iPlanet Compass Server, 3.01C
Release Notes
These notes were last updated March 28, 2001.
These release notes contain information about new features, known problems,
documentation changes, and other information about iPlanet Compass Server 3.01C.
NOTE: If you have installed any service packs to Compass 3.01C,
please check here for the latest release notes.
These release notes contain the following sections:
What's New in this Release
iPlanet Compass Server includes enhancements described
in the following sections:
Integration with iPlanet Portal Server
iPlanet Compass Server includes providers which allow for simple integration with iPlanet Portal Server. For more information on
iPlanet Portal Server, see http://www.iplanet.com/portal/.
NOTE: The Compass providers require iPlanet Portal Server Service Pack 2.
Performance and Security Enhancements
iPlanet Compass Server has important improvements in the following areas:
- Core web server. Compass Server benefits from improved security and performance of the iPlanet Web Server Enterprise Edition.
- Robot performance. The robot includes changes which result in improved efficiency in robot runs.
- Search performance. Search has been optimized to make better use of multi-processor systems.
- API related improvements. The Compass Server Java API includes performance improvements which result in
faster processing. Java applets included in Compass Administration and End User interfaces load and run faster.
Miscellaneous Changes
iPlanet Compass Server includes a number of fixes to various issues and problems.
Required Patches
Please refer to the Portal Server Release Notes for information on required patches.
Installation, Upgrade, and Migration Information
This section includes information for installing, upgrading, and migrating
your iPlanet Compass Server. For additional information about system requirements and installing the product, see
the Installation and Migration Guide.
The following table summarizes the supported platforms for iPlanet Compass Server. All platforms require a minimum of 64 MB
memory and 500 MB disk space, including at least 200 MB of free disk swap space. Please note the following:
- These requirements are in addition to the requirements for iPlanet Portal Server. Refer to
the Portal Server Release Notes for requirements.
- iPlanet Compass Server integrates with iPlanet Portal Server 3.0
- grapeVINE for Compass Server has been superceded by the Personalized Knowledge Services add-on product, note that
you must download and install Personalized Knowledge Services. The grapeVINE product is incompatible with Compass Server
3.01C.
You can download Personalized Knowledge Services from
http://www.iplanet.com
iPlanet Compass Server Supported Platforms
| Vendor |
Architecture |
Operating System |
| Sun |
SPARC |
Solaris 2.6, 7, 8 |
| Microsoft |
x86 |
Windows NT 4.0 |
Client requirements
Using the default templates provided with iPlanet Compass Server, the following software for end user access is required:
- Netscape Navigator/Communicator 4.08 through 4.73, excluding 4.6
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01 or 5.0.
For administration of iPlanet Compass Server, the following software is required:
- Netscape Navigator/Communicator 4.08 through 4.73, excluding 4.6
Please note that Administration of Compass Server must be performed directly via the Administration Server. Administration
via the Portal Gateway is not presently supported.
Compass server uses Java, JavaScript and cookies. These options must be enabled on your browser.
In addition, this section includes the following information:
- 47757 Web Server(s) must be off during installation
For the Compass Server installation to complete successfully, the iPlanet Portal Server(s) on the machine you are installing on must be turned off.
-
My Compass
My Compass functionality has been removed from the base Compass Server product. If you use the My Compass feature or rating of
documents in the base Compass Server product, please contact your iPlanet representative about Personalized Knowledge Services.
Known Problems and Solutions
This section lists known problems with this release of iPlanet Compass
Server. Information is organized into the following
areas:
Administration
Robot
Web Server
API
Administration
- 47705, 47849 Modifying Server Preferences or encryption requires Update from Compass Administration
If you change any of the following:
- hostname
- domain name
- port
- encryption preferences, or
- enable the Compass Server plugin for an existing Web Server which has encryption enabled
you must return to the Preferences/Compass Settings administration panel where you will be prompted
to update Compass configuration files.
- 47761 Cannot administer Compass via iPortal gateway
To administer Compass, you need to access the iPlanet Web Server Administration directly.
- 47765 RD Editor displays question mark(?) for control characters
If resource descriptions contain control characters, for example, line feeds or carriage returns, these are displayed
as question marks in the RD Editor.
- 47839 Deleting database loses partition information
If you have database partitions set up in Compass and delete the Compass database, partition information is lost.
Workaround: Add the partition information via Compass Server administration.
- 47815 Search engine indexes grow
Under certain circumstances, the search engine indexes in https-nick/db/collections/compass/parts can become fragmented
and not optimized.
Workaround: From the https-nick directory, run:
../plugins/compass/bin/nsirmgr -C -c config/csid.conf [csid]
where [csid] is your CSID as listed in the Preferences/Compass Settings of Compass Admin.
Note: The process can take a considerable time to run on large databases. The process can be run whilst the server is on, but may invalidate search results during the period the optimization is
running. On Windows NT, turning the server off and then back on may allow removal of some files that are no longer required,
but are locked by the operating system.
Robot
-
47778 Robot simulator reports rejection
The robot simulator does not perform DNS translations. Thus the simulator
may report rejections that the robot will actually accept. The most likely
scenario is where CNAME resolution is turned on, and you are simulating
against a virtual server.
Workaround: Enter the CNAME as the host, not the virtual server.
-
47910 Robot certificate database password
When configuring certificates for roboting SSL secure sites, you can set a password on your
certificate database. If you do so, you will need to modify your https-nick/config/process.conf file.
We recommend that you leave the SSL certificate database password empty if you will be using
My Compass and have configured your Compass server to require certificate based client authentication,
or if you wish to import data from other Compass servers configured for certificate based authentication.
This limitation will be removed in future releases.
Workaround: Configuring SSL settings is explained in the Compass Server Administration Guide.
From the Robots/Crawling tab, click on the Help button and follow the link to Roboting SSL sites.
Web Server
-
47775 Altered Web Server document root behaviour
Compass Server now honours the document root of the iPlanet Web Server
as initially configured. Documents which were previously accessable under
the compass-nick/docs directory are now remapped to /cs/ from the server
root. For example, the document previously stored under compass-nick/docs
and accessable via:
http://server.domain.com:1234/mydoc.html
and moved to the new https-nick/docs directory is accessable via:
http://server.domain.com:1234/cs/mydoc.html
Alternatively, documents can be moved to the web server's primary document
directory, or root directory, as configured on the initial creation of
the Web Server instance.
Note that the license for use of iPlanet Web Server included with iPlanet
Compass Server does not permit you to run a web site from your Compass
Server. If you wish to do so, you must purchase a license of iPlanet Web
Server.
API
-
47696 Meta Data attribute "score" over-rides relevance score
If a resource description (or document) in Compass Server includes
a meta data attribute named "score" , then the relevance, or score, returned
as a result of a search via the API is over-ridden with the meta data element
value.
Workaround: Use the schema conversion to remap the source data's attribute
from score to another attribute.
Specific bug fixes
The following specific bugs have been fixed in the Compass 3.01CS release:
- 47594 - Log rotation has been added
- 47542 - DB daemons have been removed
- 47976 - Robot now parsing frames correctly
How to Report Problems
See the iPlanet Technical Support site at http://www.iplanet.com/support
Where to Go for More Information
For iPlanet Compass Server installation instructions,
see the Installation
and Migration Guide.
For iPlanet Compass Server 3.01C administrator documentation,
see the online help that accompanies the product. The Administrator's
Guide and related documents are also posted at the location http://docs.iplanet.com/docs/manuals/compass.html.
If you can't find the information you need, please contact iPlanet
technical support.
© Copyright 2001 Sun Microsystems,
Inc. Some preexisting portions Copyright © 2001 Netscape Communications
Corp. All rights reserved.