Optional - Set Up Port Forwarding for Single Application Server

After the installer has completed, Learn will be available on the following ports by default.

http://localhost:8080
https://localhost:8443

Before continuing with the post configuration steps, confirm Blackboard Learn is available on the server by accessing the application from the above URLs.

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Run Learn on default web ports 80 and 443

In order for Learn to be presented to end users on the default web ports of 80 and 443, the service needs to be proxied. On a load balanced system, the load balancer would be present on ports 80 and 443 to end users, from a pool of backend servers running on the proxy ports 8081 and/or 8444. See Set Up Load Balancing.

For standalone instances, a port forward needs to be implemented on the Learn Application Server.

UNIX

On Unix systems, the privilege port numbers are 1-1023, these ports can only be bound by the root user. Learn runs as a non-privileged designated bbuser.

To avoid privileged bind issues on Unix, ports 80 and 443 need to be redirected to the tomcat ports 8081 and 8444 respectively.

Port forward using iptables

Edit /etc/sysconfig/iptables

## add prerouting for learn only (no httpd) operation
*nat
:PREROUTING ACCEPT [7:1068]
:POSTROUTING ACCEPT [8:480]
:OUTPUT ACCEPT [8:480]
:RH-Firewall-1-INPUT - [0:0]
-A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8081
-A PREROUTING -p tcp -m tcp --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8444
-A OUTPUT -p tcp -m tcp -o lo --dport 80 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8081
-A OUTPUT -p tcp -m tcp -o lo --dport 443 -j REDIRECT --to-ports 8444
## end prerouting
...
# must be able to receive requests on ports 80 and 443
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp --dport 443 -j ACCEPT
-A RH-Firewall-1-INPUT -p tcp -m state --state NEW -m tcp --dport 80 -j ACCEPT
COMMIT

Save, exit the editor, and restart iptables: # service iptables restart

Windows

First confirm that IIS is not installed and remove it if necessary. See Remove the IIS service.

Before proceeding you must export any TLS certificates and remove IIS if it is installed.

To present the service to end users on the default web ports of 80 and 443, the default installation ports need to be manually changed in the bb-config.properties file.

1. Edit blackboard\config\bbconfig.properties as follows:

   bbconfig.appserver.http.portnumber=80
   #default value is 8080  bbconfig.appserver.https.portnumber=443
   #default value is 8443

2. PushConfigUpdates

   blackboard\tools\admin\PushConfigUpdates.bat

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Set the frontend port and protocol

If the frontend port and protocol were not set at first installation, these must be updated to match the ports used by end users.

1. Open bb-config.properties in a text editor such as Notepad.
2. Locate the bbconfig.frontend section and add the details for the Frontend.

   bbconfig.frontend.fullhostname=frontend.host.name #replace frontend.host.name with the resolvable hostname for this server.
   bbconfig.frontend.portnumber=443
   bbconfig.frontend.protocol=https

   Learn requires TLS at the point of access by users. If using port forwarding these need to match the ports configured earlier.

3. Restart Learn and propagate the changes by executing: /usr/local/blackboard/tools/admin/PushConfigUpdates.bat