Creating a virtual portal | HCL Digital Experience

When you create virtual portals, you specify the following attributes:

• The title of the virtual portal. This title is later displayed in the list of virtual portals in the Virtual Portal Manager portlet. The title is not visible for users of the virtual portal.
• A description for the virtual portal. This field is optional.
• Either a host name or a context for the virtual portal:
  • The portal context of the virtual portal. The context must be unique. The context is used to create the URL of the virtual portal. This URL is mapped to the actual internal URL of the virtual portal. You can give the friendly URL to the users of the virtual portal. They can use it to access the virtual portal without having to remember the internal URL.
  • A host name for the virtual portal. This attribute is optional. Use it to add a host name of your choice for the virtual portal. The portal uses that host name for the friendly URL of the virtual portal as follows: http://your_host_name_example:port/wps/portal. You can pass that friendly URL to your portal users for easier access to your portal.
    Notes:

    • This URL is used internally to access the virtual portal instance, even if you specify a context URL that is easy to use. Make sure that the host name that you specify here is accessible.
    • You cannot use the same virtual portal host name twice in the same portal installation. The host name must be unique for the portal installation. Host names must be valid host names that are either registered on your local DNS, or internally using the "hosts" file. Host names must be registered on your system before creating a virtual portal.
    • After you create the virtual portal, you cannot change the host name that you specify for the virtual portal. If you must use a different host name for a virtual portal, see the topic about Using a new host name for an existing virtual portal.
    • If you use web content libraries, do not specify a context URL for the new virtual portal that matches the name of a library on your server. If the name of a library and the URL context of a virtual portal have the same value, incorrect rendering of web content can result.
    • If you use a host name for creating the virtual portal, you need to update the global web server plug-in configuration in the WebSphere® Integrated Solutions Console and restart the web server. If you have more than one virtual portal, you need to do this only once. For more information about updating the global web server plug-in configuration, read Creating or updating a global web server plug-in configuration file in the IBM® WebSphere® Application Server product documentation.
  Notes:

  • You must specify either a host name or a context.
  • If you specify both a host name and a context, the host name takes precedence and the context is ignored.
  • There are some strings that you cannot use as URL mappings for virtual portals, for example vp. These strings are reserved names and correspond with URL codec names. For a list of these reserved strings, see Shaping the user experience.
  • Use only ASCII characters for the URL Context. For example, you cannot use a URL Context such as språk. If you use non-ASCII characters, the portal shows an error message such as the following EJPAH2009E: Invalid characters were found in a context name or label. Similarly, you cannot use escaped URL encoding either. For example, a URL Context such as spr%E5k.
• The realm that represents the user population for the virtual portal. This field is only shown if your portal configuration supports realms.

When you use the Virtual Portal Manager administration portlet to create the virtual portal, you can add the following additional parameters as well:

• The user group of sub-administrators who are able to administer the virtual portal.
• The theme of the virtual portal.

For details see, Using the Virtual Portal Manager administration portlet. As an alternative, you can also use the appropriate configuration task to create virtual portals. For details about the configuration tasks for administering virtual portals see, Portal configuration tasks for administering virtual portals. When you use the configuration task for creating a virtual portal, you need to deliver this information by using the XML configuration interface in a later step.