client denied by server configuration” errors in the Apache error.log file.

� The “cognos8″ string can be changed to another name, but only if the Gateway URI parameter in Cognos Configuration is also changed. The cgi-bin string cannot be changed.

Troubleshooting

Apache will not start after editing the httpd.conf file If Apache will not start, there is likely a problem with the syntax in the httpd.conf file. Hopefully the message will give an indication of the problem. If you cannot find the problem, revert to the backup copy and start again.

404 error – Object not found The 404 error indicates that the virtual directory does not exist. Double check the alias names in the httpd.conf file.

403 error – Access forbidden The 403 error indicates a permissions problem. The Apache server might be running under an account that does not have read access to the Cognos 8 directories. Another possibility is that the alias is pointing to the wrong directory. The error.log file in the apache/logs directory should have an error message with more specific details.

Another item to check is to ensure that the web server has read access to the cogstartup.xml file in the c8/configuration directory. Unable to connect to the Cognos BI server If you see this error, then the virtual directories are configured correctly. The problem is that the Cognos 8 service is not running.

{ 19 comments }

Anonymous May 22, 2008 at 10:06 am

Thanks a million …this helps a lot

jay June 26, 2008 at 1:33 am

Hi… Thanks a lot for this. really helpful for beginners…

catur.wibawa August 22, 2008 at 12:20 am

its really great dude …. thankz a lot

esther September 10, 2008 at 8:19 am

Hello in my own case am using IIS and am getting same error as cognos gateway unable to connect to BI SERVER.but i notice my cognos service on the system start up and stop automatically.please can you help me out.

Velu Vijayakumar November 7, 2008 at 3:30 am

Its really help me. Thanks

heet November 20, 2008 at 11:03 pm

Thanks alot this was really helpful!!!

Anonymous from Canada January 2, 2009 at 7:35 pm

Great instructions, very precise. It helped me a lot, thanks!

Ammar January 6, 2009 at 3:55 am

What if I am getting error 500? I am using Apache web server. I have installed cognos in d drive though. Cognos service is started without any issue. But when I open the browser, get HTTP 500 No context defined error message.

Any help??

Wolfgang January 7, 2009 at 7:15 am

Thanks a lot. This was a real helpful description!!!

Mayuri January 30, 2009 at 1:26 am

Excellent! Thanks a ton.

Info seeker February 12, 2009 at 8:39 pm

Very nice my problem was that after setting up everything i got the default page of cognos but no images..was breaking my head but then your ‘Alias ‘ instruction helped me a lot!! u ROCK !! thanks for your knowledge sharing

Amjad February 22, 2009 at 4:00 am

Hello,

Good to see installtion stuff in detail. IT helps me a lot. I have question on installtion of congos. I have gone the procedure as shown above but after installtion i could not find httpd.conf in my system. Could you please help me out.

Thanks a lot!!

NuthanV February 26, 2009 at 5:19 am

Thanks for the detailed instructions. It helps a lot !!

Nimish March 7, 2009 at 3:56 pm

Your documentation is just wow, boss. I had to switch from IIS to Apache and was hitting roadblocks. First the Alias problem,then the ScriptAlias Problem and lastly the Directory problem. Was playing with these parameters and getting http 403 error…then looked up your documentation. Now everything is working fine. Including CP. Appreciate all ur help.

ajay March 14, 2009 at 12:10 pm

thanks buddy, it helped save lot of my time

Kevin Dimond April 27, 2009 at 6:27 pm

Saved me a lot of time and relieved my headache trying to get this thing to work. If anyone is using WAMP instead of XAMPP, the instructions are identical.

Martin Pavlik June 3, 2009 at 12:38 pm

I tried to run Cognos 8.4 with Apache 2.2 according to documentation (it means as PHP module – with usage mod2_2_cognos.dll file in cognos/c8/cgi-bin) with no luck (still getting strange errors regarding the other dll (mod2_2_cognos.dll). When I tried to run it as CGI script, it works perfectly. Thanks a lot.

vamsi June 24, 2009 at 2:24 pm

Thanks a ton dude. It helped me a lot

saeed July 7, 2009 at 6:52 pm

thanks a lot. it helped me too.

Comments on this entry are closed.

Previous post: Setting up the Cognos 8 Samples on DB2

Next post: Silent Installation of Cognos 8

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