Create a Federated Search Location within SharePoint

This page describes how to create a Federated Search Location within SharePoint.

1. Navigate to create a new Federated Search Location

Run SharePoint Central Administration on the SharePoint server (Start->Administrative Tools-> SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration) and click on the shared service provider, likely named "SharedServices1" in the quick launch bar along the left side of the web page.

On the shared services home page click on Search Settings to get to the out of the box SharePoint search settings page. Note that you do not choose Confluence Search Settings (that is used for the Integrated Index Search option).

On the Search Settings page you should see a long list of links along the quick launch bar along the left side of the page (if you don't, you likely do not have the July 2008 SharePoint Infrastructure Update prerequisite installed). Click on "Federated Locations".

From the Manage Federated Locations screen click "New Location".

2. Adding the Federated Search Location

The Add Federated Location page will show after clicking the "New Location" link. This page has a lot of information and is fairly self-documenting, but we attempt to provide some guidance for you below.

2.1 General Information

Setting	Example(s)	Notes
Location Name	Confluence Confluence1	This cannot be changed after you save it.
Display Name	Confluence Confluence 1	A name that can be changed, but is only seen by administrators or individuals adding the Federated Search web part to a search results page.
Author	John Doe	Solely informational and only visible to administrators???
Version	1.0	Solely informational and only visible to administrators???
Trigger	Always	You can use any of the options. The "always" option is the simplest.

2.2 Location Information

Setting	Example(s)	Notes
Location Type	OpenSearch 1.0/1.1	You must use the OpenSearch option.
Query Template	<confluence_base_url>/plugins/servlet/opensearch?searchfor={searchTerms}&format=rss <confluence base URL>/plugins/servlet/opensearch?searchfor={searchTerms} &format=rss&os_username=<user>&os_password=<password> http://confluence:8080/plugins/servlet/opensearch?searchfor={searchTerms}&format=rss	This is the URL to the RSS feed with the {searchTerms} token. You can put this URL in your browser and replace the token with a search term and see your results. You can use the link that has a common username/password built in. If you do so, make sure to use an account that has no more access than any other user.
"More Results" Link Template	<confluence base URL>/dosearchsite.action?searchcQuery.queryString={searchTerms} http://confluence:8080/dosearchsite.action?searchcQuery.queryString={searchTerms}	This is the URL to the Confluence search page with the search term on the URL. The user is redirected to this link when they want to see more results than is shown in the Federated Search web part.

2.3 Display Information

Setting	Example	Notes
Federated Search Results Display Metadata	Use Default Formatting	Since the OpenSearch plugin returns RSS, the default formatting should work fine. If you want to change the look and feel of this web part, this is where you change it.
Top Federated Results Display Metadata	Use Default Formatting	Since the OpenSearch plugin returns RSS, the default formatting should work fine. If you want to change the look and feel of this web part, this is where you change it.

2.4 Restrictions and Credentials Information

For Restrict Usage, the "No restriction" option is probably the typical scenario. You can restrict this federated location to be used within a federated search web part within only particular SharePoint search sites if you wish.

For Credentials, there are several choices which require further details. The most common options are stated below.

Warning

If you choose to provide credentials, be careful to only use an account that has equal or lower access rights than anyone that has access to SharePoint. Per-user security trimming is not currently supported with Federated Search so you want to use an account that is the "lowest common denominator" in terms of what pages it can view. All federated search results will be trimmed for the provided account regardless of who is logged into SharePoint.

Anonymous - This is useful for Confluence spaces that allow anonymous access or those that require authentication and do not use NTLM. To specify authentication, put the common credentials on the Query Template as shown above in the Location Information examples. If no credentials are provided, the search results are trimmed to those accessible by an anonymous user.
Common: NTLM - Use Application Pool identity - This works well if Confluence uses NTLM and the SharePoint application pool identity has access to Confluence.
TODO: TEST
Common: NTLM - Specify a username and password - This works well if Confluence uses NTLM and the SharePoint application pool identity does not have access to Confluence.
TODO: TEST

"Common: Form Authentication" Option Not Supported

It would seem that using the Common Form Authentication would work, but the the OpenSearch plug-in from Lunatech does not redirect a request to the login form if no credentials are provided; even if anonymous users are not allowed access to Confluence. This precludes this approach from working. Therefore, use the Anonymous choice with the credentials on the Query Template as shown above in the Location Information examples.

All "User" Authentication Options Not Supported

Ideally any of the user based credentials would work, but according to Security for Federation, security trimming of search results (which would be why would use per-user credentials) only works for Kerberos and unfortunately Kerberos is not currently supported with the SharePoint Connector. It is not clear why the interface allows non-Kerberos configuration for per-user credentials.

Once you have completed setting up the Federated Search Location you can move on to the next step: Add the Federated Search Web Part to a SharePoint Search Results Page.

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