Recovering a lost application key
The application key is critical to the correct operation of the system. If the application key is lost it is not possible to recover the third party passwords. Logging on is unaffected but passwords for adapters and integration settings must be re-entered.
In practice, there are two ways the application key can be lost:
The web server fails
The website is uninstalled
To mitigate the first issue, a backup of the web server should be kept.
An example of the second issue is the need to move the web server to a different physical computer. The application key should be copied from the configuration file on the old server and the new website should be installed using the application key. Test that the new server works correctly and verify that there is a valid backup of the server. Once the installation is complete, uninstall the website from the old server.
The application key, as well as the database connections strings, are stored in an encrypted section of the configuration files for the components. Two scripts are available to decrypt and encrypt the configuration files:
install_location\MsBuild\ConfigEncrypt.batinstall_location\MsBuild\ConfigDecrypt.bat
The files that are encrypted and decrypted are:
install_location\WebSite\web.configinstall_location\PublicWebService\web.configinstall_location\ServiceHost\DirectaSvcHost.exe.config