Enable search on a secured portal site with the default configuration

By modifying some of the settings, we can use the default search collection to configure search of a secured portal site.

In order for you to use Portal Search for searching the portal site, WebSphere Portal has already prepared a search collection and a content source during installation. For more information about this refer to Configure a crawler to search the local portal site. To enablthat search collection on a secured portal site for search by users, encrypt the user ID and activate the search collection by starting the crawl and indexing process:

1. To ensure encryption of the user ID and password for the crawler, update and run the file searchsecret.xml using xmlaccess.sh. For details about how to do this, refer to Encrypting sensitive data.

2. Click Administration > Search Administration > Manage Search. This opens the Manage Search portlet.

3. Click Search Collections. This opens the Search Collections panel.

4. From the list of search collections click the portal site search collection Default Search Collection. This opens the Content Sources panel for the portal site search collection. It lists the Portal Search content sources.

5. For the Portal Content Source, set the crawler user ID as described in the following procedure.

   It is of benefit to define a dedicated crawler user ID. The pre-configured default portal site search uses the default administrator user ID wpsadmin with the default password on that user ID for the crawler. If you changed the default administrator user ID during the portal installation, the crawler user that default user ID. The crawler to use the user ID wpsadmin and its default password, we can omit the following sub-steps and proceed with the next main step. If you have changed the password for the wpsadmin or other admin user ID, or if you changed the default administrator user ID to an ID other than wpsadmin, or to use a separate user ID:

   1. For the Portal Content Source click the Edit icon.

   2. Update the user ID and password as required in the Security tab.

   3. Click Save to save the changes.

   Set the preferred language of the portal site crawler user ID to match the language of the portal site search collection that it crawls. If you already started a crawl on the portal site search collection, you need to reset the portal site collection. Refer to Reset the default search collection.

6. Click the Start Collecting icon to start the crawl. The crawler starts collecting and indexing portal pages. By default, the crawl is scheduled to run for one hour. The scheduler for regular repeated crawls is disabled by default. If you enable it, the interval for scheduled crawls is every hour. We can set these parameters using the Manage Search portlet:

   1. We can change the duration of the crawl, depending on the size of the portal installation. You do this by editing the portal site content source under General Parameters.

   2. You enable scheduled crawls by clicking the icon View Content Source Schedulers for the content source and clicking Disabled in the status column for the scheduler. The status changes to Enabled.

   3. You change the interval for scheduled crawls by editing the portal site content source, selecting the Schedulers tab, deleting the default scheduler, and defining a new one.

1. When you start the crawling process, be aware of the Memory required for crawls and the Time required for crawls and imports and availability of documents.

2. If a user tried to use the Search Center by entering a search string in the portal search box in the theme and clicking search before an administrator enabled the portal site search collection, the user has to log out of the portal and log back in again in order to be able to search the portal search collection, including the administrator who enabled the portal search collection.

Parent: Configure search on a secured portal site
Related:
Customize the search collection for secured portal pages
Configure a crawler to search the local portal site
Encrypting sensitive data
Reset the default search collection
Related reference:
Tips for using Portal Search