Netscape Compass Server Administrator's Guide
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This guide describes the role of the administrator, the person responsible for designing and running a Netscape Compass Server system. The administrator determines what material the system will cover, how often that material is updated, and how much flexibility users have in searching for and displaying information. Netscape Compass Server is part of Netscape SuiteSpot, meaning that the server can run in conjunction with other Netscape servers and can share certain of its administrative tasks with them.
Tasks common to administering any Netscape server are described in the manual called Managing Netscape Servers. You should understand at least the basics of general server administration before setting up your Compass Server.
Topics covered in this guide include
What Is Netscape Compass Server?
Netscape Compass Server is part of a group of technologies from Netscape called Compass that work together to bring information to network users. Like a real compass, the Netscape Compass helps you to know where you are and how to get to the things you want.
The main purpose of Netscape Compass Server is to gather information about the resources available on a network and store it in one place for users to access. In addition, Netscape Compass Server can "push" information about the resources it finds to interested users.
Future enhancements to Netscape Compass Server and other Netscape products will enable even easier access to network resources. Compass Server Concepts describes the elements that make up a Compass Server system.
Before You Start
You can use this guide in two different ways. Before setting up a Compass system, you can use this material to understand the components of such a system and how you might set them up for your particular needs. Once you have installed the software, you can use this material to actually design and customize your Compass Server.
These other aspects of Netscape Compass Server are described in other manuals:
All these manuals are available online from the Manuals screen in the Server Manager.
Learning About Compass
To understand the different parts of a Compass Server and the other programs and servers that work with it, you should read Compass Server Concepts before you start setting up your system.
For more detailed information on the mechanics of gathering resource information and importing it into the Compass Server database, you should read at least the descriptive parts of the chapter on filling the database: About Robots and Controlling the Robot.
Administering Your Compass Server
The remainder of this guide covers the different aspects of administering a Compass system:
There are also a glossary and an index for the manual.
How Compass Server 3.0 Differs from Catalog Server 1.0
If you have installed or used Netscape Catalog Server 1.0, you will notice several significant differences in Compass Server:
- No Resource Description Servers (RDSs) - The robot is now integrated directly into Compass Server. You no longer need to import resource descriptions from another server; the robot places them directly into the database. If you need distributed gathering, you can deploy multiple Compass Servers, and use them much as you did RDSs.
- Continuous robot operation - The robot is now a continuous process. It monitors a specific port, so the administrator can query the robot process or give it directives while it runs. Therefore, instead of being a background, batch operation, the robot is interactive. This also allows much better feedback on the current status of both the robot and the database.
- Unified search interface - Instead of providing both Java and non-Java search interfaces, Compass Server provides a single, fast interface that you can more easily customize, using HTML and JavaScript templates.
- Notification of updates - A new feature of Compass Server is a personalized update for users. Using My Compass, users can create personal interest profiles (PIPs) that indicate the types of items they want to know about. When the robot detects new or changed items, it can notify interested users either by electronic mail, through a personal web page, or through a Netcaster channel.
- Running searches - Using the same My Compass mechanism, users who frequently type the same searches can instead have the system remember these searches, and alert them to new documents that meet their search criteria.
- Category Browser - This Java applet, available from the main search screen, provides an expandable outline view of all the available document categories in a separate window. Users can browse directly to desired categories by clicking the category names.
Reading Online Manuals
The Administrator's Guide, the Programmer's Guide and the User's Guide for this product, and the manual Managing Netscape Servers, are available to you online through the Server Manager.
To read the online manuals, do the following:
- Choose either Compass Server or Admin Server in the left frame.
For the Administration Server, you will see the manual Managing Netscape
Servers, which covers tasks common to all Netscape servers. For the
Compass Server you will see a list of different manuals available.
- Click the name of the manual you want to read.
The selected manual will open in a separate window.
Conventions Used in This Guide
This section explains the conventions used in this guide.
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Last Updated: 02/12/98 13:30:49
Copyright © 1997
Netscape Communications Corporation
Any sample code included above is provided for your use on an "AS IS" basis, under the Netscape License Agreement - Terms of Use