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Administering Connections 6 CR6
Welcome to the HCL Connections 6 CR6 documentation. HCL Connections is social networking software designed for the workplace. Its features help you to establish dynamic networks that connect you to the people and information you need to achieve your business goals.
Administering
Run administration and maintenance tasks to keep your environment up-to-date. For example, learn how to customize your deployment or how to use the wsadmin utility to edit configuration files. You can also schedule tasks, maintain application databases, moderate content, or manage users and their roles.
Administering Search
The Search service provides a point for performing full text and tag searches across all the deployed IBM® Connections applications. Search is a required application for all IBM Connections applications, and it must be running to prevent unexpected behaviors in the other applications.
Managing the Search index
The Search application uses a Lucene 3.0.3 index, supplemented by social facet information. The location of the Search index is mapped to an IBM® WebSphere® Application Server variable, SEARCH_INDEX_DIR. The value of this variable is set to CONNECTIONS_DATA_DIRECTORY/search/index by default.
Index settings
Indexing is automatically configured in IBM® Connections. However, when setting up indexing for your environment, you might need to perform additional configuration tasks.
Configuring J2C authentication for Search
When you install IBM® Connections, the installation wizard automatically configures authentication and authorization for each application. Crawling content for indexing occurs over an internal REST API interface, and the credentials used are retrieved from the connectionsAdmin J2C authentication alias that is configured during installation. The user ID from the credentials is also added to the search-admin Java EE role for each application. If you want to further secure the IBM Connections environment, you can override this authentication alias on an application-by-application basis.

Administering Connections 6 CR6
Welcome to the HCL Connections 6 CR6 documentation. HCL Connections is social networking software designed for the workplace. Its features help you to establish dynamic networks that connect you to the people and information you need to achieve your business goals.
- What's new in HCL Connections 6
  Find out about features that are new or updated in this release of HCL Connections.
- Product overview
  Learn how to deploy, customize, and administer the IBM Connections social networking product.
- Planning
  Before installing HCL Connections™, study the system requirements, deployment options, and documentation conventions.
- Installing
  To install IBM® Connections, you need to follow a detailed series of procedures.
- Migrating and updating
  Migrate IBM® Connections and its supporting software to the latest release and then update the installation with the latest interim fixes or Cumulative Refresh (CR).
- Administering
  Run administration and maintenance tasks to keep your environment up-to-date. For example, learn how to customize your deployment or how to use the wsadmin utility to edit configuration files. You can also schedule tasks, maintain application databases, moderate content, or manage users and their roles.
  - Administering common areas
    Administer the common areas of IBM® Connections.
  - Administering Activities
    Configure Activities to best meet the needs of your environment.
  - Administering Blogs
    Administer site-wide settings for Blogs from either the Blogs user interface or via the wsadmin client.
  - Administering Bookmarks
    You configure and administer Bookmarks using scripts accessed using the wsadmin client. Changes to Bookmarks configuration settings require a restart of the Bookmarks server before they take effect. Changes made using administrative commands take effect immediately.
  - Administering Communities
    Configure and administer Communities using scripts accessed using the IBM® WebSphere® Application Server wsadmin client.
  - Administering Files
    You administer Files using the wsadmin client to specify properties in a configuration file, or run administrative commands.
  - Administering Forums
    Administer Forums by specifying properties in a configuration file or running administrative commands.
  - Administering the Home page
    You can administer site-wide settings for the Home page from the Home page administration user interface or using the wsadmin client.
  - Administering Libraries
    A Library provides the services of an Enterprise Content Management (ECM) system to Communities. To enable the use of Libraries, you must make some configuration changes to Connections and to each ECM system that you plan to use.
  - Administering Metrics for Cognos
    Administer metrics in IBM® Connections by modifying configuration settings, backing up data, and running commands to perform maintenance tasks.
  - Administering the News repository
    You administer the News repository using scripts accessed using the wsadmin client. Changes to News configuration settings require node synchronization and a restart of the Home page server before they take effect.
  - Administering Profiles
    Profiles provides two types of administrative capabilities: configuration settings and administrative commands. You change configuration settings and execute administrative commands by running scripts from the wsadmin command line.
  - Administering Search
    The Search service provides a point for performing full text and tag searches across all the deployed IBM® Connections applications. Search is a required application for all IBM Connections applications, and it must be running to prevent unexpected behaviors in the other applications.
    - Accessing the Search configuration environment
      You need to initialize the Search configuration environment to be able to run the SearchCellConfig and SearchService MBean commands.
    - Managing the Search index
      The Search application uses a Lucene 3.0.3 index, supplemented by social facet information. The location of the Search index is mapped to an IBM® WebSphere® Application Server variable, SEARCH_INDEX_DIR. The value of this variable is set to CONNECTIONS_DATA_DIRECTORY/search/index by default.
      - The indexing process
        The Search index is generated by retrieving information from each of the applications based on a schedule defined by the administrator. Search uses the IBM® WebSphere® Application Server scheduling service for creating and updating the Search index. The index must be deployed on each node running the Search enterprise application.
      - Creating Search indexes
        Search indexing is automatically configured for IBM® Connections during installation.
      - Index settings
        Indexing is automatically configured in IBM® Connections. However, when setting up indexing for your environment, you might need to perform additional configuration tasks.
        Enabling indexing resumption
        You can add a configuration setting to the search-config.xml file to specify that interrupted or failed indexing tasks are automatically resumed.
        Configuring dictionaries for Search
        The Search application provides globalization support by using different dictionaries for different languages. Each dictionary file must be enabled in the Search configuration file before indexing. By default, only the English language dictionary is enabled during installation.
        Changing the location of the Search index
        By default, the Search index is stored in the search/index subdirectory of the IBM® Connections data directory defined at install time, for example, on Linux®, /opt/IBM/Connections/data/local/search/index. This location can be changed by editing the IBM WebSphere® Application Server variable, SEARCH_INDEX_DIR.
        Configuring J2C authentication for Search
        When you install IBM® Connections, the installation wizard automatically configures authentication and authorization for each application. Crawling content for indexing occurs over an internal REST API interface, and the credentials used are retrieved from the connectionsAdmin J2C authentication alias that is configured during installation. The user ID from the credentials is also added to the search-admin Java EE role for each application. If you want to further secure the IBM Connections environment, you can override this authentication alias on an application-by-application basis.
        Search and globalization
        You can configure globalization settings to enable users to perform accent-insensitive searches, ignore punctuation in search terms, and perform a one-to-two mapping in search terms. Search globalization settings are disabled by default.
      - Verifying Search
        You can perform a number of steps to verify that Search index creation has completed successfully and the Search application is working as expected.
      - Adding a new component to an existing index
        Add new IBM® Connections components to the index that were not included when the index was built.
      - Configuring scheduled tasks
        The SearchService MBean is used to access a service that provides an administrative interface for adding scheduled task definitions to the Home page database.
      - Running one-off tasks
        The SearchService MBean provides commands that allow you to create an indexing optimize task that is scheduled to run once and only once, 30 seconds after being called.
      - Retrieving file content
        Use SearchService commands to perform file content retrieval tasks.
      - Purging content from the index
        Use the SearchService.deleteFeatureIndex command to purge content for a specific application from the Search index in a single-node environment.
      - Reindexing content
        Use the retryIndexing command when you want to reindex content that was not indexed successfully during initial or incremental indexing.
      - Reindexing content on a clustered IBM® Connections deployment
        When you reindex from scratch on a clustered IBM® Connections deployment, reindexing takes place in the background while the system continues to service requests of the existing index. When reindexing completes, you then switch to the new index. The update process includes ripple restart of Search nodes.
      - Deleting persisted seedlist data
        You can free up disk space by deleting persisted seedlists from your system using the SearchService.flushPersistedCrawlContent command.
      - Deleting the index
        Delete the index by deleting the contents of the directory specified by the IBM WebSphere® Application Server variable, SEARCH_INDEX_DIR.
      - Listing indexing nodes
        Use the SearchService.listIndexingNodes command when you need to check the names of the Search indexing nodes in your deployment. For example, if you want to remove an indexing node from the index management table, you can use this command to verify the name of the node that you want to remove.
      - Removing a node from the index management table
        When you are removing a node from a cluster, use the SearchService.removeIndexingNode wsadmin command to remove the node from the index management table.
      - Backup and restore
        Create a backup of the Search index and save it to a secure location so that it can be used to restore the index in the event of loss or corruption.
      - Configuring file attachment indexing settings
        Edit settings in the search-config.xml file to configure Search for file attachments.
      - Configuring the number of crawling threads
        Edit settings in the search-config.xml file to specify the maximum number of threads used when crawling. The maximum number of threads that you should specify is the number of applications that you have installed in your deployment.
      - Configuring the number of indexing threads
        Edit settings in the search-config.xml file to specify the maximum number of threads used when indexing.
      - Boosting search results by tag, title, or recency
        Influence the quality and ranking of search results by configuring a boost to the relevance score associated with specified fields in the index.
    - Managing the Search application
      You can perform the following tasks when managing the Search application.
    - Viewing and collecting Search metrics
      Enter a URL to view a standard set of metrics related to the Search application. You can also write internal search metrics to a file.
    - SearchCellConfig commands
      The SearchCellConfig commands are used to configure the location of the Search index and the IBM® LanguageWare® dictionaries used by Search, and to configure the file download and conversion service used when indexing file attachments.
    - SearchService commands
      The SearchService commands are used to create, retrieve, update, and delete scheduled task definitions for the indexing and optimization Search operations.
  - Administering Wikis
    Configure and administer Wikis by using the wsadmin client to run administrative commands or by editing the configuration file directly.
  - Administering Component Pack for Connections
    Monitor the services for Component Pack for IBM Connections™ and troubleshoot issues.
- Customizing
  Customize IBM® Connections to fit your environment.
- Security
  IBM® Connections provides a flexible security infrastructure that supports an open, easily shareable data model.
- Mobile
  See the IBM Connections Mobile documentation for Connections Cloud and Connections on-premises.
- Developing
  Get information about how to use the APIs provided with IBM® Connections and how to use Connections Customizer to modify the Connections pages that are returned to users.
- Troubleshooting and support
  To isolate and resolve problems with your IBM® products, you can use the troubleshooting and support information. This information contains instructions for using the problem-determination resources that are provided with your IBM products, including HCL Connections™.

Configuring J2C authentication for Search

When you install IBM® Connections, the installation wizard automatically configures authentication and authorization for each application. Crawling content for indexing occurs over an internal REST API interface, and the credentials used are retrieved from the connectionsAdmin J2C authentication alias that is configured during installation. The user ID from the credentials is also added to the search-admin Java EE role for each application. If you want to further secure the IBM® Connections environment, you can override this authentication alias on an application-by-application basis.

About this task

Search functionality depends on the ability of IBM® Connections to index the data that is stored by each application. The JAAS/J2C alias that is configured at installation time allows automatic authentication for the user account that you assigned to the alias. This user account is also mapped to the Search administrator search-admin role for the application that you are configuring.

To override the connectionsAdmin J2C authentication alias for a specific IBM® Connections application, you need to define a J2C authentication alias for that application using the IBM® WebSphere® Application Server Integrated Solutions Console. For information about how to define a search J2C authentication alias for an application, see Switching to unique administrator IDs for system level communication.

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