Business Central web server

Path: Business Central on-premises > Deployment > Business Central web server · tier official · system none · narrative reviewed (checked by Opus)

Overview

The Business Central web server runs as an ASP.NET Core application on IIS and serves the web client. This section explains how to deploy those components, prepare IIS, create one or more web server instances, and secure and tune them.

Start with “Deploy the Web Server Components” for the overview of network topology, instance creation methods and security. Then use “Configuring Internet Information Services for Business Central” for required IIS features and ARR headers, and “Configuring Business Central Web Server instances” for navsettings.json settings. The remaining pages cover specific tasks: SSL, multiple instances through PowerShell, tenant host names, and delegation when the web server and server instance are on separate computers.

Key points

• Web server components run as ASP.NET Core on IIS; IIS needs specific features such as ASP.NET and .NET Extensibility.
• Application Request Routing header configuration, including X-Forwarded-Proto, is described for the IIS setup.
• Instance settings live in navsettings.json (credential types, SSL/HTTPS, session timeout, authentication, portal embedding) and can be edited directly or with PowerShell cmdlets.
• SSL setup involves obtaining a certificate, adding an HTTPS binding, and optionally redirecting HTTP to HTTPS.
• Multiple instances are managed with New-NAVWebServerInstance, Set-NAVWebServerInstanceConfiguration, Get-NAVWebServerInstance and Remove-NAVWebServerInstance, deployed as RootSite or SubSite.
• Multitenant deployments need a URL rewrite rule in web.config so the web server accepts tenant host names.
• Delegation across separate computers uses Kerberos, constrained delegation, service principal names and Active Directory configuration, with steps differing for version 20 and version 21 and later.

Learn pages

• Configure Web Client Delegation: The client device, Web Client, and Server are on separate computers. Web Client performs actions on behalf of client device called impersonation process.
• Configuring Business Central Web Server instances: Learn about the different configuration settings when you deploy the Business Central web server on-premises.
• Configuring Internet Information Services for Business Central: Learn to configuration of Internet Information Service that is required for running the web client.
• Configuring SSL to Secure the Web Client Connection: Learn how to secure data that is transmitted over the internet by enabling Secure Sockets Layer on the connection to Web Client.
• Deploy the Web Server Components: Understand the network architecture, users, security, deployment phases for installing and configuring the Business Central Web Server Components.
• Set Up Multiple Business Central Web Server Instances using PowerShell: Learn how to use Windows PowerShell to set up more than one web server instance on Internet Information Service (IIS) for the Business Central web client.
• Web Client Configuration for Tenants: To deploy the Dynamics NAV Web Client in a multitenant development architecture, URLs must specify the tenant ID to access a specific tenant.

Source: Microsoft Learn (CC BY 4.0). Descriptions are Learn’s own.