How To install the Workflow Foundation Farm in an Offline Environment

While working on a clients SharePoint 2013 implementation I ran into a number of different issues due to the clients servers having very limited access to the internet. I ran into issues with some different installations such as SharePoint prerequisites, .Net framework, etc. 

In order to get this to work I had to go through a number of hoops that you wont have to deal with if you have access to the internet. The following MS article provides details on these steps, but I found that there ended up being some details missing

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj193448.aspx

This error will be received when running the platform installer if you don’t have internet access

Offline Installation

•  Navigate to http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj906604.aspx
  
•  Click on the link in step 1 under “To Download the files”
  
•  This will take you to another page that provides the link for the installer -
• WebPI v4 x64: http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/0/4/704CEB4C-9F42-4962-A2B0-5C84B0682C7A/WebPlatformInstaller_amd64_en-US.msi
  
•  Click on the link to download the file
  
•  Open an elevated command prompt and navigate to the download location of the file
  
•  Run the following to extract the content of the MSI file, below is example       
              Msiexec /a D:\temp\WebplatformInstaller_amd64_en-US.msi /qb TARGETDIR=D:\temp\web
  
• This will extract the contents of the MSI into the specified folder, you will want to drill down into the sub folders of the folder you extracted the files to in order to get to WebpiCmd.exe , this should be located in “\Microsoft\Web Platform Installer\WebpiCmd.exe”
  
• Change directories to this folder location in your command prompt and then run the following
            webpicmd /offline /Products:WorkflowManager /Path:D:\WorkflowManagerFiles
  
• This command will run for 5-10 min mattering on connection speed and display a number of products as it is running.

• Once complete it will return to the command prompt

• Zip up all the contents and upload to dropbox or another site that can be accessed from the client site
  
• Download and then extract the zip file on the server that will run workflow manager in the farm
  
• Once the files are downloaded and copied to the target server, launch an elevated command prompt and navigate to the bin folder contained within the Workflow Manager files folder used. This location will contain the Web Platform Installer executable that can be run in offline mode.
  
• Run the following command
   WebpiCmd.exe /Install       /Products:WorkflowManager /XML:C:/WorkflowManagerFiles/feeds/latest/webproductlist.xml
  
• This will start the installation of the required components, once it is complete you will see the screen below and the workflow manager configuration will launch

• Select the first option to use default settings

• Enter in the SQL alias being used in the farm and click test connection to verify

• Enter in Configuration information and then Click the next arrow and it will validate your configuration

Setting	Value
User ID	Enter in “Run-As” service account being used in the farm
Password	Password for service account
Allow workflow Mgmt over HTTP	Yes if HTTP will be allowed, No if not
Certificate Generation Key	Set key that is used to join other servers to the farm

• Configuration validation will occur

• After this completes you will see a list of the configuration that you have chosen, Click the check box to apply the configuration

                          ** You can click on “Get PowerShell Commands” to get the configuration you selected in a PS script **

• The configuration will run and provide a status after all has completed, Close this window once this has been completed

                                       ** Review the log below the status and look for any errors or failures **

• If there are multiple servers in the farm then you will need to install the workflow client on all other SharePoint server in the farm. The installation file is WorkflowManagerClient_x64.msi
  
• Double click on the file and it will perform the installation, you will not be prompted for anything once complete, it only takes a few seconds to complete
  
• All files and folders are required for this process or you will run into errors when trying to run the offline file installation.
  
• If you try and run the offline installer without all files being present that are downloaded you will receive the error below

Once this has completed you are ready to complete wiring up the workflow farm to your SharePoint farm.