General

• What is AS2?

  AS2 is the most popular B2B protocol in the industry today. It is designed to exchange EDI messages securely and provide both parties with proof that the exchange has taken place.

• What is EDI?

  EDI stands for Electronic Data Interchange. It is a general term for the transfer of documents between trading partners, and the standards it adheres to. It is alternatively known as EDIINT (EDI over the Internet).

• What is Drummond Certification, and how often does it occur?

  The AS2 Connector[SE] app has been Drummond Certified by the Drummond Group. Exhaustive interoperability testing is performed with each participant, ensuring that each AS2 solution entered into certification testing is interoperable with one another in a number of different security scenarios.

  The engine for the AS2 Connector[SE] application undergoes certification every six months.

Basic Configuration

• How do I determine my personal AS2 Identifier as well as my trading partner's AS2 Identifier?

  The AS2 Identifier in the AS2 protocol uniquely identifies each trading partner. When incoming messages are received, the application uses this information to determine what trading partner has sent the message. Likewise, when you send to your trading partner, this value will be used by your trading partner to ensure that the transmission is meant for them.

  You should choose an AS2 Identifier that is easily associated with your identity in an AS2 exchange, such as your company name or your organization within the company. This information will be provided to you by your trading partner when you first establish a relationship with your trading partner.

• What is the Partner URL?

  This is the URL where your trading partner receives incoming messages. You need this to send outgoing transmissions to your trading partner. Obtain this from your trading partner.

• Sending and receiving files seem to stop after I log out.

  IIS is possibly unloading your application after it times out from inactivity. To prevent this you will need to run IIS 7.5 or higher and make a configuration change. Follow these instructions here.

Upgrading

• How do I import my old partner profiles from the old AS2 Connector application?

  Importing old profiles is simple. You will first need to find the location on disk where the old profile data was saved on your machine (this should be found here: "%INSTALL_DIR%\profiles\").

  Next you will need to log in to the new application and go to the "Services" tab. From here, you should see a service in the list on the left column named "ImportProfile". Click on this service.

  Once the ImportProfile service is displayed, you will enter the folder location of the old AS2 data directory, and hit the "Run Service" button.

  All previous data including your personal information as well as that of all of your trading partners will have been copied over into the new application. Note that this will copy all of your old profile/partner settings into the new application. Thus changes to one application will not be reflected in both applications if they are running side-by-side.

• Can I run both AS2 Connector V3 and V2 simultaneously?

  Yes, by default the old application is configured to run on a different port than the new AS2 Connector[SE] application. Note that the receiving URL will be different for the new application and you will have to notify your partners that your receiving URL has changed.

Security

• Do I need to encrypt and sign all messages?

  We recommend that you sign outgoing messages and require signatures for incoming messages to authenticate you and your partner's identities. We also recommend that, if your trading partner uses a non-SSL URL (one with an http:// prefix), you encrypt all messages so that transmissions to and from your trading partner are secure and cannot be intercepted by a third party.

• Does the application run over SSL?

  No, the included Web server that runs the application does not support SSL connections. This means that your password is sent across a plain-text connection and is not secure. In order to secure access to your application you will need to enable SSL for your application. On Windows, you must configure IIS to host the application and force SSL connections only to fully secure access to your application.

• Do I need client authentication for SSL connections?

  This depends on your trading partner's connection configuration. The SSL Client Authentication section of the Advanced tab allows you to configure a certificate to use for SSL Client Authentication, if your trading partner requires you to present a certificate when connecting to their AS2 solution. Because the AS2 protocol already implements a form of authentication, is not usual for a trading partner to implement SSL Client Authentication in addition to that used in AS2.

MDN Receipts

• What are MDN Receipts?

  MDN receipts are a way for your trading partner to send a response when you send them a message. Because MDN receipts are vital in the AS2 protocol to determine whether or not the intended recipient has received a message, it is recommended that you request an MDN receipt in all cases except when testing.

• Should MDN Receipts be signed?

  Because a signed MDN ensures the identity of the recipient, it is recommended that you request a signed MDN in all cases except when testing. There is no way to prove that an unsigned MDN receipt was returned by the intended recipient.

• Can you explain the difference between the synchronous and asynchronous MDN delivery options?

  When sending an AS2 transmission, the sender of the document determines how the MDN will be delivered. Synchronous MDN delivery (the default) means that the MDN receipt is returned in the HTTP response to the outgoing AS2 request. Asynchronous delivery means that the receiver of the AS2 transmission simply acknowledges the transmission that was initiated by the sender, and sends an MDN receipt in a second connection that is initiated from the trading partner to the application.

  When an asynchronous MDN receipt is requested, the application will request that the MDN is delivered to the Asynchronous MDN URL specified in the Setup tab of the application. Asynchronous MDN's are usually requested in cases where the transmission is large or the AS2 processing time of the trading partner is expected to take a while, so the initial connection is not left open while the MDN is prepared.

Certificates

• What are private certificates?

  The AS2 Connector[SE] application allows you to specify private certificates in PKCS#12 format (a .pfx file or a .p12 file). Private key certificates are used to perform the two operations that only the holder of the private key should be able to perform:

  • Signing data to provide proof of your identity
  • Decrypting data that was intended for you

• What are public certificates?

  Public key certificates are given to you by your trading partner. The AS2 Connector[SE] application allows you to specify public key certificates in X.509 format (a .cer or .der file). Public key certificates are used to work in reverse of the operations that require a private key. These operations include:

  • Verifying signatures created by your trading partner
  • Encrypting data so that only your trading partner can read it

Large Files

• How can I make the application send/receive large files?

  To send large files, you will need to enable the HTTP Chunked Transfer Encoding option for the application. This option will allow the application to send extremely large files with a minimal amount of memory usage.

  This functionality is not supported by all AS2 implementations, so please check with your trading partner to confirm they can receive this type of HTTP transfer encoding.

• What compression algorithm does the compress option use?

  If you select to compress outgoing messages for a particular trading partner, zlib compression will be used during the transfer. This will allow you to send larger documents consisting of compressible data (edi-x12, edifact, xml, and text files) in a compressed format so the overall transmission is smaller, and the exchange is faster. AS2 implementations that are compliant to the specifications will support the receiving of compressed documents, at the option of the sender.