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Question

Forms Licensing With Two Forms Servers

Forms Version 10 Licensing
Updated January 19, 2024
asked on July 25, 2018

I would just like clarification on what licenses need to be applied where when setting up a Forms DMZ environment with two servers, one internal, one external.

The client has Forms Professional and the Forms Portal. Does Forms Professional need to be licensed for both servers or can the external server use just Forms Essentials? If they want to make forms available to the public externally, does the portal get associated with the external Forms server, or the internal Forms server since the external Forms server is just pointing to the internal Forms server?

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Answer

SELECTED ANSWER
replied on July 25, 2018

You should use the Professional license on the internal server and a Portal license on the external server. You can do all your development work on the Professional internal server and then you need to access the external server to set the option to make it available to the public. 

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Replies

replied on July 25, 2018

@████████or @████████, would one of you be able to shed some light on the correct way we should be doing this?

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View 7 previous replies
SELECTED ANSWER
replied on July 25, 2018

You should use the Professional license on the internal server and a Portal license on the external server. You can do all your development work on the Professional internal server and then you need to access the external server to set the option to make it available to the public. 

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replied on July 25, 2018 • Show version history

So the user would need to start up the routing service each time they want to make a process public? That seems kind of cumbersome since IT would need to be involved for that to work.

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replied on July 25, 2018

No, the configuration for the process is stored in the database so it doesn't require the routing service to be on to be modified. Go to the external server (w/ routing off) and you can make the form public. 

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replied on July 25, 2018

Hi Blake, 

Forms Professional is across the board. If you have licensed it, all your Forms Servers are Professional. Meanwhile Forms Portal is licensed per Forms Server. So you would put the Forms Portal license on the externally available Forms Server and Professional is a non-issue. 

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replied on July 25, 2018

@████████, I apologize. I was thinking of the Forms configuration page. Thank you both for the information. Could the DMZ server documentation be updated to talk about the licensing?

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replied on January 18, 2024

This does not work, the reason for having both a public server and internal server sharing the same database is to prevent outside users from being able to login to forms from the web. If they could login to the public server, then they would not need the additional internal server.

We need a way to publish public forms from the internal server using the professional license. The public server is only for posting public forms and does not have any logins.

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replied on January 18, 2024

Chad I'm not clear on what doesn't work in this scenario for you. Since the public server is sharing the same database as the internal server, it does have logins. The Forms Public Portal license should be assigned to the external server. Then log in as a user with rights that can edit the process and change the access rights to public.

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replied on January 19, 2024

What is the objective of having 2 forms servers, if you can just login to the public server anyways? In that case you only need the one public server.

In this environment, the public server only hosts public forms, and the professional server hosts internal forms, inboxes, and the dev environment. The public server does not allow login as they only use domain users and the public server is off the domain.

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replied on January 19, 2024

Chad, in the environment you're talking about are the public server and the internal server sharing the same database? In your previous post you said that was the case. If the answer to that is yes, then the public server also has access to the non-public forms unless you have set it up using a high-security configuration.

In most cases, the reason for having two servers is for security. You don't want traffic hitting your internal server directly, so you use a DMZ server. The more modern way of doing this is using a reverse-proxy or a similar appliance.

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replied on January 19, 2024

They do share the same database, what I meant was that no one could login and see information they should not see from outside the local network (Inboxes, Reports, etc).

We are not concerned with traffic hitting internal servers, that just means that the traffic is available to be sniffed internally. Yet what security risk is there in having your own staff be able to see incoming public traffic?

The primary concern is a password leak giving anyone in the world the possibility to access internal data by logging into the website. By having the login server be on the LAN only, no one can login without being physically present onsite. It is a somewhat common configuration for companies using classic AD, without 2 factor authentication.

The first statement from Jared here makes sense to me.

You should use the Professional license on the internal server and a Portal license on the external server. You can do all your development work on the Professional internal server

But this part makes no sense. Your just enabling full access to the public again and now there is no reason to have a professional instance running.

and then you need to access the external server to set the option to make it available to the public. 

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replied on July 25, 2018

Hi Blake,

The DMZ server needs the public portal license and the internal server gets the professional license.  Follow this whitepaper:  https://support.laserfiche.com/resources/3481/hosting-laserfiche-forms-10-in-a-perimeter-network-dmz

I would recommend using the IP on the DMZ configuration and any place it is localhost change to the IP. 

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replied on July 25, 2018

I have followed the white paper, but I did not see anywhere in it where it references what licenses to use where. If you setup the DMZ server to use the public user, then on the internal Forms Server you do not have the option to set a process as public because they license is not applied on that server. And since you are disabling the Forms Routing services as part of the document you referenced, you are not managing processes using the DMZ Forms interface.

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replied on July 25, 2018

Yes, you are correct. The public forms are managed on the DMZ server with public portal and internal forms are managed on the internal server. There may be a better way of setting it up and I just don't know it.  

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