About Portal Server Management Options

Administrators can use a browser interface, a command-line interface, or the Desktop to manage Portal Server. This topic provides the following sections:

• Portal Server Management Console

• Portal Server Command-Line Interface

• Portal Server Administration Tag Library and Portlets

Portal Server Management Console

Portal Server provides a browser interface called the management console. The management console allows portal administrators to do the following:

• Manage multiple portals and their operations

• Set up and manage containers and channels

• Customize the Desktop for end users

• Enable end users to personalize the Desktop

• Manage multiple search servers

• Track both end-user and system activities

  • End-user clicks on the standard Desktop

  • Configuration settings, statistics about channel actions, and statistics about Desktop requests and responses

  • Runtime information about the Portal Server and the Secure Remote Access server

For more information about the management console, see Chapter 6, “Understanding the Management Console.”

Portal Server Command-Line Interface

Portal Server software provides a command-line interface (CLI). The CLI allows portal administrators to do the following:

• Perform administrative tasks by typing commands using the keyboard

• Automate regularly recurring management tasks by incorporating them into scripts

The CLI offers a number of psadmin subcommands for managing portal tasks. These include subcommands for:

• Managing multiple portals and portal instances

• Deploying portal and portlet WAR files

• Managing the search server

• Managing communities

• Managing Secure Remote Access server

• Managing monitoring

• Managing portal logging

Most management subcommands are written specifically to mimic functions in the browser interface. For management functions that have no special commands, administrators use standard commands for UNIX software.

For information about psadmin subcommands, see the Sun Java System Portal Server 7.1 Command Line Reference.

Portal Server Administration Tag Library and Portlets

Portal Server provides an administration tag library for developing administration portlets that enable a portal to be managed from the Desktop instead of from the management console. The tag library allows administrators to do the following:

• Modify out-of-the-box administration portlets

• Develop portlets with new administration functionality

• Support user management, provider management, and portlet and WSRP management tasks

• Create and administer channels that are based on JSPProvider

• Write custom administration portlets with a custom user interface

• Write administrative portlets to manage any custom channel

Portal administrators can delegate the responsibility for managing various tasks in a particular organization to other individuals, called delegated administrators. In complex enterprises, granting delegated administration status to specified users can decentralize the administrative function to improve portal management.

To make delegated administration functions available to other users, portal administrators give them access to the Admin tab on the standard Desktop. The Admin tab includes the following portlets:

• User Administration portlets

  • Reset Password Admin

  • Role Admin

  • Create/Delete User Admin

• Tab administration portlets

  • Create Tab Admin

  • Delete Tab Admin

  • Tab Configuration Admin

• Channel administration portlets

  • Create Channel Admin

  • Delete Channel Admin

  • URLScraper Admin

  • Create WSRP Channel Admin

Portal Server provides a sample set of administration portlets that can be used to design a basic Desktop for delegated administrators.

For more information, see the Sun Java System Portal Server 7.1 Developer Sample Guide.