Configure Office SharePoint Server Search to crawl Lotus Notes (Office SharePoint Server 2007)
Applies To: Office SharePoint Server 2007
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Topic Last Modified: 2016-11-14
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 enables shared services administrators to crawl Lotus Notes documents that are stored in Lotus Domino databases and hosted by a Lotus Domino server. Office SharePoint Server 2007 enables shared services administrators to configure an index server for a particular Shared Services Provider (SSP) to crawl one or more Lotus Domino databases on one 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 (Office SharePoint Server 2007).
In this article:
About this article
Prerequisites
OSearch service and the Lotus Notes user ID
About this article
At key points in this article, we prompt you to enter information on the Configure Office SharePoint Server Search to crawl Lotus Notes worksheet (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=94461&clcid=0x409) that pertains to the information you have read. You will use the information you record on this worksheet when performing steps in this article.
This article assumes the following:
A 32-bit version of Office SharePoint Server 2007 is installed on the index server and the Office SharePoint Server Search service is running.
Warning
You cannot use the 64-bit version of Office SharePoint Server 2007 to crawl Lotus Notes because the Lotus C++ API Toolkit is available only in 32-bit. Attempting to perform the procedures described in Prepare to crawl Lotus Notes (Office SharePoint Server 2007) using a 64-bit version of Office SharePoint Server 2007 will result in the Lotus Notes client application crashing when configuring the system.
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 (Office SharePoint Server 2007).
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 shared 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 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83371&clcid=0x409). For more information, see the "Download the Lotus C++ API Toolkit for Notes" section in Prepare to crawl Lotus Notes (Office SharePoint Server 2007).
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 (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=83370&clcid=0x409).
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 shared 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 (Office SharePoint Server 2007). |
More information about this mappings table is provided later in this article.
OSearch service and the Lotus Notes user ID
The shared 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
Shared 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
In the SharePoint Central Administration Web site, on the Operations tab, in the Topology and Services section, click Services on server.
Click Office SharePoint Server Search.
On the Configure Office SharePoint Server Search Service Settings page, in the Farm Search Service Account section, ensure that Configurable is selected and that a Windows domain user account is specified in the User name box. Note that the user name must be in the form of domain\username.
Important
If a Windows domain name is already selected, do not change it.
Record this Windows domain account in the Search Service row in Table 1 of the worksheet.
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.
| Worksheet action |
|---|
Record the name of the Domino certificate in the Domino certificate name row and of the location of the Domino certificate in the Domino certificate location row in Table 3 of the worksheet. Note Domino certificates have an .id file extension. |
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 (Office SharePoint Server 2007).
| 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. |
| Worksheet action |
|---|
Record the information described in this section in Table 2 of the worksheet. |
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 Office SharePoint Server 2007 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 shared 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, Office SharePoint Server 2007 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 that you listed in the Search service row in Table 1 of the worksheet.
To continue preparing to crawl Lotus Notes, perform the procedures shown in Prepare to crawl Lotus Notes (Office SharePoint Server 2007).