System requirements

Minimal

2 CPU cores
1 GB RAM

Recommended

2 CPU cores
1,5 GB RAM

Linux OS

The Document Renderer Service requires that the OS has the following libraries installed: CURL, ICU, without these libraries installed on the OS the Document Renderer Service is unable to start and will display an error message stating that these libraries needs to be installed. 

Third party tools

Ibex

The Document Renderer Service uses Ibex PDF Creator to render PDF documents.

Configuration

Property Encryption

Any property value can be encrypted with the Blueriq Encryption tool.

More information on how can be found here: Property encryption - Blueriq Latest - Blueriq Community

Document templates

Blueriq delivers default templates for rendering Blueriq Documents. You can to customize these templates to fit the look-and-feel of your company. The templates can be found in the <blueriq installation home>\Services\document-renderer\Resources\documents folder.

Font Configuration

By default the OS fonts folder (where the Document Renderer Service is hosted) will be scanned for available fonts which can be used in the PDF generation. Only TrueType (.ttf and .ttc) fonts are supported.

Custom font directory

Custom fonts can be added by setting the 'fonts:location' property. This property is a relative path from the 'blueriq:documents:baseFolder'.  In the properties example below the custom fonts location is set to 'Resources/documents/fonts/'. This folder, and subfolders will be recursively scanned while looking for fonts for the document renderer, and can be used in the documents.

blueriq:
  documents:
    baseFolder: Resources/
    xsltStyleSheet: documents/ibex/styles.xsl
    fonts:
      location: documents/fonts/
      aliasList:
        fontawesome regular: fontawesome
		font_id_xslt: fontname
      allowList:
        - fontawesome-webfont.ttf
        - myCustomFont.ttf

Font Alias

When the fontname doesn't match the used id in the XSLT, an alias can be set for the font.

For example : Although it might look like the font is registered under the name 'fontawesome regular', it actually is 'fontawesome'. In the XSLT the font is used with the id 'fontawesome regular' so an alias has to be used for the document renderer to match the font. As much aliases can be registered as needed. First is the key used in the XSTL, value is the fontname which is referred to.

Font AllowList

By default not all fonts from the system are loaded as this would result in quite some extra RAM usage. The AllowList normally only contains entries for the fonts actually being used in your documents.

The default AllowList contains entries for the default fonts shipped with the Document Renderer:

blueriq:
  documents:
    fonts:
      allowList:
        - fontawesome-webfont.ttf
        - Roboto-Bold.ttf
        - Roboto-BoldItalic.ttf
        - Roboto-Italic.ttf
        - Roboto-Regular.ttf
        - RobotoMono-Regular.ttf

Logging

The Blueriq Document Renderer Service uses Serilog for logging. Serilog configuration is read from the Serilog section in the <blueriq installation home>\Services\document-renderer\Properties\blueriq-document-renderer.yml file. For more information on Serilog configuration options, consult the Serilog configuration documentation.
The Blueriq Document Renderer Service supports the Console and the File sink.

HTTPS

By default, the Document Renderer uses HTTP. It can be configured to use HTTPS instead by changing the Properties/hostsettings.json file. Certificates can either be loaded from a Certificate Store (Windows) or from a file on disk. Below you will find an example for both cases. It is also possible to configure multiple endpoints that use different certificates. For more examples, please refer to the Kestrel documentation.

// Javascript-style comments are allowed in the hostsettings.json file
{
  "Kestrel": {
    "Endpoints": {
      "Https": {
	    // Configure host name and port 
        "Url": "https://example.com:443",
        "Certificate": {
          "Path": "C:/certs/cert.pem",
          "KeyPath": "C:/certs/cert.key",
		  // Please note that the `password` property is optional
		  "Password": "P4ssw0rd!"
        }
      }

	  // Additional endpoints could be specified here:
	  // , "Example": {
	  //   ....
	  // }
    }
  }
}

// Javascript-style comments are allowed in the hostsettings.json file
{
  "Kestrel": {
    "Endpoints": {
      "Https": {
	    // Configure host name and port 
        "Url": "https://example.com:443",
        "Certificate": {
          "Path": "C:/certs/cert.pfx",
		  // Please note that the `password` property is optional
		  "Password": "P4ssw0rd!"
        }
      }

	  // Additional endpoints could be specified here:
	  // , "Example": {
	  //   ....
	  // }
    }
  }
}

{
  "Kestrel": {
    "Endpoints": {
      "Example": {
		"Url": "https://localhost:443",
		"Certificate": {
          "Subject": "localhost", // Subject name
          "Store": "WebHosting", // Keystore name
          "Location": "LocalMachine", // Location of the keystore
          "AllowInvalid": "true" // Allows invalid (e.g. self-signed) certificates
		}
      }
    }
  }
}

Dynamic images

The Document Renderer Client component provides support for adding dynamic images to a document.

Port configuration

By default, the Document Renderer uses HTTP and is configured to run on port 8099, these settings can be overridden and are found in the Properties/hostsettings.json file.

{
  "urls": "http://*:8099"
}

Authentication

You can create a user and password that any caller of the API has to provide.

blueriq:
  authentication:
    username: blueriq
    password: "{bcrypt}$2a$10$E/MZ1O2t/wU9TTCubVZgX.c6AFdFEUSYs7QJ.Ia2kyGd/msjEkERq"

As you can see above the password can be hashed with bcrypt. Use your own tool to hash the password (it must use bcrypt). No other hashing algorithms are supported at this time.

You can also opt to not use hashing by placing "{noop}" in front of the pasword value. This is not recommended for production environments.