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Configure Search Server to crawl Lotus Notes (Search Server 2008)

  • Article

Applies To: Microsoft Search Server 2008

 

Topic Last Modified: 2009-10-19

Note

Unless otherwise noted, the information in this article applies to both Microsoft Search Server 2008 and Microsoft Search Server 2008 Express.

Microsoft Search Server 2008 enables search services administrators to crawl Lotus Notes documents that are stored in Lotus Domino databases and hosted by a Lotus Domino server. Search Server 2008 enables search services administrators to configure an index server to crawl one or more Lotus Domino databases on one Lotus Domino server.

This article helps you gain an understanding of the prerequisites you need, the decisions you must make, and the information you must gather from the Domino administrator to accomplish the procedures listed in Prepare to crawl Lotus Notes (Search Server 2008).

In this article:

  • About this article

  • Prerequisites

  • OSearch service and the Lotus Notes user ID

About this article

This article assumes the following:

  • A 32-bit version of Search Server 2008 is installed on the index server and the Office SharePoint Server Search service is running.

Warning

You cannot use the 64-bit version of Search Server 2008 to crawl Lotus Notes because the Lotus C++ API Toolkit is available only in a 32-bit version. Attempting to perform the procedures described in Prepare to crawl Lotus Notes (Search Server 2008) using a 64-bit version of Search Server 2008 will result in the Lotus Notes client application crashing when configuring the system. The index server can, however, have either a 64-bit or 32-bit version of Windows Server 2003 installed.

  • The Domino server that contains the Domino databases you want to crawl is running.

Prerequisites

This section discusses the items and information that must be available before you can perform the procedures provided in Prepare to crawl Lotus Notes (Search Server 2008).

Preparing your index server to crawl Lotus Notes content hosted by one or more Lotus Domino databases requires the involvement of the following types of administrators:

  • An administrator of the Lotus Domino server that you want to crawl

  • A server administrator of the index server from which you want to crawl Lotus Notes content

  • A search services administrator

Software requirements

Software requirements include:

  • The Lotus Notes client application, available for purchase from IBM.

    This table shows the supported Lotus Notes client and Domino server versions.

    Supported Domino Server Versions Supported Lotus Notes Client Versions

    5.5

    5.5

    6.0 or 5.5

    6.0

    6.5 or 6.0

    6.5

    7.0 or 6.5

    7.0

    7.5 or 7.0

    7.5

    8.0 or 7.5

    8.0

    Important

    Because a 64-bit version of the Lotus C++ API is not available from IBM at the time of this writing, you must use the 32-bit version of the Lotus Notes client application.

  • Lotus C++ API Toolkit for Notes, available for free from the IBM software downloads page. For more information, see the "Download the Lotus C++ API Toolkit for Notes" section in Prepare to crawl Lotus Notes (Search Server 2008).

    Note

    The Lotus Notes client application and the Lotus C++ API Toolkit for Notes work together to enable the protocol handler for accessing Lotus Notes databases.

Note

You will need an IBM ID and password to sign onto the IBM download Web site. If you do not currently have an IBM ID, you can request one by using the IBM software Web site.

User accounts required to crawl Lotus Domino databases

A Domino administrator must grant a Lotus Notes user ID (which represents a Domino user) at least the Reader permission to the Lotus Domino databases and individual documents that the search services administrator wants to crawl. The Domino administrator must also add this Lotus Notes user ID and the Windows domain account that is assigned to the OSearch service to a mappings database on the Lotus Domino server that you want to crawl.

Note

Only the account assigned to the OSearch service can be used to crawl Lotus Domino databases. You cannot use the default content access account or a crawl rule to specify a different account to crawl Lotus Domino databases.

The following table summarizes the accounts required to crawl Lotus Domino databases.

Required account Comment Example

Windows domain account

The account assigned to the OSearch service must also be a member of the Administrators group on the index server.

Contoso\User1, where Contoso is the domain name and User1 is the name of the Windows domain account.

Lotus Notes user ID

Must be granted at least Reader access on the Lotus Domino databases and on the individual documents that you want to crawl. The Domino certificate also contains this Lotus Notes user ID.

User2

Note

The name of this account and its password do not need to match the Windows domain account. You will map the Windows domain account to this user ID later in Prepare to crawl Lotus Notes (Search Server 2008).

More information about this mappings table is provided later in this article.

OSearch service and the Lotus Notes user ID

The search services administrator must provide the Lotus Domino administrator with the Windows domain user account that is assigned to the OSearch service. The Domino administrator must then use the mappings database to map this Windows domain account to a Lotus Notes user ID. This Lotus Notes user ID is added to the Domino certificate that will be used to authenticate the crawler with the Lotus Domino servers.

Note

Search services administrators cannot use a crawl rule to use a different content access account for crawling a Lotus Domino database. Only the Windows domain account assigned to the OSearch service can be used. Because of this, the same certificate must be used when crawling multiple Lotus Domino servers.

We recommend that you use the account that is already assigned to the OSearch service. The exception to this is if the account assigned to the OSearch service is a service account (such as Local Service) instead of a Windows domain account. In this case, you will need to change the service account to a Windows domain user account.

Use the following procedure to verify that the account assigned to the OSearch service is a Windows domain account.

Important

You must be a farm administrator to perform the following procedure.

Verify OSearch service account

  1. In the SharePoint Central Administration Web site, on the Operations tab, in the Topology and Services section, click Services on server.

  2. Click Office SharePoint Server Search.

  3. On the Configure Office SharePoint Server Search Service Settings page, in the Farm Search Service Account section, ensure that a Windows domain user account is specified in the User name box. The user name must be in the form of domain\username.

    Important

    If a Windows domain name is already selected, do not change it.

The Lotus Domino administrator must provide the Domino certificate to the server administrator of the index server. Note that the Lotus Notes user ID associated with this certificate must have at least Reader permissions on the following:

  • All Lotus Domino databases on the Domino server that you want to crawl.

  • All Lotus Notes documents within those databases that you want to crawl.

  • Each Lotus Domino mappings database that stores the mappings between the Lotus Notes user ID and Windows domain users.

Information provided by the Lotus Domino administrator

The following table describes the information that must be provided by the Domino administrator of the Lotus Domino server that hosts the Lotus Domino databases you want to crawl. This information is required to do the procedures provided in Prepare to crawl Lotus Notes (Search Server 2008).

Item Description

User name

User name of the Lotus Notes user ID in the Domino certificate.

Note

This user name is case sensitive, for example, ContosoUser.

Password

Password for the user name that is associated with the Lotus Notes user ID in the Domino certificate.

Domino server name

Hierarchical name of the Lotus Domino server, for example, Contoso/marketing/west.

Note

Domino server names use forward slashes instead of backward slashes.

Lotus Domino server's NetBIOS name or IP address

IP address or NetBIOS name of the Lotus Domino server, for example, 10.10.10.10 or Contoso.

Lotus Domino database names

Names of the Lotus Domino databases that you want to crawl.

Note

Lotus Domino database names are case sensitive, for example, EngineeringSpecs.

Security considerations

One of the choices you must make when preparing an index server to crawl Lotus Notes is whether to ignore Lotus Domino security while crawling and indexing Lotus Domino databases. If you choose to do so, all Lotus Notes documents that are indexed appear on search results pages for all users of SharePoint sites.

Conversely, if you want the security trimming functionality of Search Server 2008 to filter search results based on the security that has been set on individual Lotus Notes documents, you must choose to recognize Lotus Domino security while indexing the content. Furthermore, the administrator of the Lotus Domino server must map the Windows domain accounts of SharePoint users to the Lotus Notes user IDs of the Domino users before the search services administrator crawls the Lotus Domino databases. This mapping is necessary because Windows domain accounts are not associated directly with Lotus Notes documents. However, Lotus Domino servers do provide a mechanism—sometimes called a mappings database—that an administrator of a particular Lotus Domino server can use to map Lotus Notes user IDs to Windows domain accounts.

Note

The mappings database must be populated with the necessary user accounts before the content is crawled. If you add user accounts to the mappings database after crawling a Domino database, you must restart the OSearch service on the index server and start a full crawl of the affected Domino database. This enables the index server to cache an updated copy of the mappings database.

When a mappings database is used to map Windows domain accounts to Lotus Notes User IDs, end users who click a search result for a Lotus Notes file see a log on prompt. They must then enter their Lotus Notes user ID and password to access the file.

Note

Blank passwords are not supported. Therefore, Lotus Notes users who have a Lotus Notes user ID with a blank password will not be able to view Lotus Notes files through search results pages.

Default security mapping

If you do not map Domino users to Windows users, Search Server 2008 attempts to authenticate using the default security mapping that is configured for the Domino database. To crawl Lotus Notes documents, the default security mapping must provide Reader access to the database and documents that you want to crawl.

Required security mappings

At a minimum, a Lotus Domino administrator must create a mappings database to map the Lotus Notes user ID in the Domino certificate to the Windows domain account.

To continue preparing to crawl Lotus Notes, perform the procedures shown in Prepare to crawl Lotus Notes (Search Server 2008).