If you are a Managed Hosting customer, this topic doesn't apply to you.
When using Blackboard Learn in a Windows environment, Microsoft IIS manages the HTTP and HTTPS requests to and replies from the Tomcat container.
Blackboard Learn does not ship with Microsoft IIS. To learn more about IIS, see http://www.iis.net/. As of Blackboard Learn 9.1 April 2014 release, IIS is optional.
To make changes to the IIS configuration, edit the parameters in the bb-config.properties file and then run the WebsiteReinstall.bat script in the following directory:
blackboard_directory\tools\admin
For steps to edit the bb-config.properties file, see bb-config.properties File.
Microsoft IIS parameters in bb-config.properties
The following table describes each parameter and its recommended setting.
| Parameter Name | Description | Recommended Setting |
|---|---|---|
| bbconfig.webserver.keepalive | Whether to allow persistent connections (more than one request per connection) Always make sure to review the setting with your hardware load balancer vendor. | 1 |
| bbconfig.webserver.keepalivetimeout | Number of seconds to wait for the next request from the same client on the same connection | 15 |
| bbconfig.webserver.compression | Enables HTTP Compression via GZip | Yes |
The number of connections to IIS is set by default to unlimited. Although this setting can be changed using the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager, Blackboard recommends not changing it. Controlling the number of connections to IIS becomes important only when the management of resource consumption is the top priority.
HTTP compression
Enable GZip compression through the bb-config.properties file by toggling it on or off. Both IIS and Apache™ support GZip as a native compression ability.
Enable dynamic compression
Verify this setting in IIS 6.0 by visiting Configure Compression in IIS 6.0 using Windows 2003 or in IIS 7.0 by visiting Configure Compression in IIS 7.0 using Windows 2008.
