CAST AIC Portal is unsupported since the end of 2020. CAST encourages users to switch to AIP Console where possible.

What is the CAST AIC Portal?

The CAST AIC Portal is a web application designed to support the delivery of the application source code by the Delivery Manager(s) - when accessed, the CAST AIC Portal will offer the ability to register a new application for analysis as well as the ability to deliver the source code using the CAST Delivery Manager Tool (DMT) (which is a dedicated workstation tool provided by CAST to extract and deliver the source code).

As such, multiple Delivery Managers can run the CAST Delivery Manager Tool on their own local machines and package only the source code they need to. Source code packaged by Delivery Managers is stored in one central location managed by the CAST AIC Portal, which can then be retrieved by the AI Administrator using the CAST Management Studio (which is configured to retrieve source code from the same central storage location defined in the CAST AIC Portal). Please see Source code delivery - an introduction for more detailed information.

The CAST AIC Portal is provided as a .WAR file (CAST-AICP.war) and is designed to be deployed on a supported Application Server (for example Apache Tomcat). The standard deployment is very similar to the deployment of the CAST dashboards (this is described here: Deploy the CAST web applications).

Note that contrary to previous versions of CAST AIP, the CAST AIC Portal is a mandatory installation in this version: Applications can ONLY be created via the CAST AIC Portal.

How many CAST AIC Portals do I need to install?

CAST recommends using one CAST AIC Portal to manage source code for all Applications that you need to analyze with CAST. However, the CAST AIC Portal is CAST AIP version aware and can only manage Applications that are being administered with the same release of CAST AIP (in other words you cannot mix Applications that are being managed on CAST AIP 8.2.x with Applications that are being managed on CAST AIP 8.3.x - for example).

Specific use cases for deployment of the CAST AIC Portal

The following lists the various use cases that may be encountered when deploying the CAST AIC Portal:

Your Delivery Managers are exclusively located on the same internal network as the CAST AIC Portal

The CAST AIC Portal is installed on a machine on the internal network and can be accessed via a URL available across the internal network. Nothing further is required other than following the installation instructions in this page - this is the standard deployment scenario.

Your Delivery Managers are located on the same internal network as the CAST AIC Portal and ALSO outside the company firewall

In this example, you have Delivery Managers that are located internally and externally (i.e. to the local network). This is a more advanced deployment scenario. This setup involves:

Installing the CAST AIC Portal as detailed in this page
Additionally installing Apache Web Server as a public facing server in reverse proxy mode so that external users can access internal resources (i.e. the CAST AIC Portal installed on Apache Tomcat) via the internet.
Additionally setting up a fully qualified domain name that all Delivery Managers (whether internal or external) can use to access the CAST AIC Portal via the Apache Web Server. For example: http://aicportal.company.com
You may also need to setup a DMZ in which to place the Apache Web Server or configure port forwarding to allow external users access to the Apache Web Server.

You can find out more about installing Apache Web Server as a public facing server in reverse proxy in Setting up a Reverse Proxy on Apache web server.

Specific configuration considerations and prerequisites

The CAST AIC Portal has some specific configuration settings and prerequisites that need to be addressed before you can proceed with the installation:

Source Code Delivery Folder

As explained in Source code delivery - an introduction, in order to function correctly, the CAST AIC Portal requires a Delivery folder: a central location for storing successive and compressed versions of an application's source code as packaged by the Delivery Manager(s) using the CAST Delivery Manager Tool (via the CAST AIC Portal).

This folder must ALSO be available to the CAST Management Studio in order to access the code that is delivered by the Delivery Manager(s). Please see Where should the Delivery folder be located for more information.

If you are using multiple instances of the CAST Management Studio (to work with multiple Management Services) you can allow them to interact with the same CAST AIC Portal (i.e. the same Delivery folder) without risk of data corruption (note however that only one single instance of the CAST Management Studio should manage one single Management Service).

Other considerations and prerequisites

	Machine	The CAST AIC Portal can be hosted on any machine in your local network: You can use the CAST Administration workstation (used for hosting the CAST Management Studio - see Install CAST AIP from setup), however: all Delivery Managers must be able to access this machine across the local network using a web browser You can use a dedicated workstation, however: you must take into account the section entitled Source Code Delivery Folder above all Delivery Managers must be able to access this machine across the local network using a web browser You can potentially use the same machine used to host your other CAST AIP web applications, however: you must take into account the section entitled Source Code Delivery Folder above all Delivery Managers must be able to access this machine across the local network using a web browser
	Java JRE	Must be installed on the machine that will host the Application Server. Please see: Supported Platforms about JRE support. Appendix - web application server configuration for more information about installing this item.
	Application Server	Must be installed on a compatible machine. Please see: Supported Platforms about Application Server support. Appendix - web application server configuration for hints and tips about the web application server installation Note that: the application server can run on either the Unix/Linux or Windows operating systems (this document describes an installation in a Windows environment). in a Windows deployment, the Windows user used to run the Application Server must have read/write access permissions on the Source Code Delivery Folder wherever the folder is located (whether local or remote to the machine on which the Application Server is running).
	Web browser	Required for accessing the CAST AIC Portal. Please see Supported Platforms about Web Browser compatibility.
	WAR file	The CAST AIC Portal is provided as a .WAR file (CAST-AICP.war) - it can be retrieved from the WARS folder located in the CAST installation folder:

Pre-installation check list

Before beginning the installation process, please ensure that you have carried out all of the following tasks and that the following requirements have been met:

	Ensure you have read all Release Notes accompanying CAST products for any last-minute information
	Decide where the CAST AIC Portal will be installed - CAST Administration workstation, separate dedicated machine or machine used for other CAST AIP web applications.
	Ensure that you know where Source Code Delivery Folder is located.
	Ensure that your user login on the target machine has sufficient user privileges to install applications (see Appendix - CAST Administration workstation installation and hardware requirements)
	Make sure you have the required .WAR file ready for deployment

Installation procedure

This document assumes you are using Apache Tomcat in a Windows environment to host the CAST AIC Portal.

The installation process is divided into various steps:

Step 1: Deploy and configure the CAST-AICP.war file on your application server

Deploy the WAR file

Locate the CAST-AICP.war file and move it to the web application installation location. By default on Apache Tomcat this is set to:

CATALINA_HOME\webapps

If the Apache Tomcat server is running, the .WAR file will then be unpacked and deployed in a folder called "CAST-AICP". You should now be able to access the CAST AIC Portal using the following URL (if your Application Server is configured to accept requests on port 80, you can omit the <port_number>):

http://<server_name>:<port_number>/CAST-AICP

Note that:

you can find out more about the CATALINA_HOME environment variable and how to configure it in CAST Dashboard Package - Apache Tomcat installation and configuration options
you can also use the deploy action in Apache Tomcat manager to deploy the WAR file:

Define the Source Code Delivery folder

Please see Where should the Delivery folder be located for more background information.

When you first access the CAST AIC Portal, you will be presented with the following message:

"Source code delivery folder path is not defined in web.xml. Please update your web.xml and restart the CAST AIC Portal."

This indicates that the Source Code Delivery Folder has not yet been defined and you need to do so before you can access the CAST AIC Portal. To do so, edit the web.xml file with a text editor (this is the location on Apache Tomcat):

CATALINA_HOME\webapps\CAST-AICP\WEB-INF\web.xml

Locate the following entry in the web.xml:

<!--
<context-param>
	<param-name>sourceCodeDeliveryFolder</param-name>
	<param-value>[sourceCodeDeliveryFolderPath]</param-value>
</context-param>

<context-param>
	<param-name>extensionDirectoryPath</param-name>
	<param-value>[extensionDirectoryPath]</param-value>
</context-param>

-->

First modify this entry by moving the <!-- comment tag as follows - this uncomments the "sourceCodeDelivery" parameter and keeps "extensionDirectoryPath" parameter in comment (this parameter should be ignored as it is not yet implemented). This will give you the following:

<context-param>
	<param-name>sourceCodeDeliveryFolder</param-name>
	<param-value>[sourceCodeDeliveryFolderPath]</param-value>
</context-param>
<!--
<context-param>
	<param-name>extensionDirectoryPath</param-name>
	<param-value>[extensionDirectoryPath]</param-value>
</context-param>

-->

Now change the <param-value> value of the "sourceCodeDelivery" parameter to the location of your Source Code Delivery Folder as shown below:

<context-param>
	<param-name>sourceCodeDeliveryFolder</param-name>
	<param-value>D:\CAST\DELIVERY</param-value>
</context-param>
<!--
<context-param>
	<param-name>extensionDirectoryPath</param-name>
	<param-value>[extensionDirectoryPath]</param-value>
</context-param>

-->

You can use the following syntax depending on the location of the Source Code Delivery Folder:

Type

Example syntax

Notes

Drive letter path

D:\CAST\DELIVERY (folder local to the host machine)

Please use this syntax when the CAST AIC Portal and the Delivery folder are located on the SAME machine. In this situation, always enter an absolute path to the local drive containing the Delivery folder (for example D:\ CAST\DELIVERY).

Please DO NOT use a mapped drive path (created using the Windows GUI or the subst Windows command) that points to a folder on the local machine or to a remote network share - doing so can cause an error that will prevent the CAST AIC Portal from functioning.

UNC path

\\HOST\CAST\DELIVERY (folder on a remote network share)

Please use this syntax only when the CAST AIC Portal and the Delivery folder are located on different machines. Note that forward slashes will also function.

Please take into account the following notes about required permissions for the Delivery folder:

In a Windows deployment, the Windows user used to run the Application Server must have read/write access permissions on the Delivery folder
Any user that wishes to interact with the Delivery folder from the CAST Management Studio (for example, when Accepting a delivery, using the Set as current version option or when running the CAST Delivery Manager Tool from the CAST Management Studio) will require read/write access permissions on the Delivery folder

Once the changes have been completed, save the web.xml file and then restart your application server so that the changes are taken into account.

Test access to the CAST AIC Portal

You should now be able to access the CAST AIC Portal using the following URL (modify this to your own environment):

http://<server_name>:<port_number>/CAST-AICP

Note that the CAST AIC Portal should be kept running on the host application server even if the CAST Delivery Manager Tool has been deployed (i.e. a shortcut has been created on the Windows desktop). The CAST Delivery Manager Tool, when launched in this way, requires the CAST AIC Portal for synchronizing data to the Source Code Delivery Folder.

Optional configuration for those running the CAST AIC Portal behind a reverse proxy server

This case applies when direct access to the CAST AIC Portal is denied to users and instead a different public URL is handled by a reverse proxy. For example, the CAST AIC Portal is hosted on a Tomcat server with HTTPS open on port 8443. The reverse proxy then makes the CAST AIC Portal available on port 443 via https://aicportal.castsoftware.com (see Setting up a Reverse Proxy on Apache web server) for more information.

If you want to configure the CAST AIC Portal in this way, you need to make an additional configuration change to the CAST AIC Portal. Locate the following entry in the web.xml located at CATALINA_HOME\webapps\CAST-AICP\WEB-INF\web.xml:

<!--
<context-param>
    <param-name>publicUrl</param-name>
    <param-value>http[s]://proxy-host[:proxy-port]/path-to-aicportal</param-value>
</context-param>
-->

Modify this entry by removing the  comment tags - if you forget to do this, the entire entry remains in comment and will be ignored. Then change the <param-value> value to the public URL of the CAST AIC Portal as shown in the example below:

<context-param>
    <param-name>publicUrl</param-name>
    <param-value>https://aicportal.castsoftware.com</param-value>
</context-param>

Once the changes have been completed, save the web.xml file and then restart your application server so that the changes are taken into account.

Step 2: Configure user authentication

Step 2 involves configuring how your users will authenticate with the CAST AIC Portal to download the CAST Delivery Manager Tool and to deliver source code. Most organizations opt for LDAP/Active Directory integration so that users can use their corporate username/password to access the resources they need. The CAST AIC Portal also has a built in username/password authentication mechanism which is enabled "out of the box".

Please see Configuring user authentication for more information.

Additional information

Once the CAST AIC Portal is installed, you can find out more information about how to create Domains and Applications and add Delivery Managers to your Applications, here:

You can find additional information about advanced security configuration changes for the CAST AIC Portal, such as:

There is also additional information about implementing an enhanced security configuration for your application server in Common security configuration options for web application deployment:

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Installing and configuring the CAST AIC Portal