System requirements for HAN
Requirements for the use of HAN as management software for online-based resources such as e-journals and online databases
- Windows Server 2016
- Windows Server 2019
- Windows Server 2022
- CPU: quad core recommended
- 4 GB RAM minimum, depending on your subscription type/organization's needs:
- Entry & Small (up to 15,000 users): 4 – 8 GB
- Large (up to 35,000 users): 8 – 12 GB
- Infinite (over 35,000 users): ab 12 GB
We recommend the installation in a separate data partition.
- 50 GB available disk space minimum, depending on your subscription type/organization's needs:
- Entry & Small (up to 15,000 users): 50 – 100 GB
- Large (up to 35,000 users): 150 GB
- Infinite (over 35,000 users): 300 GB
- Wildcard DNS record (HAN server FQDN) pointing to the HAN server in the local DNS1
- Wildcard SSL certificate (HAN server FQDN) 2
- IP adress with the free ports 80 and 443 for HTTP and HTTPS
- Prerequisite for hypervisors: Paravirtual network adapter
- Up-to-date PDF reader
Please take care that there are no additional roles or functions, such as Remote Desktop Services, IIS, other web servers or similar, may be installed on the server.
Updates of the integrated Apache are done via HAN-Updates!
HAN administration
- PC with 64bit Windows 8.1 or later and the latest service pack
Clients for e-jornal access
- For the devices on which the E-journals are to be called, no special requirements with respect to the operating system or the equipment are needed, accept of a modern web browser. To use the Search or e-journal access no additional program or plugin need to be installed.
Both HAN servers and HAN clients must have Internet access via ports 80 and 443 (http and https).
1 Wildcard DNS record
An important part of managing e-resources is the statistical evaluation of the content offered and its usage.
This is made possible through use of the reverse proxy technique, so that online resources are retrieved over the HAN server rather than directly from the provider. The technical implementation involves parsing the source text of the online resource to route the connection through the HAN server. Starting with HAN v3 the required data, such as the target server and the selected resource (specified by its HAN ID), is integrated in the name of the HAN server.
The resulting URL takes the following form:
https://<provider server name>.<HAN ID>.<FQDN of the HAN server>/<URL>
This modification of the URL necessitates a wildcard DNS record in the host server to enable retrieval of the resource.
Example
The URLhttps://www.nytimes.com/index.html
is rewritten as follows when called over HAN:https://www.nytimes.com.nytinternal.hanserver.domain.com/index.html
HAN ID: nytinternal
FQDN HAN Server: hanserver.domain.com
2 Wildcard SSL Certificate
When online resources are called over SSL, the following problem arises: The address of a server certificate made out to the FQDN of the HAN server does not match the server name in the address used for retrieval. The user receives a certificate warning stating that, although the certificate is valid, the address does not match.
This problem is eliminated by using a wildcard certificate, which allows one (and only one) variable position preceding the server name.
Starting with HAN v3.1, a dot (.) is no longer required between the provider-server name and the HAN ID; a different character may be used instead. As a result, the variable part preceding the HAN server name is accepted as a match and thus is covered by the certificate.
Wildcard certificates are specified in RFC 2818 (https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2818.txt) und RFC 2459 (https://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2595.txt)
