EPiServer CMS Checklist: Deployment Checklist

Licenses

Order EPiServer licenses

Make sure to order EPiServer licenses well in advance for all the EPiServer products you use. EPiServer does not issue licenses outside office hours and might be closed for Swedish public holidays. Upgrading from CMS 6 to CMS 6 R2? Read this.

Order other licenses

If your site needs other licenses make sure to order tem well in advance.

DLLs Built for Release

Verify that all DLLs are built in “Release” mode

Reason: Performance

IIS

Create a separate Application Pool for the site and recycle at 05:00 AM

Every site should run in its own Application pool. The app pool should be automatically recycled at 05:00AM. IIS 7.5: Go to “Application Pools”, select the correct pool. Click “Recycling…” on the right side. Uncheck “Regular time intervals”. Check “Specific time(s)” and write “5:00 AM”. Click Next and Finished.

Disable IIS logging

Logging should be disabled until it’s needed. IIS 7.5: Logging - > Click “Disable” on the right side

Redirect non www address

Set up a redirect to redirect traffic from domain.com to www.domain.com

IIS 7.5: Install the URL Rewrite IIS module from Microsoft: http://www.iis.net/download/URLRewrite (Requires Administrator access, size: 6MB)

Click on “URL Rewrite” icon in IIS. Click “Add Rule(s)...” on the right side. Choose “Canonical domain name” template. Rename rule to “Redirect non-www domain name”.

IIS 7/7.5: Check that compression is on

Click the “Compression” icon. Check that both “Enable dynamic content compression” and “Enable static content compression” are turned on. If “dynamic compression” is greyed out you need to install the IIS module first. 

Web.config

Set compilation debug to false

Set the debug attribute of the compilation section to false.

Set attributes for mailsettings section

- host = the mail server that should be used to send mails
- from = set to an address or remove 
- port, userName, password (for mail server if needed)

Search for ":\" and “\\” and check that all paths are correct

Verify that all file system paths are correct.

Check access rights in web.config

Check the authorization section under each location section and verify that the specified groups are correct.

Episerver.config

Turn on output cache

httpCacheExpiration = 01:00:00 (one hour)
httpCacheVaryByParams = id,epslanguage + any other query string names you might use on the site (like page,query etc.)

Example:

httpCacheExpiration="01:00:00" httpCacheability="Public" httpCacheVaryByCustom="path" httpCacheVaryByParams="id,epslanguage,page,query"

Set uiMaxVersions = 20

Set uiMaxVersions to 20 in the episerver.config file (in sitesettings). It is important to set this property before the site goes into production as changing it later is difficult. (You would have to republish EVERY page on the site)

Reason: The default setting is to keep unlimited number of versions of each page. This is a problem for two reasons: 1. Performance 2. The version list gets very long for editors

Verify paths for VPP (virtualPath/Providers)

Check that all the physicalPath attributes point to the right file paths.

Set siteUrl = http://www.acme.com

Set uiUrl = http://www.acme.com/{ui}/

Set utilUrl = http://www.acme.com/Util/

Set SiteDisplayName = Acme.com (Should be the actual name of the site)

Verify that the right databases and users are specified

Logging should be disabled until it’s needed for better performance.

Verify that a robots.txt file exists and is correct

The robots.txt should be located in the root of the site look like this: (Make sure NOT to add edit and admin mode paths as they should be kept secret)

User-agent: *
Disallow: /Util/

Access rights in EPiServer (Admin mode)

Make sure you only use the SQL membership provider

Make sure you don’t use the Windows membership provider. Verify by viewing users in admin mode.

Remove test users and groups in EPiServer

Go through the list of users and groups and remove those that shouldn’t have access to the site.

Create a new support user

Create a new user with edit and admin rights for debugging/support use. Make sure to choose a non-obvious user name and a very strong password. Document the chosen user name and password for future use.

Check access rights in the EPiServer page tree

Make sure that Administrators and Editors have the correct access levels. Remove everyone from pages that shouldn’t be accessed by normal users.

Editors should not have admin rights

Avoid giving editors admin rights to prevent tampering with page types etc. Only one or two people at the customer’s should have admin rights (to be able to create new users, unlock accounts etc.)

Please note: You need admin rights to be able to edit the value of dynamic properties!

Scheduled jobs (Admin mode)

Verify that scheduled jobs are active

Setup scheduled jobs to run in an appropriate interval.

Add VPP write access rights to web editors

Web editors don't have write access to the VPP folders as default. In edit mode open the file manager and click on the key icon. Add "Create", "Change" and "Delete" rights to "WebEditors" for each VPP folder ("Global Files", "Documents" etc.)

Verify that files can be uploaded to the site

Log in as an editor (without admin rights) and upload a file in edit mode.

Mail

Verify that mails sent from forms are sent and received

Try sending email by filling out an XForm and try any custom email sending functionality.

Search

Perform test searches and verify that relevant results are shown

Check external access

Do a check of the site in SEOBrowser.com

Go to http://seobrowser.com/ and type in the domain name of the site and click the “simple” button. Verify that you can see the text from the front page and the main menu as links. If you have a mobile version of the site also, make sure you get the full version.

Reason: This tests that the site is available externally, visible to search engines and that the mobile version of the site is not delivered to search engines.

Cache Invalidation

Check that publishing causes cache invalidation

Publish a new page on Server A. Make sure the page appears on Server B. Make a change to the page on Server A. Make sure the change is visible on server B.

VPP

Check that VPP is accessible from all servers

Scheduled Jobs

Make sure Scheduled Jobs only runs on one server

Having the same scheduled jobs running on multiple servers is a bad idea, so make sure only one server runs the jobs. Set enableScheduler to false in siteSettings for all servers except one (episerver.config).