Configuring Iguana

This document describes the recommended configurations to make after IguanaX has been installed and licensed on your machine.

IguanaX has a web interface that makes remote administration and monitoring easy.

Configuration changes can be made in either:

Iguana’s Web Server Settings
The Web Configuration File (if the Iguana service is stopped).

Change the Default Web Port: Iguana’s web server uses port 7654 by default. This must be changed if already in use by another Iguana instance or application.

Personalize the Web Server: Distinguish your Iguana instance by labelling it with a unique description and colour, making it easier to manage multiple servers.

Enable HTTPS for the Web Server: Add another layer of security over your data by using HTTPS to encrypt the data transmitted between the web server and your web browser. This ensures confidential data remains private and changes made within the Dashboard are secure. Follow the instructions for how to enable HTTPS for the web server.

You can control and manage Iguana user access through two methods:

Iguana's Users and Roles Permission System: Create defined users and access roles directly within Iguana to control user access.
External Authentication: Integrate Iguana with an external authentication system, such as Active Directory via LDAP.

Configure Unique User and Role Permissions: Each Iguana user should have their own User account, with unique usernames and passwords, and appropriate Roles assigned. See Users and Roles for how to create and modify existing roles.

Unique users and roles:

Promote security by helping the team manage access permissions across Iguana, particular components, and sensitive log data.
Improve developer collaboration, giving you better visibility into who made changes to Iguana configurations or components.

Implement External Authentication: If applicable, set up External Authentication to enable users to login to the Iguana application with your organization’s Active Directory credentials using LDAP for external authentication of users. Roles with appropriate permissions will need to be created in Iguana to match existing Active Directory Groups.

Remove the admin user or change the default password: For production instances, it is recommended to create a new User Account with administrator privileges and delete the default admin user. If you wish to keep the admin user, it is recommend to change the default password to a more secure password.

IguanaX uses Git to support instance and integration management. By setting up Iguana to interact with a local or cloud Git service you can:

Backup and store your IguanaX configurations and integrations in external repositories
Collaborate efficiently and track changes on Iguana and your integration projects
Safely deploy integrations from development, test, to production
Quickly standardize implementations as you create common libraries and collections

Add your Git Server to Iguana’s Server List: Iguana’s Git Servers page contains a list of Git servers you can connect your Iguana to. By default, the list contains cloud servers for Bitbucket, GitHub, GitLab and Azure DevOps. If you have an on premise server with one of these providers, you will need to add your server address to the list in order to connect.

Configure Iguana’s Git Settings: Setup Iguana’s Git settings to leverage your Git service. These Git settings are stored on a per user basis so it is important that each user accessing and working in Iguana configures these settings.

Configure your Git Instance: Integrate your IguanaX instance with Git to store all Iguana configurations and settings in a single Git repository you define. Configuring a Git Instance enables you to track instance changes, automate instance backups and quickly restore Iguana if needed.

Iguana’s Logs contain service information, user activity, and all transactions which can contain sensitive data. Log configuration and management is crucial as the logs are integral to Iguana's operations.

Secure the Log Directory: If required, you can change the Log Directory. Configure a separate folder for logs on a designated partition or drive with good read/write speeds for low latency.

Add additional layers of security on your log directly by implementing:

Log Encryption ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of stored information.
OS level security restrictions, limiting access to the log directory.
Disk encryption to secure your data at rest.

Set Purge Rules and Monitor Log Disk Space: Avoid interruptions that can be caused if Iguana cannot write to the log storage because it is out of space.

Manage your log storage with Log Purge Rules. Logs older than the defined log age will be automatically deleted by Iguana’s daily log purge at midnight. The default log age is 7 days. Purge rules can be applied to one or more components using a matching rule. Your ideal log age may depend on your log sizes and requirements around how long you need to keep messages for troubleshooting.
Monitor your disk space on the Log Usage page. Here, you can see total disk space used, free space, and a breakdown of log sizes of each component, giving you comprehensive information to determine appropriate log purge rules for your Iguana.

Backup Logs Regularly: Logs contain all transactions and play a key role in troubleshooting integrations. The Logs directory should be backed up regularly. See Backing up Iguana for backup procedure best practices.

Automate monitoring of Iguana and your integrations using Iguana’s notification system.

Create custom Iguana notifications: Use notification rules to monitor for errors or unique conditions as well as proactively address building message queues and inactivity.

Implement your notifications to send alerts to your team via email using the IguanaX Notifications component or implement your own component to send alerts to another application, such as Slack, Microsoft Teams, etc.