HOW TO: Publish a LightSwitch App (high-trust) to SharePoint On-Premises environment

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This post is a contribution from Raghavendra B Nanjaiah, an engineer with the SharePoint Developer Support team.

Just wanted to publish this post provided the steps to publish a LightSwitch App to SharePoint On-Premises environment. Hope you will find this useful.

Section 1: Create issuer ID (same as high-trust app)

1. Check if any previously registered SPTrustedSecurityTokenIssue exists.  If there’s a malfunctioning one and if –IsTrustBroker switch was used, it means the bad token issuer might be getting called.  If this is the first time you are configuring high-trust apps then you can skip steps a & b below.

a. Run Get-SPTrustedSecurityTokenIssuer.  If no Azure workflow is configured this command should return empty.  If you get any issuer apart from workflow, run below script to delete it.

b. Remove-SPTrustedSecurityTokenIssuer (pass Id value from output of the above command).

2. Create a new SPTruestedSecurityTokenIssuer by running below script, passing your SharePoint Developer site URL and Cert path (.cer) that you will use to sign the token (you need to create a self-signed cert).  For more information see: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/fp179901.aspx.

Take a note of the $issuerId = “447f40c6-99df-4d37-9739-5370102489f7” from the below script.  We’ll be using it later.

 param( 
                 [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string] $TargetSiteUrl,
                 [Parameter(Mandatory=$true)][string] $CertPath = $(throw "Usage: ConfigureS2SApp.ps1 <TargetSiteUrl> <Certificate>") 
 )
  
 # On error, stop
 $ErrorActionPreference = "Stop"
  
 # Add sharepoint snapin
 # add-pssnapin microsoft.sharepoint.powershell
 function ConfigureS2SApp([string]$TargetSiteUrl, [string]$CertPath)
 {
                 #write-host "Configuring with parameters $appTitle , $TargetSiteUrl , $CertPath"
                 write-host "you passed" $TargetSiteUrl $CertPath -foregroundcolor Green
                 $issuerId = "447f40c6-99df-4d37-9739-5370102489f7"
                 $spweb = Get-SPWeb $TargetSiteUrl
                 $realm = Get-SPAuthenticationRealm -ServiceContext $spweb.Site
                 $fullAppIdentifier = $issuerId + '@' + $realm
                 $certificate = Get-PfxCertificate $CertPath
  
                 New-SPTrustedSecurityTokenIssuer -Name $issuerId -Certificate $certificate -RegisteredIssuerName $fullAppIdentifier –IsTrustBroker
                 
                 #turning off https <optional> this will make our sharepoint site run on http and still work with high trust app.
                 $serviceConfig = Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig
                 $serviceConfig.AllowOAuthOverHttp = $true
                 $serviceConfig.Update()
 }
  
 ConfigureS2SApp $TargetSiteUrl $CertPath
  
 # done
 write-host "S2S is now configured" -foregroundcolor Green

Section 2: Enable SharePoint on LightSwitch app and publish

1. Right-click the LightSwitch project and go to properties and choose SharePoint tab.

2. Enable SharePoint on the project (this basically adds SharePoint related files to LightSwitch project e.g., SharePointLaunch.aspx etc.,).

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3. Right-click on the project and click Publish.

4. Select Provider-hosted in SharePoint options.

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5. Select IIS server since we will not be using Azure to host LightSwitch app.

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6. Select Create Package on disk from the next screen.

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7. Select users must connect using Https option.

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8. Choose the appropriate data settings for your LightSwitch app.

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9. Select use a certificate for a high-trust configuration and provide the certificate details and issuer ID we generated in Section 1 of this post.

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10. Choose the web app where LightSwitch will be hosted and provide Client ID (you can generate your own GUID using Visual Studio or PS).

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11. Create app principal by following the below steps in PS.

 $clientId = "<Your Client ID>"
 $spweb = Get-SPWeb "https://mspx2013"
 $realm = Get-SPAuthenticationRealm -ServiceContext $spweb.Site
 $fullAppIdentifier = $clientId + '@' + $realm
 $appPrincipal = Register-SPAppPrincipal -NameIdentifier $fullAppIdentifier -Site $spweb -DisplayName "SimpleHTApp"
 Set-SPAppPrincipalPermission -Site $spweb -AppPrincipal $appPrincipal -Scope Site -Right FullControl

12. The summary screen should look like below.

image

13. From the published folder, upload the .app file to SharePoint Developer Site.

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14. Host the LightSwitch app in different IIS web (e.g., https://localhost:9090).

15. When you click on the SampleLightSwitch app you will be redirected to the actual LightSwitch app that’s hosted in your IIS server.

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