Virtual portals reference

 

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1. Configuration tasks
   • create-virtual-portal
   • list-all-virtual-portals
   • modify-virtual-portal
   • delete-virtual-portal
2. User populations for virtual portals
3. Known limitations

Configuration tasks

Before beginning, read...

• Plan for virtual portals
• Administer virtual portals
• About the configuration program

The listed inputs for the tasks below are set in wkplc.properties.

create-virtual-portal

Create a virtual portal.

Syntax...

./ConfigEngine.sh create-virtual-portal -DWasPassword=wpsadmin

Inputs:

VirtualPortalTitle	The title of the virtual portal. Mandatory.
VirtualPortalRealm	The realm of the virtual portal. Mandatory if you have realms enabled in the portal installation. If you do not have realms enabled, do not specify a value for the realm.
VirtualPortalHost	The host name of the virtual portal. If you specify the host name, the portal sets the host name, and the portal parameter context is ignored. You cannot use the same virtual portal host name twice in the same portal installation. After you have created the virtual portal, you cannot change the host name that you have specified for the virtual portal. If you use a different host name for a virtual portal, refer to the information about Using a new host name for an existing virtual portal.
VirtualPortalContext	The portal context of the virtual portal. Mandatory. The context must be unique. If you set the host name parameter above, the portal context is ignored.
VirtualPortalNlsFile	The national language support (NLS) file for the virtual portal. Optional. Path and file name of your national language support file. You can create your own national language support file to specify additional titles and descriptions in other languages for your virtual portal. If you do not specify an NLS file, the virtual portal is created with the title that you give as the value to the VirtualPortalTitle parameter only, but without titles in other languages and without descriptions. For a list of the languages that are available with WebSphere Portal and their language codes refer to Language support. If you specify no NLS file, the value that you specify by the VirtualPortalTitle input parameter will show to users as the title of the virtual portal in all language environments, independent of the system and browser locale and the user preferences. If you specify an NLS file, the value given for the virtual portal title in that NLS file overrides the title that you specify by the VirtualPortalTitle input parameter. If you specify an NLS file, do not use prefixes in that NLS file.

Assumptions/Prerequisites	WebSphere Portal is running.
Error Conditions	None
Task dependencies	None
Tasks invoked	None

You pass the parameters listed above for the virtual portal to the configuration task.

To pass a description for the virtual portal to the configuration task, you have to specify this in the NLS file.

The task creates the virtual portal itself, but it does not create any default content for the virtual portal or grant any access permissions to the virtual portal administrators. You need to perform these tasks separately after creating the virtual portal, for example by using the XML configuration interface.

list-all-virtual-portals

List all virtual portals, including...

• The title of the virtual portal
• The description of the virtual portal
• The realm of the virtual portal
• The object ID of the virtual portal.

Syntax...

./ConfigEngine.sh list-all-virtual-portals -DWasPassword=wpsadmin

Inputs	None
Assumptions/Prerequisites	WebSphere Portal is running.
Error Conditions	None
Task dependencies	None
Tasks invoked	None

The context of a virtual portal as specified by using the configuration task create-virtual-portal with the input parameter VirtualPortalContext cannot be shown by using the configuration task list-all-virtual-portals.

modify-virtual-portal

Modify a virtual portal by using its object ID. To determine the correct object ID of the virtual portal, use the task list-all-virtual-portals.

Syntax...

./ConfigEngine.sh modify-virtual-portal -DWasPassword=wpsadmin

Inputs:

VirtualPortalObjectId	The object ID of the virtual portal. Mandatory for identification of the virtual portal that you want to modify.
VirtualPortalRealm	The realm of the virtual portal. You can only specify a realm if you have realms enabled in the portal installation.
VirtualPortalNlsFile	The National Language Support file of the virtual portal. You input the path and file name of your national language support file. You can create your own NLS file to specify additional titles and descriptions in other languages for your virtual portal. If you specify an NLS file, do not use prefixes in that NLS file.

Assumptions/Prerequisites	WebSphere Portal is running.
Error Conditions	None
Task dependencies	None
Tasks invoked	None

To modify the title or description of the virtual portal, you have to specify this in the NLS file accordingly.

delete-virtual-portal

Delete a virtual portal by using its object ID. To determine the correct object ID of the virtual portal, use the task list-all-virtual-portals.

Syntax...

./ConfigEngine.sh delete-virtual-portal -DWasPassword=wpsadmin

Inputs...

VirtualPortalObjectId	The object ID of the virtual portal. Mandatory.
Assumptions/Prerequisites	WebSphere Portal is running.
Error Conditions	None
Task dependencies	None
Tasks invoked	None

User populations for virtual portals

Because the isolation between the different virtual portals is limited to some extent, you might not want to not grant the subadministrators of virtual portals the access permissions to perform any installation related tasks, such as installation of portlets or themes. All virtual portals share a common JVM. Unstable or malicious code that is introduced on one virtual portal can destabilize the entire portal installation and thereby all other virtual portals.

One way to introduce virtual portal specific portlets without impacting any other virtual portals is to use Web Services for Remote Portlets (WSRP).

Not all resources can be scoped to individual virtual portals. For example, all themes and skins are available to all virtual portals without restrictions. Credential vault, portlet services, and portal services are also common for an entire portal installation. They cannot be scoped to an individual virtual portal.

Settings defined in portal property files apply for the entire portal installation. You cannot specify separate settings for individual virtual portals.

To make use of the single signon feature that is provided by WAS, use the same common domain suffix for all virtual portals.

Portal search, personalization, and templates, are not aware of virtual portals.

There are no virtual portal specific enhancements to the published portal commands and application programming interfaces.

A URL mapping that is defined for a resource in a particular virtual portal must use the same URL context as the human readable URL context for that virtual portal itself.

For example, in a virtual portal that uses the human readable URL mapping...

wps/portal/vp

...for example...

wps/portal/vp/url1
wps/portal/vp/url2

...a URL mapping such as...

wps/portal/url1

...is not valid, as the portion vp of the URL Context is missing.

The administration portlet Virtual Portal Manager cannot delete all resources that are associated with a virtual portal.

For example, it does not delete additional URL mappings that administrators might have created for the virtual portal. You can use xmlaccess with Task.xml to do this.

All virtual portals on a portal installation share a common logging and tracing.

When you re-initialize a virtual portal by using the Virtual Portal Manager portlet, this applies the XML script for the default virtual portal content (or custom script) again and recreates the default content of the virtual portal. Resources that you removed from the default content are recreated. Resources added to the default content remain in the virtual portal.

You have to run the wp-create-realm task to create realms for your Virtual Portal.

The context of a virtual portal as specified by the configuration task create-virtual-portal and the input parameter VirtualPortalContext cannot be shown by using the configuration task list-all-virtual-portals.

The Portal Access Control administration in the Resource Permissions portlet shows users from different realms who have role mappings on shared resources by their object IDs. Apply special care when deleting such portal resources. Do not delete resources on which users from other realms have role mappings, if they are required in other virtual portals. This applies to members of roles on portal resources that cannot be scoped and are therefore shared between the virtual portals. Role members who belong to the realm of your local virtual portal are displayed as usual, but role members who belong to different realms are displayed in a different manner:

• Role members for shared resources who belong to the realm of the virtual portal under which you are currently working are listed by their actual names under which they were created.

• Role members for shared resources that do not belong to the realm of the current portal are listed by their portal object IDs.

  For example, a role member from a different realm might be represented as 8_0_B.

You find the list of role members under...

Administration | Access | Resource Permissions | Select Resource Type | Assigning Access for a resource | Members in the Role | Edit Role

You cannot create custom URLs in one virtual portal that address portal resources in another virtual portal as both object IDs and unique names relate to resources of the local virtual portal.

Known limitations

Change of theme for virtual portal might not take effect

If you change the theme for a virtual portal by editing the virtual portal in the Virtual Portals portlet, the following problems might occur:

1. The selected theme might not show the next time you go into the Edit mode for the virtual portal.

2. The selected theme might not be applied to the virtual portal, and the virtual portal might still be displayed with the original theme.

Using a new host name for an existing virtual portal

To use a new host name for an existing virtual portal...

1. Export the contents of the virtual portal by using xmlaccess.

2. Delete the virtual portal.

3. Clean up references to the deleted virtual portal by using

   Portal supports up to 150 virtual portals

   A single portal installation can support up to 150 virtual portals.

   
   

   Creating the portal site search collection fails

   Problem:

   If the file path length for the location of search collections exceeds its limit, the collection cannot be created. This can occur particularly when the portal site collection is created under UNIX operating systems.

   Cause:

   The file path length for the portal search collection is limited to 118 characters. If this limit is exceeded, the default collection cannot be created. The following items contribute to the length of the file path:

   • The installation directory path. Under UNIX operating systems the installation directory path name can be longer than under other operating systems.

   • By default, the search collection for the portal site content is created under the path your_portal_install_directory/PortalServer/collections.

   • The name of the virtual portal.

   • The name of the search collection.

   Solution:

   Proceed as follows:

   1. Change the default directory location for the portal site search collection to a shorter path, so that the complete path and file name does not exceed a length of 118 characters.

   2. Recreate the portal site search collection.

   
   

   Parent topic:

   
   Multiple virtual portals

   
   

   Related concepts

   
   Plan for virtual portals
   Language support
   The XML configuration interface
   Use WSRP services
   Configure WebSphere Portal
   Configure the default location for search collections
   Creating or resetting the portal site collection
   Command reference for Portal Scripting Interface
   Administer virtual portals
   Creating custom links to portlets and pages