Getting started with the AS2 Connector is easy. There are three main steps required to get started using the application:

  1. Configure your Personal Profile
  2. Configure a Trading Partner
  3. Send and Receive Files

 

Configure your Personal Profile

The first thing that you'll want to do is to configure your own AS2 profile. Your AS2 profile defines important information used to identify you with your trading partners. Select the 'Profile' menu item to get started configuring your profile.


The Profile selection shows the configuration of the local application profile. This contains everything that is relevant to your identity in an AS2 exchange. There are a number of settings available for various configurations, however the majority are optional. To get started you will need to specify the following:

  1. AS2 Identifier
  2. Email Address
  3. Personal Certificate
  4. Receive URL

1) AS2 Identifier: The AS2 Identifier is the name that is used to identify the partner in an AS2 transmission, similar to an email address in an email exchange. [+] more

  • The AS2 Identifier here is "TestAS2" for the test profile, but you should replace it with a value that has meaning to you or your organization, for example, your company name or department name.
  • The AS2 Identifier that you set here will be sent in the headers of AS2 transmissions that you initiate, indicating who the transmissions are coming from. Your partners will use this value to load the settings for your profile so they can process your requests.
  • The AS2 Identifier is one piece of information that you will give your trading partner when exchanging profile information.

2) Email Address: Serves two purposes. First, it is used in the AS2 transmission to request that an MDN receipt. Second, it can be used as an administrative contact to receive error notifications during message transmission. [+] more

  • The email address that is used in the default test profile is "testas2@freeas2.com", which is a bogus email address, but it is enough so that MDN receipts are requested in AS2 transmissions. If you wish to enable email notifications within the AS2 Connector, you will want to change this to the email address of the person that will be administrating the application.

3) Personal Certificate: The private key certificate used to sign outgoing messages to your trading partners and to decrypt incoming transmissions. The AS2 Connector uses a private key certificate in PKCS#12 format (that is, a .pfx or .p12 file). [+] more

  • The private key certificate in the test profile is a "test.pfx" file which is included in the installation package. Since this certificate is distributed with all downloads of this application, it is not secure, so you will want to replace the certificate with your own. You have the option of importing an existing certificate using the Import Certificate button or using the application to create a new self-signed certificate using the Create Certificate button.
  • If you create your own personal certificate with the application, you will find that a .cer file is created with the same name and in the same directory as the .pfx file that you created. This is your public key certificate, and is another piece of information that you will send to your trading partner.

4) Receive URL: Defines the url location where you will receive AS2 transmissions. Configuration of this field depends on where the application is hosted. [+] more

  • The receiving URL that you will provide to your trading partners conforms to the URL scheme you see here. You'll need to determine the location of the server that is running, what port it is listening on, and whether or not it is hosting an HTTP or an HTTPS connection before determining the URL. For example, when the application is first installed, it is listening on port 8181 and hosting an HTTP connection. If you are connecting to the application from the local machine, you can use "localhost" for the server name, producing a URL of "http://localhost:8181/as2connect/pub/ReceiveFile.rsb".
  • While you can use this URL from the local machine to reach your receiving page, this address will not work for requests that originate from outside of the machine where the application is running. You will need to replace "localhost" with your domain name or IP address when you give the URL to your trading partner. For instance, if your domain name is "www.mycompany.com" and your public IP address is "aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd", you can use "http://www.mycompany.com:8181/as2connect/pub/ReceiveFile.rsb" or "http://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd:8181/as2connect/pub/ReceiveFile.rsb" as your URL.
  • If you make changes to the server that you are hosting the application on, be sure to make changes to the URL that you provide to your trading partners accordingly.
  • This is also something that you must provide to your trading partner. You may wish to test this URL with a browser from outside of your network to see that it is accessible.

 

Configure a Trading Partner

Typically trading partners will provide the specific settings required to connect to their AS2 servers. To see the list of configured partners, or to add a new partner configuration, first click on the 'Partners' menu. A sample a 'Test AS2 Partner' profile has been included with the application for reference.


From the partners menu either choose to add a new partner, or select one of the partners from the left menu. Additional partner configuration can be configured through the 'Settings' tab. Just as with the personal profile, most of the settings are optional. In most cases you will only configure these 4 fields for each trading partner:

  1. Partner AS2 Identifier
  2. Organization Name
  3. Partner URL
  4. Certificate

1) Partner AS2 Identifier: The name that is used to identify your partner in an AS2 transmission, just like your AS2 Identifier identifies you. Your trading partner will provide you with their AS2 Identifier as part of their AS2 profile information. [+] more

  • The AS2 Identifier of the self test profile is "TestAS2", which is the same value that was configured in the personal profile. When outgoing requests are sent to this trading partner, a header in the request will indicate that the transmission is for "TestAS2".
  • If you wish to configure a new self test profile, provide the same AS2 Identifier that you configured in the Setup tab here.
  • Note that this value is case sensitive, so when configuring new trading partners be sure to check the casing is correct.

2) Organization Name : This field does not come from your trading partner, and can be set to any value. The AS2 Identifier from your trading partner may not easily be recognizable, so this field provides a way to organize your trading partners by a name that you choose. [+] more

  • The Organization Name in this case is "Test AS2 Partner", which is the name that the partner will be displayed as in the table on the left side of the page. If you are configuring a new self test profile, you may wish to use something like "Self Test" here.

3) Partner URL: The URL location where your trading partner receives AS2 transmissions. This value should be unique for each trading partner. [+] more

  • You'll notice that the self test URL, "http://localhost:8181/as2connect/pub/ReceiveFile.rsb", conforms to the URL scheme that you saw in the Profile selection. Even after you have changed your personal profile settings, the receiving URL for the application will not change unless you change the server that is hosting the application, so you can keep this value for your self test profile.
  • When receiving a URL from your trading partner, it is a good idea to test your partner's URL using a web browser to quickly determine if the address is accessible. This is a good way to see if there are any network issues to be resolve before connectivity can take place.
  • In some cases, your trading partner may send you more than one URL, a receiving URL and a URL for receiving asynchronous MDN's. If this is the case, you only need to worry about configuring the receiving URL; if a separate URL is needed to return MDN's to, it will be sent in the AS2 transmission and the AS2 Connector will read it from there.

4) Certificate: Finally, one or more digital certificates should be configured for each trading partner. Each trading partner will provide the certificate(s) required for communication with their servers. The AS2 Connector accepts X.509 public key certificates (files with .cer, .der, or .pem extensions). [+] more

  • There is only one certificate configured in the test profile, a "test.cer" file provided with the application, which corresponds to the "test.pfx" certificate that was configured in the personal profile. Since this certificate is only configured in the Decryption Certificate field, it will be used for both encryption and signature verification purposes.
  • To configure certificates in the application, either enter the path of the certificate on the server into the field, or use the "Import Certificate" button to upload a certificate to the server. If you are reconfiguring your self test profile and you used the certificate creation utility to create a certificate for your personal profile, select the public key certificate (.cer file) that was generated alongside your private key here.
  • If your trading partner provides you with one certificate, simply configure it in the Decryption Certificate field, and it will be used for all purposes.
  • Otherwise, check with your trading partner to see which purpose each certificate is used for. Often, if your partner has acquired a certificate from a commercial certificate authority, they will provide you with the certificates in their certificate chain in addition to their public key certificate. In this case, it is only necessary to configure the leaf certificate (the last one issued in the chain).

 

Send and Receive Files

After configuring your personal profile and a trading partner you can begin to send and receive files securely over the Internet. Each configured partner has 'Incoming' and 'Outgoing' tabs that list the files that have been received and those files that are available to send to each partner. If you have not configured an AS2 partner, you can use the "Test AS2 Partner" as a reference.


Incoming Files

The default selection for a partner will be the Incoming tab. This section will show you any incoming messages that have been received from the selected trading partner.


Outgoing Files

This tab allows you to select and send documents to your trading partners. The outgoing files should be placed into a directory on disk based on the name of the trading partner you are communicating with. After successfully sending documents to your trading partners, you can configure the application so that files placed in the specified outgoing directory are sent automatically to this trading partner. [+] more

When you first configure a new trading partner profile, you can use this selection to test new AS2 transmissions to your trading partner and see the results of the transmission attempt. To do this:

  1. Select the Create Test Files button to create a series of test files to be sent to the trading partner.
  2. Select the checkbox beside one of the newly created files, and select the Send button to send the file.

Message Exchange

After you have sent a file to your trading partner, you will see the status of the transmission above the table. If the transmission was successful, the status will be displayed in green, otherwise you will see an error message in red containing the details of the transmission. The table will also be updated to include log files for the transmission. [+] more

  1. Expand the selection with the Sent status to see the log files that were generated for recently sent transmissions.
  2. If you are using the test profile, you will also receive the file that you just sent. Select the Incoming tab again to view the received file.

Files that you send and receive are handled independently. Making sure that you are able to successfully send files to your trading partner and that you are able to successfully receive files from your trading partner are two separate tasks.

  1. Expand the selection for the received file to view the log files associated with the transmission.
  2. If you select the link for the file itself, you can download a copy of the file from the Web Server.
 
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