What is IIS? Why does ClearStream 3.0 need to enable it?

Fahim Ali

New Member
Staff member
If you've already installed ClearStream 3.0, you might have noticed an option to "Enable IIS" during the installation procedure.

IIS stands for "Internet Information Services." It is a Microsoft technology that enables the Windows PC on which it is enabled to act as a web server. IIS is pre-installed with most installations of the Windows operating system, but it is not usually enabled by default.

IIS needs to be enabled to highlight some new features of ClearStream, namely, the public API and the demo web app that utilizes said API. With the new ClearStream API (CS API), it is possible to start/stop the RFID readers connected to ClearStream, without going through the ClearStream user interface. The demo web app installed with ClearStream 3.0 does this through a web page.

Once ClearStream 3.0 has been successfully installed and IIS enabled, anyone with an Internet connected device within the same network as the ClearStream installation can access the demo web app to start/stop connected readers, and view reader information. This allows for interesting possibilities, like viewing readers and starting/stopping them from your internet connected smartphone. To access the demo app, you will need to know the internal IP address or hostname of the PC that is running the IIS web server. Once you have that, you would navigate to the following URL on any web browser (using "192.168.0.1" as an example):

192.168.0.1/CS_WebApp

This will open up the demo web app, and from there, you can connect to the PC running ClearStream. The host and port information are defaulted to "localhost" and "4405," but it is possible to connect to any other PC running ClearStream by modifying this information, as long as they are on the same network.
 
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