Installing Right Click Tools with Recast Management Server

Management Server Requirements

  • Windows Server 2012R2 or later
  • IIS
  • ASP.net 4.7
  • .Net Core Hosting Bundle (The Recast Management Server will install this if it is not present, this should be installed after IIS)
  • SQL Server Express or fully licensed version of SQL

Additional Recommendation if you are Installing Recast Management Server on its Own Server

  • 4 cores CPU
  • 8 GB RAM

Right Click Tools Requirements

  • Windows Operating System
  • ASP.net 4.7 or higher
  • Functional ConfigMgr Client

Download the newest version of the Recast Management Server and Right Click Tools.

You can download the latest installers for the Recast Management Server and Right Click Tools by logging into the Recast Portal site at: https://portal.recastsoftware.com/

Installing Recast Management Server

Important

<Existing Lab / Kiosk Manager profiles, RCT Builder actions, and users and roles will not be automatically migrated to 4.x when upgrading from 3.x. Please schedule time with our team if you need help migrating those features.>

Before beginning you should have IIS and ASP.NET 4.7 Installed. The Recast Management Server will help you install the appropriate version of the .Net Core Hosting Bundle. If you manage to install the .Net Core Hosting Bundle before IIS, you will need to repair the .Net Core Hosting Bundle installation.

.net Core Bundle

Note

<You may need to restart the Recast Management Server IIS site in order for the web UI to be fully operational after installation. If you are not able to log into the Recast Management Server configuration page, try stopping and starting the Recast Management Server IIS site.>

IIS Configuration

The first page in the wizard after accepting the EULA walks you through the server name and IIS port. You should only change the server name if the client is going to use a DNS alias. The server port can be changed to any open TCP port – 444 is the default to prevent conflicts when installing on ConfigMgr servers, but it can be changed to port 443 if it’s preferred in your environment.

IIS Configuration

Certificates

Recast Management Server requires a certificate for secure communication with the Right Click Tools and any Recast Proxies. You have the option to generate a self-signed certificate or use an existing one. You should either use a web server certificate issued by a trusted internal Certificate Authority, or generate a self-signed certificate. The certificate can be changed later by editing the Binding in IIS Manager.

Certificate Configuration

Things to Note:

  • The subject name or one of the subject alternative names of the certificate should match the server name in the URL that the Right Click Tools and Recast Proxies are pointed towards.
  • The public key of self-signed certificates will need to be added to the Trusted Root Certificate Authorities store on your Recast Proxies
  • Right Click Tools will prompt for untrusted certificates and add them to an allowed list. To avoid this prompt, import the public key of the Recast Management Server certificate into the Trusted Root Certificate Authorities store on the devices where the Right Click Tools are installed.
  • Certificates can be changed later from IIS Manager.

SQL Server

Recast Management Server requires a SQL Server in version 4.0 or higher. This can be the free SQL Server Express version, or enterprise SQL. If the SQL Server is installed on a remote device, the computer account of Recast Management Server will need permissions to create the database on the remote device. Alternatively, you can pre-create the RecastManagementServer database and give the computer account db_owner permissions. If the SQL Server is installed on the local device, the computer account of the Recast Management Server will need permissions to create the database on the local device. You can precreate the database and give the IIS AppPool\Recast Management Server account db_owner permissions to the database. This account will not exist until after the installation is finished, so the permissions will need to be given after installation. The Test SQL Connection button will verify connectivity to the SQL Server during installation if the account running the installation has permissions to remotely connect.

SQL Server

Things to Note:

  • If using a remote SQL Server, the computer account of the Recast Management Server needs to be given the db_owner role for the RecastManagementServer database.
  • If using a local SQL Server, the IIS AppPool\Recast Management Server account needs to be given the db_owner role for the RecastManagementServer database.
    • The IIS AppPool\Recast Management Server account will not exist until after the installation completes.
  • The default SQL Server Port Number is 1433
  • For more information on SQL permissions, see Troubleshooting - SQL Server Configuration

Licensing

Licenses can be downloaded during your Recast Management Server installation by entering your Recast Portal email address and password and clicking Download License. The license information should show up in the right pane if the retrieval was successful. If your server does not have interenet access you can use the Browse for License button to browse the filesystem for a license file that has been exported from Portal.

License

After clicking next the install will continue.

Verification

When the installation is complete, verify that you are able to open the Recast Management Server by navigating to https://ServerFQDN:Port in a web browser. Chrome, Edge, or Firefox are recommended. You will receive an authentication window asking you to sign in. Enter the username and password for the account that you were using to install the Recast management Server. A correctly configured Recast Management Server should look similar to the below screenshot

Server Working Screenshot

If you do not see a screen like the one above, please check out the troubleshooting section of our documentation Troubleshooting

To make sure that authentication is working correctly, you should add a user at this time. Add the user name that you are currently logged in as by entering it in the name field and clicking search. The user names will appear below and can be checked to add. Click the add button and verify that the user is added correctly to the Management Server. After adding the user click Edit to the right and add the Administrator role to the user you just created.

Adding user

Install Right Click Tools

Now that you have the Management Server Installed Successfully, you should continue with the Right Click Tools installation on the ConfigMgr Console of your choice. Close all open ConfigMgr consoles on your chosen computer. Then double click on the installer .msi to install. The installer will open and you should click "Next" to continue.

Right Click Tools Enterprise Server Installation

In the screen that follows select the Recast RCT Enterprise with Recast Server version.

[Important] <You can optionally select add RCT Builder to all console nodes. This will add RCT Builder to all the nodes in the ConfigMgr console. You can also select to Skip in console permissions checks all tools will appear as if they are available to you, even if you are not granted access in the Recast Management Server. If a user tries to access something that they do not have permission to, the action will fail with the error "Invalid Recast Permissions.">

Right Click Tools select Enterprise Server

At the next screen you should enter the name of the computer that contains the Recast Management Server as well as the port that you specified earlier for communication (default is 444). Click on the "Test Connection" button and make sure that it returns success. If it is not successful you should troubleshoot the connection error before continuing with the installation, your Right Click Tools installation will not connect with your Recast Management Server correctly if the result is something other than success.

Right Click Tools Enterprise add RMS Address

The install will continue, and when it is finished, this screen will appear.

Right Click Tools Complete

Verification

To verify that Right Click Tools is installed correctly and is connecting to the Recast Management Server successfully, you should open the ConfigMgr console on the device where you installed Right Click Tools.

Click the Recast Software node on the left hand side of the screen, and the "Welcome to Right Click Tools" screen should appear. On the right hand side of this window it will show the Server Installed Version which should match the version of the Recast Management Server that you installed. It will also show the Remote Server Status, which should show as "Connected" which means that your Right Click Tools and Recast Management Server are communicating with each other successfully.

Recast Software Node With Server

Your Right Click Tools and Recast Management Server has been set up correctly. Click Here for more documentation specific to the Recast Management Server.

Silent Installation

The silent installation command for the Right Click Tools is as follows:

  • msiexec /i "Recast Enterprise Desktop Tools.msi" /qn RCTENTERPRISESERVER=https://(servername)
  • Replace (servername) with the Recast Enterprise Server name. Be sure to include the port if the IIS site is bound to something other than 443.

For example: msiexec /i "Recast Enterprise Desktop Tools.msi" /qn RCTENTERPRISESERVER=https://recast.demo.local:444

Installation Logs

If you need to verify the installation logs for any reason, Logs for the installation of the Recast Management Server and Recast Proxy (when installed together) will be located here:

C:\Users\user account running the install\AppData\Local\Temp

It will be named something like Recast_Management_Server_2021*****.log