Server Requirements for Silverlight Application Deployment

Introduction

We had a recent debate on whether Silverlight SDK is needed in the server during Silverlight application deployment to production server. Here are the details that I came with when browsing over the net on this topic.
Combining this will help users get started with this. You need to do these things.

1. Set IIS to ScriptOnly

• http://forums.silverlight.net/forums/p/1787/203871.aspx

How do I do this?

You can set permissions for any object in IIS, including Web sites, folders, files, and scripts.

To set the permissions for an object in IIS:

• Log on to the Web server computer as an administrator.
• Click Start, point to Settings, and then click Control Panel.
• Double-click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Internet Services Manager.
• Right-click the Web site that you want to configure in the left pane, and then click Properties.
• If you want to set the permissions for a Web site's home folder, click the Home Directory tab.
• If you want to set the permissions for a folder in a Web site, click the Directory tab.
• If you want to set the permissions for a file or a script in a folder, click the File tab.
• Click the corresponding permissions that you want to set for the object.
• To turn on script processing for a Web site or folder, click Scripts Only from the Execute permissions list.
• To turn off script processing, click None.
• Click OK.

2. Register MIME extensions in the server

• http://www.cjcraft.com/Blog/2007/05/08/HowToConfigureIIS50AndIIS60ToDeploySilverlightApplications.aspx
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/281507/what-are-the-server-requirements-for-silverlight-2

Note

In this, we need to register .Xap also. This is missing in one of the links.

How do I do this setting?

• http://www.hosting.com/support/dedicated/IIS/newmime/

3. Do I need Silverlight SDK to be installed in the server?

You do not need to have the Silverlight SDK installed in the production server. Here is a clear idea. Read through the following two threads. It specifies you need to have an extension installed additionally in the server for the .NET framework and tweak few things based on the software installed.

• http://forums.silverlight.net/forums/p/13270/221698.aspx
• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/980634/silverlight-xap-file-not-being-copied-to-clientbin-on-build-server

Note

These guys are deploying a Silverlight application that uses WCF in the background to communicate with the database. A good startup project for any developer who is starting with application development in .NET 3.5 with Silverlight.