Chapter 6 Understanding the Portal Server Management Console

This chapter describes the Portal Server management console, a browser interface that simplifies a variety of portal administration and configuration tasks. This chapter provides the following sections:

• About the Portal Server Management Console

• About the Management Console User Interface

• About Management Console Security Features

About the Portal Server Management Console

The Portal Server management console is a Java^TM 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE^TM) application that:

• Is accessible through a web browser

• Logs messages to a debug log according to configured debug level

• Logs setting changes that include name and value pairs

• Provides online help with step-by-step instructions for performing management tasks

The Portal Server management console enables portal administrators to manage a variety of functions, including tasks for the following:

• Multiple portals and Portal Server instances

• The Desktop

• Search server

• Secure Remote Access server

• Single Sign-On (SSO) adapters

The management console also enables portal administrators to perform the following activities:

• Track end-user behavior to identify how end users interact with various Portal Server components

• Track end-user behavior to help diagnose, troubleshoot, and analyze issues related to end-user activities

• Obtain runtime statistics about Portal Server's Desktop and Secure Remote Access components

• Log information about Portal Server applications

About the Management Console User Interface

The Portal Server management console's user interface arranges administration functions into pages. Across the top of each page is a tab strip. The tabs present pages that group management functions in an organized manner. To navigate from page to page, administrators click a tab.

This section provides a description of the following interface elements:

• Common Tasks Tab

• Portals Tab

• Search Servers Tab

• Secure Remote Access Tab

• SSO Adapter Tab

• Interactive Wizards

Common Tasks Tab

The Common Tasks page displays a series of links. The links are shortcuts that provide direct access to tasks that portal administrators frequently perform. When administrators log on to the management console, the Common Tasks tab is active.

The tasks on the Common Tasks page are organized into four categories:

• Configuration

• Reports and Logs

• Maintenance

• Documentation

Selecting a task provides direct access to the page or wizard for that task. For example, to update logger settings, click the Logger Settings link under the Maintenance heading.

Portals Tab

The Portals page lists the deployed portals by their portal IDs. This page allows administrators to perform the following functions:

• Create new portals

• Remove portals

• Import and export portal resources

In addition, administrators can click the name of a specific portal to access pages for managing that portal. The pages allow administrators to perform the following functions:

• Manage containers, channels, and portlets

• Manage the display profile

• Create and remove portal instances

• Manage web services for remote portlets (WSRP)

• Edit subscription component attributes

• Create and manage communities

• Create reports that track user behavior

• Configure and generate reports about how the Desktop and Secure Remote Access components perform

• View portal log files

During Portal Server installation, the portal1 default portal is set up and listed on the Portals page.

Search Servers Tab

The Search Servers page allows portal administrators to manage the search server. This page allows administrators to perform the following functions:

• Set up a search server

• Remove a search server

• View basic identifying information about each search server

In addition, administrators can click the name of a specific search server to access pages for managing it. The pages allow administrators to perform the following functions:

• View configuration details for a search server

• Manage a search server databases, and on nonfederated databases, re-index, purge, analyze, manage, and expire resource descriptions

• View and manage search server taxonomy

• View the status of a search server robot and manage robot behavior

• Schedule robot start and stop times

• View robot reports

Secure Remote Access Tab

The Secure Remote Access tab allows administrators to manage how remote users securely access a portal and its services over the Internet. This page allows administrators to perform the following functions:

• Create, maintain, and remove Gateway profiles

• Specify options and rules for providing secure access to applications that run over insecure networks

• Define rules preferences for giving users access to remote file systems and directories

• Control user access to specific URLs through the Gateway

• Manage how client machines read and modify proxy settings in proxy autoconfiguration (PAC) files

• View attributes of resources

• Start and stop Secure Remote Access proxy instances, and view details about the instances

• Copy an existing rewriter ruleset to a new location, or obtain a new ruleset from another location

SSO Adapter Tab

The SSO Adapters page allows administrators to manage how end users gain authenticated access to applications after signing in once. This page allows administrators to perform the following functions:

• View a list of SSO Adapter configurations for the current location distinguished name (DN)

• Add or remove users who have permission to use the SSO adapter without authentication

• Create, view, and remove SSO adapter templates

In addition, administrators can click the name of a specific meta-adapter that is set up to access pages for managing that portal. The pages allow administrators to do the following:

• Add and remove meta-adapter

• Add and remove adapters

• Change attributes of adapters and meta-adapter

Interactive Wizards

The management console provides easy-to-use interactive utilities or wizards for tasks that require more than one step. The wizards:

• Guide administrators through the sequence of steps for a task

• Collect information about a task

• Ask administrators to verify task information before the task is performed

An example of a wizard is the New Instance wizard for creating a new portal instance.

About Management Console Security Features

The Portal Server management console performs the following actions to provide security:

• Activates session timeouts for idle sessions

• Validates user sessions for every request

• Configures secure HTTP connections

• Masks display of user log on passwords