Sitecore Commerce 10.1 Initial Release – Step by step Install Guide on your machine

This one is a summary of my own experience with Sitecore Experience Commerce 10.1 Initial Release (aka Sitecore XC 10.1.0) installation on my machine. I’ve had much experience in the following ones:

• Sitecore XC9 installation
• Sitecore XC9 Update 1 installation
• Sitecore XC9 Update 2 installation
• Sitecore XC9 Update 3 installation
• Sitecore XC 9.1 Initial Release installation
• Sitecore XC 9.2 Initial Release installation
• Sitecore XC 9.3 Initial Release installation
• Sitecore XC 10 Initial Release installation

so I decided to go only with:

• XC Installation Guide for On Premises Solutions (Thanks Sitecore team!)

I hope this blog post is also helpful for your journey.

Note: personally, I wanted to use my own install directory rather than the default one

Setup Prerequisites

Please refer to the Sitecore Experience Commerce Compatibility Table for the software and version prerequisites:

• Windows 10
• ASP.NET Core Runtime 3.1.6 (or later) Hosting Bundle
• Sitecore Experience Platform 10.1 Initial Release
• Sitecore PowerShell Extensions 6.2 for Sitecore 10.1
• Sitecore Experience Accelerator 10.1
• Packages for On Premises WDP 2021.02-7.0.162
• Redis 3.0.504 or later

Step-by-step guide

1. install the ones below if NOT YET 😀
   • a fresh Sitecore XP 10.1 Initial Release instance, let’s say storefront1010.local and storefront1010.xconnect.local (xConnect site)
   • download and install ASP.NET Core Runtime 3.1.6 (or later) Hosting Bundle (Note: don’t forget to restart the OS)
   • download and install Redis 3.0.504 or later
2. rebuild the Link databases for the master and core databases if not yet:
   • on the Sitecore Launchpad, click Control Panel, and in the Database section, click Rebuild Link Databases
   •  select the master and core databases and then click Rebuild
   • 
3. rebuild the search indexes if not yet:
   • on the Sitecore Launchpad, click Control Panel, and in the Indexing section, click Indexing manager
   •  in the Indexing Manager dialog box, click Select all, and then click Rebuild
   • 
4. ensure that Experience Analytics is working properly

   •      
   • Note: if there is any error
     • option 1: you will have to solve it before installing XC by opening the Sitecore log and then having a look at the error messages (normally, they’re certificate issues)
     • option 2: you may want to disable xDB and then fix the error later after installing XC successfully
5. create a new folder D:\sc1010_com_install
6. download MSBuild Microsoft Visual Studio Web targets (available from Nuget) then extract the Web targets package, copy the tools\VSToolsPath\Web\Microsoft.Web.XmlTransform.dll file into D:\sc1010_com_install
7. download Sitecore PowerShell Extensions 6.2 for Sitecore 10.1 and put it into D:\sc1010_com_install
8. download Sitecore Experience Accelerator 10.1 and put it into D:\sc1010_com_install
9. download and unzip Packages for On Premises WDP 2021.02-7.0.162 then put it into D:\sc1010_com_install
10. unzip D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF.Sitecore.Commerce.6.0.18.zip and then rename to D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF for a better practice
11. override the following files in order to inject the custom install directory of Commerce’s sites
    • open raw and then copy / paste Master_SingleServer.json into D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF\Configuration\Commerce
    • 
    • open raw and then copy paste CommerceEngine.json into D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF\Configuration\Commerce\CommerceEngine
    • 
    • open raw and then copy / paste CommerceEngine.Instance.Deploy.json into D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF\Configuration\Commerce\CommerceEngine
    • 
    • (optional) download + unzip  Configuration.zip and then copy / paste all to D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF
12. download sc1010_com_install.ps1 and put it into D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF then open it to correct the following parameters if necessary
    • $ScInstallDirectory
    • $SiteNamePrefix
    • $SiteHostHeaderName
    • $SitecoreDbServer
      • ensure using double-backslash if any
      • 
    • $SqlUser
    • $SqlPass
    • $SolrUrl
    • $SolrRoot
    • $SolrService
    • $CommerceEngineConnectClientSecret: refer to Step 13 below
      • deployment fails if you don’t provide a qualified value for this parameter
      • 
13. (optional) create a secret client certificate
    • refer to 2.3. Create a secret client certificate (Page 12) in XC Installation Guide for On Premises Solutions
    • 
    • Note: you can download the PowerShell script above here and then
    • open Windows PowerShell
    • 
    • note the generated client script and then replace the value of $CommerceEngineConnectClientSecret
    • 
14. (optional) correct the SitecoreUserName and SitecoreUserPassword of your Sitecore XP 10.1.0 instance if you’re using others rather than the default ones
    • 
15. (optional) you can specify any local account (note: it will be created automatically if non-existent) to be set up for the various application pools that are created as part of the deployment
    • 
16. let’s install it
    • Note: ensure that there is NO custom AllowedCorsOriginsGroup in D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF\IdentityServerSitecore.Commerce.IdentityServer.Host.xml (they’re added automatically in prior installations) by reverting Sitecore.Commerce.IdentityServer.Host.xml
    • launch PowerShell as an administrator
    • change directory to D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF
    • execute .\sc1010_com_install
    • 
    • hopefully there is nothing can stop the installation process now
17. open a browser then navigate to https://storefront1010.local/, you would see the default page of Sitecore website. That’s because we don’t use the default host name sxa.storefront.com so we need to correct it via Sitecore
    • log into https://storefront1010.local/sitecore/
    • access SXA Site Manager application
    • 
    • open Storefront site and then update Host Name to storefront1010.local and Database to master
    • 
    • (optional) uncheck the checkbox Cache Html and select Yes for Disable Browser Caching for a better practice
    • 
    • refresh https://storefront1010.local/ and then add some products, you would see something like this
    • 
18. DO NOT forget to perform Post-Installation Steps
    • follow Post-Installation Steps (from Page 17) in XC Installation Guide for On Premises Solutions

The recommendation

We can remove the modules completed from D:s\c1010_com_install\SIF\Configuration\Commerce\Master_SingleServer.json and re-do Step 16 if there is something wrong (especially for Note: some known issues below) so that we are able to save a lot of time 😀

Likewise the following one in the installation guide:

How to uninstall it?

• open D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF\sc1010_com_install.ps1 and uncomment the line 301 + comment out the line 298 then save it
• 
• Note: DO NOT FORGET to restore D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF\Configuration\Commerce\Master_SingleServer.json if you already edited it for removing the modules completed via the install operations
• 
• open Windows PowerShell (run as administrator)
• change directory to D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF
• execute .\sc1010_com_install
• 
• hopefully, it runs well and cleans everything up

Note: some known issues

1. ScriptHalted
   • 
   • my suggestion is to remove all prior modules completed + CommerceEngine-Initialize task itself (in this case) from D:\sc1010_com_install\SIF\Configuration\Commerce\Master_SingleServer.json and re-do Step 16

Got issues?

Please send your issues (with screenshots if possible) to [email protected] so that I have a chance to understand your problem and be able to suggest the solution.

Happy Sitecore Commerce 10.1 Installation!

This article originally appeared on Walking on clouds.