Sitecore 9.1 Installation Guide

Sitecore 9.1 initial release is available to download from https://dev.sitecore.net/Downloads/Sitecore_Experience_Platform/91/Sitecore_Experience_Platform_91_Initial_Release.aspx

Sitecore 9.1 have great improved features like

Sitecore Cortex
Sitecore Omni
The Universal Tracker

This post is about the installation of Sitecore 9.1 on development machine.

Pre-Requisite

Assets	Quantity/Capacity	Download Link
Hardware configurations
Processor	i7
HDD	256GB SSD or More
RAM	16 GB
Drive	C, D
Softwares
Windows 10 PRO
.NET Framework 3.5
.NET Framework 4.6.2 Developer Pack		Link
.NET Framework 4.7
.NET Framework 4.7.1 Developer Pack		Link
.NET Framework 4.7.2 Developer Pack		Link
.NET Core 2.1.3 Windows Hosting module		Link
Microsoft PowerShell® version 5.1 or later
Web Platform Installer 5.0		Link
IIS 10.0 or later
Web Deploy 3.6 for Hosting Servers
URL Rewrite 2.1
SQL Server 2017 – Express Edition		Link
SQL Server Management Studio 17.9		Link
Visual Studio 2017 Professional		Link
JAVA Runtime 8.8 or Later
NSSM 2.24		Link
Node.js		Link
SOLR 7.2.1		Link
Sitecore XP 9.1		Link
Sitecore License
Notepad++
Permission for system
Local Admin rights

Installing Pre-requisite software and tools

Install “.NET Framework 3.5” from “Control Panel -> Programs -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows features on or off” by selecting as shown below

Select the .NET Framework 4.7 Advanced Services with child items check box from “Control Panel -> Programs -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows features on or off”, select OK, and reboot your computer if prompted as shown in above figure.

Install “Internet Information Services” with all child items from “Control Panel -> Programs -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows features on or off” as shown below

Install “Web Platform Installer 5.0” by downloading from Link.

Install Web Deploy 3.6 for Hosting Servers and URL Rewrite 2.1 from IIS Actions section “Get New Web Platform Components” as

Install SQL server and select mixed mode while installing

Install SQL server Management studio for SQL Server 2017 Express edition as.

After SQL installation run below script in master database.

sp_configure ‘contained database authentication’, 1

RECONFIGURE

Install Visual Studio 2017 Professional.

Download and install .NET Core 2.1 Runtime for Sitecore Identity service from Link.

Download and install “js” from link.

Open command Prompt in admin mode and install “nsm” and “gulp” at global level using below command

Npm install

Npm install -g gulp

Create folder “C:\resourcefiles91” for keeping Sitecore 9.1 related installation tools and resources

Download NSSM from link and unzip at “c:\resourcefiles91\nssm-2.24”.

Install Solr 7.2.1 & Enable SSL for SOLR (Self Signed Certificate)

One major changes in the Sitecore 9.1 is Search Component. By default, Solr 7.2.1 is the search provider.

Sitecore 9.1 required Solr as Secure Service so we have to enable SSL for Solr before beginning the installation.

Download Solr-7.2.1 from link and unzip the archive to “C:\” (where it will create a folder called “Solr-7.2.1”)

To setup Solr as service open NSSM in Command Prompt as administrator and run the following command:

c:\resourcefiles91\nssm-2.24\win64>nssm.exe install SOLR721

Note: – I am running SOLR services on port 8985 as I already have SOLR 6.6.2 running on port 8983.

Open “Services” and start “SOLR721” service.

Open a command prompt as an administrator and navigate to: C:\Solr-7.2.1\server\etc

“C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_121\bin\keytool.exe” -genkeypair -alias solr-ssl -keyalg RSA -keysize 2048 -keypass secret -storepass secret -validity 9999 -keystore solr-ssl.keystore.jks -ext SAN=DNS:localhost,IP:127.0.0.1 -dname “CN=localhost, OU=Organizational Unit, O=Organization, L=Location, ST=State, C=Country

Check if solr-ssl.keystore.jks file is created in ‘etc’ forder

Run importkeystore command and use “secret” for the destination keystore password (plus confirmation prompt) and source keystore password prompts

“C:\Program Files\Java\jre1.8.0_121\bin\keytool.exe” -importkeystore -srckeystore solr-ssl.keystore.jks -destkeystore solr-ssl.keystore.p12 -srcstoretype jks -deststoretype pkcs12

Import(double click) generated certificate file solr-ssl.keystore.p12 that was created in the C:\Solr7.2.1\server\etc directory. Match the values below when prompted:

Store Location: Local Machine
Password: “secret” (no quotes)
Certificate store: Trusted Root Certificate Authorities

Update the C:\solr-7.2.1\bin\solr.in.cmd file by pasting the following code block at the end of the file.

set SOLR_SSL_KEY_STORE=etc/solr-ssl.keystore.jks

set SOLR_SSL_KEY_STORE_PASSWORD=secret

set SOLR_SSL_KEY_STORE_TYPE=JKS

set SOLR_SSL_TRUST_STORE=etc/solr-ssl.keystore.jks

set SOLR_SSL_TRUST_STORE_PASSWORD=secret

set SOLR_SSL_TRUST_STORE_TYPE=JKS

set SOLR_SSL_NEED_CLIENT_AUTH=false

set SOLR_SSL_WANT_CLIENT_AUTH=false

Add following Lines to C:\solr-7.2.1\bin\solr.in.sh

SOLR_SSL_KEY_STORE=etc/solr-ssl.keystore.jks

SOLR_SSL_KEY_STORE_PASSWORD=secret

SOLR_SSL_KEY_STORE_TYPE=JKS

SOLR_SSL_TRUST_STORE=etc/solr-ssl.keystore.jks

SOLR_SSL_TRUST_STORE_PASSWORD=secret

SOLR_SSL_TRUST_STORE_TYPE=JKS

SOLR_SSL_NEED_CLIENT_AUTH=false

SOLR_SSL_WANT_CLIENT_AUTH=false

Open “Services” and start “SOLR721” service.
Check if SOLR is running on browser with URL https://localhost:8985/solr

Install Sitecore

Download Sitecore 9.1 “Packages for XP Single” under section “Download options for On Premises deployment” from Link .

Unzip “Sitecore 9.1.0 rev. 001564 (WDP XP0 packages).zip” in “C:\resourcefiles91”.

Also unzip “XP0 Configuration files 9.1.0 rev. 001564.zip” into “C:\resourcefiles91”.

Copy your Sitecore license into the same folder “C:\resourcefiles91”.

Finally, you must have files like

Open “XP0-SingleDeveloper.ps1” and update values for SQL and SOLR as

Open Powershell in admin mode. Change directory to “C:\resourcefiles91”
Install SitecoreGallery as

Register-PSRepository -Name SitecoreGallery -SourceLocation https://sitecore.myget.org/F/sc-powershell/api/v2 -InstallationPolicy Trusted

If your machine machine already have SitecoreInstallFramework 1.2.1 but for Sitecore 9.1 we have to install SitecoreInstallFramework 2.0.0 as

Install-Module -Name SitecoreInstallFramework -RequiredVersion 2.0.0

You can get list of all available SitecoreInstallFramework module as

Get-Module SitecoreInstallFramework –ListAvailable

Close and open PowerShell in admin mode again to load the newly installed modules.
Close skype before running install script.
Change directory to “C:\resourcefiles91”. Run “XP0-SingleDeveloper.ps1”

After few minutes you should get below success message as

Open Sitecore by browsing URL http://sc910.sc/sitecore/login
Login via admin/b credentials.
Check License details for Sitecore Version 9.1.0 and .NET framework 4.7.1

Few observations

Identity Management

If you try to browse your Sitecore 9.1 website with http://sc910.sc/sitecore/login then it will redirect you to https://sc910.identityserver/account/login.

Sitecore is using identity management as a default single sign-on mechanism for XM, XP, and XC.

Pushing HELIX Guidelines

Sitecore is pushing HELIX principles for all Sitecore development projects. That’s why you will notice already created Foundation, Feature and Project items under layout, rendering and template in content tree as below

Websites in IIS

Sitecore is creating 3 websites in IIS for each installation.

Identity Server – This is for Sitecore identity management as a default single sign-on mechanism for XM, XP, and XC.
Sc – Actual website
xConnect – For analytics

SSL Certificates

Each installation creates 3 certificates for xConnect, Identity server and website as

SOLR Index

Check indexes in SOLR 7.2.1 instance for this installation as