Managing the Robot

This section describes the following tasks to manage the robot:

• To Start the Robot

• To Clear Robot Database

• To Create a Site Definition

• To Edit a Site Definition

• To Control Robot Crawling and Indexing

• To Run the Simulator

• To Run the Site Probe Utility

To Start the Robot

1. Log in to the Portal Server management console.

2. Choose Search Servers from the menu bar. Select a search server from the list of servers.

3. Click Robot from the menu bar, then Status and Control from the menu.

4. Click Start.

For equivalent psadmin command

psadmin start-robot

For the command psadmin start-robot, the search robot does not start if no defined sites are available for the robot to crawl. The command psadmin start-robot indicates that no sites are available by displaying Starting Points: 0 defined.

To Clear Robot Database

1. Log in to the Portal Server management console.

2. Select Search Servers from the menu bar, then select a search server.

3. Select Robot from the menu bar then Status and Control.

4. Click Clear Robot Database.

To Create a Site Definition

The robot finds resources and determines whether to add descriptions of those resources to the database. The determination of which servers to visit and what parts of those servers to index is called a site definition.

1. Log in to the Portal Server management console.

2. Select Search Servers from the menu bar, then select a search server.

3. Select Robot from the menu bar, then Sites.

4. Click New under Manage Sites and specify the configuration attributes for the site.

   For more information about the attributes, see Sites in Sun Java System Portal Server 7.1 Technical Reference.

5. Click OK.

To Edit a Site Definition

1. Log in to the Portal Server management console.

2. Select Search Servers from the menu bar, then select a search server.

3. Click Robot from the menu bar, then Sites.

4. Click the name of the site you want to modify.

   The Edit Site dialog appears.

5. Modify the configuration attributes as necessary.

   For more information about the attributes, see Sites in Sun Java System Portal Server 7.1 Technical Reference

6. Click OK to record the changes.

To Control Robot Crawling and Indexing

The robot crawls to the various sites selected for indexing. You control how the robot crawls sites by defining crawling and indexing operational properties.

1. Log in to the Portal Server management console.

2. Select Search Servers from the menu bar, then select a search server.

3. Click Robot from the menu bar, then Properties.

4. Specify the robot crawling and indexing attributes as necessary.

   For more information about the attributes, see Site Probe in Sun Java System Portal Server 7.1 Technical Reference in Sun Java System Portal Server 7.1 Technical Reference.

5. Click Save.

To Run the Simulator

The simulator performs a partial simulation of robot filtering on one or more listed site sites.

1. Log in to the Portal Server management console.

2. Select Search Servers from the menu bar, then select a search server.

3. Click Robot from the menu bar, then Utilities.

4. Type the URL of a new site to simulate in the Add a new URL text box and click Add.

   You can also run the simulator on existing sites listed under Existing Robot sites.

5. Click Run Simulator.

To Run the Site Probe Utility

The site probe utility checks for such information as DNS aliases, server redirects, and virtual servers.

1. Log in to the Portal Server management console.

2. Select Search Servers from the menu bar, then select a search server.

3. Click Robot from the menu bar, then Utilities.

4. Type the URL of the site to probe.

5. (Optional) If you want the probe to return DNS information choose Show Advanced DNS information under Site Probe.

6. Click Run SiteProbe.