How To: Access Ginesys over HTTPS protocol

Owned by Arindam Banerjee (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jul 01, 2020

Introduction

In current days, ensuring secured data communication over Internet is an essential need. Moreover, when you are accessing Ginesys Web over public Internet to work with your confidential business data it is highly recommended that you should access it over a secured channel. A website can either be accessed via HTTP protocol (default port 80) or HTTPS (Secured HTTP) protocol (default port 443). As the name suggests, HTTPS protocol is secured as it uses an end-to-end encrypted communication channel between the Web server and the client browser, so that attackers (man in the middle) can't steal your data. The modern browsers also ensure that the browsed website runs on secured protocols before they mark the site safe and enable advanced features. This HTTPS encryption is done using SSL based digital certificates.

In Ginesys application, it is not enforced to enable HTTPS for accessing Ginesys Web considering the fact that, till date Ginesys is majorly being used in customer’s intranet (Local network). But in view of increased demand of accessing Ginesys over public internet, while working remotely, we recommend to access Ginesys Web over secured HTTPS protocol. Many third-party application may also require HTTPS channel to get integrated with your on-premise Ginesys application. Hence, it really makes sense to configure your Ginesys Web server with HTTPS.

How to enable HTTPS for Ginesys?

There are certain pre-requisites to have any of your website accessed over HTTPS protocol. A domain name associated with the website and a SSL certificate issued by Certificate Authority associated with that domain name is mandatory. You should contact a digital certificate vendor to purchase an SSL certificate. Further you have to add the certificate on the IIS server and enable HTTPS binding on the IIS. The process of enabling SSL certificate may vary as per the certificate type. Your IT team can easily get these configured for you with the help of the digital certificate vendor.

Ginesys is also a website runs on IIS server. There won’t be any additional requirement for Ginesys. Once the IIS server on Ginesys application server has been associated with the certificate and the website which hosts Ginesys Web is enabled with HTTPS binding, you can browse Ginesys Web over HTTPS.

Here we have an article for you to configure to give you an overview of HTTPS configuration using SSL certificate. You can anytime refer the article visiting the following hyperlink. But the best approach would be to follow the guidance from your certificate vendor or certificate authority.

https://ginesys.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/PUB/pages/2121760775

Verifying access via HTTPS

In general, we can test a running IIS web server by visiting the default landing page of IIS. On a standard HTTP protocol the the URL to access the default page is http://yourserver or http://yourdomain.com. A successfully accessible IIS service should return the IIS landing page.

Same as, when the HTTPS is successfully configured, the same landing page can be accessed using a HTTPS URL like https://yourdomain.com. Once you successfully access the default landing page, then accessing Ginesys won’t be any challenge. Just append /GinesysWeb in the URL. As an example https://yourdomain.com/GinesysWeb.

Updating URL in Ginesys

There is no significant configuration needed in Ginesys part. Following are the some optional section where you need to update the HTTPS URL.

LaunchPad

Though most of the users, especially who is accessing Ginesys Web from outside of the LAN uses browser book mark or web address directly. The Ginesys Web shortcut on LaunchPad is not being used in that case. The LauchPad shortcut calls the HTTP URL of Ginesys by default. At anytime if you prefer to update the Ginesys Web URL for LaunchPad shortcut, please update the URL in Ginesys Web Internet shortcut file.

  • Location: \GSL\GINESYS12\Shared

  • File name: GINESYSWeb.url

  • Type of file: Internet Shortcut (.url)

Web API (Retail Management)

If you already have Ginesys WebAPI in use from retail stores for item image download, any store return etc. then you may need to update the URL visiting following menu

  • Ginesys menu: Ginesys Web > Retail Management > Utilities > Configure > WebAPI

  • Edit the URL from Action menu.

All Ginesys functionalities should work without hindrance. In any unfortunate scenario if you face any issue after switching to HTTPS, please contact Ginesys Care https://care.ginesys.in .