Preventing SSO from falling asleep 2

You launch UniversitySite and notice that the single-sign-on process is taking longer than normal and you may even see the login screen.  Here's why and what you can do about it:

Applies To

  • UniversitySite Cloud (vs Behind the firewall installations) 
  • Windows Server 2012
  • Windows Server 2008* (see instructions at bottom for this)

Intended Audience

  • System administrators

Background

You are using UniversitySite cloud and single-sign-on. 

Cause

It's possible that your SSO server has gone to sleep and so it takes a bit longer to "wake up" and handle your login.  This is a feature of Microsoft IIS.  By default, web applications go to sleep if there is no activity for 20 minutes. This feature is intended to optimize resources on the web server, but it comes at a price of causing users to wait for sleeping applications to load.

Resolution (Windows Server 2012)

Change the 'Start Mode' of the application pool in IIS to 'Always Running':

  1. Locate the web server where SSO is running (if you don't the server, you can cross reference UniversitySite's admin tools)
  2. Launch IIS Manager
  3. Identify the Application Pool being used for the UniversitySiteSSO app
  4. Under the Advanced Settings, change Start Mode to 'Always Running'

AppPools

Resolution (Windows Server 2008)

Change the 'Start Mode' of the application pool in IIS to 'Always Running':

  1. Locate the web server where SSO is running (if you don't the server, you can cross reference UniversitySite's admin tools)
  2. Launch IIS Manager
  3. Identify the Application Pool being used for the UniversitySiteSSO app
  4. Under the Advanced Settings, find the IdleTime-out and set it to 0
  5. Set the application pool to recycle at a specified time each day so that it recycles 1/day e.g. 0100

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