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Configuration of staging consists of the following parts:
You also need to ensure that all instances use the same settings (page types, templates, web parts …), code files, and that both servers use the same version of Kentico.
To configure a Kentico instance as a source server, you first need to enable logging of staging tasks. Open the Settings application, and adjust the settings in the Versioning & synchronization -> Staging category.
With these settings enabled, the system logs all changes to the corresponding content as staging tasks. These tasks can then be transferred to the target servers and performed there to synchronize the content.
To specify the target servers, open the Staging application and select the Servers tab.
Notes:
Add servers by clicking New server. Set the following properties for each staging server:
Staging server properties | Description |
|---|---|
Display name | Name of the server displayed to users in the administration interface. |
Code name | Unique identifier of the server. |
Server service URL | Enter the root URL of the target Kentico instance, i.e. the protocol, domain, and virtual directory (if necessary). For example: http://www.targetserver.com The system automatically builds the full service URL by appending /CMSPages/Staging/syncserver.asmx to the value. ClickCheck Server availability to confirm whether the entered URL is available. Important: When defining servers on instances with multiple sites, the service URLs of each site's servers must use the domain names of the matching site on the target server. |
Enabled | If checked, the system generates synchronization tasks for the server. You can temporarily disable the server by disabling this flag, for example during server maintenance. |
Server authentication | Server authentication settings. Configure according to the settings of the given target server (described below). The default user name is admin and the default password is pass. If you want to use X509 authentication, see Using X.509 authentication. Note: After you enter and save a password, the field always displays 8 "masking" characters, even if the password is longer or shorter. This measure helps protect your password. |
On the target server, the staging service is disabled by default. You need to adjust the following settings in Settings -> Versioning & synchronization -> Staging:
The system uses signatures to ensure the security of macro expressions. Macro signatures contain the user name of the macro's author and a hash of the given expression. The hash function used to create the signatures appends a salt (opens in a new tab) to the input. The salt value depends on the configuration of individual applications, so the signatures are only valid in the environment where the macros were originally saved.
To allow macros to work correctly on all staging servers, you need to assign the same custom hash salt to all servers:
Set the CMSHashStringSalt key in the appSettings section of the web.config file to the same value on all staging servers. You can use any string as the value, but the salt should be random and at least 16 characters long. For example, a randomly generated GUID (opens in a new tab) is a strong salt:
<add key="CMSHashStringSalt" value="e68b9ad6-a461-4707-8e3e-ece73f03dd02" />The best option is to set the hash salt value before you start creating content for your website. Changing the salt causes all current hash values to become invalid. To fix existing macro expressions in the system after changing the hash salt, you need to re-sign the macros. See Working with macro signatures for more information.
Warning: In addition to macro signatures, the system uses the CMSHashStringSalt value for other hash functions. Changing the hash salt on a website that already has defined content may break dialog links and images on your website. If you encounter such problems, you need to re-save the given content (the system then creates the hashes using the new salt).
Developers can use event handlers to modify or extend the content staging functionality. See the following pages for more information: