IMPORTANT

 Please review the CIFS FAQ & Troubleshooting for any Known Issues.

On this page

Step 1. Launch Aspire and Open Content Source Management

Launch Aspire (if it's not already running).

See:


Step 2. Add a new CIFS Content Source

To specify exactly what shared folder to crawl, we will need to create a new "Content Source".

To create a new content source:

  1. From the Content Source , click Add Source.
  2. Click CIFS Connector.


Step 2a. Specify basic information

In the General tab in the Content Source Configuration window, specify basic information for the content source:

  1. Enter a content source name in the Name field. 
    1. This is any useful name that you specify for the source. It will be displayed in the Content Source page, in error messages, etc.
  2. Click on the Scheduled pull-down list and select one of the following: Manually, Periodically, Daily, Weekly or Advanced.
    1. Aspire can automatically schedule content sources to be crawled on a set schedule, such as once a day, several times a week, or periodically (every N minutes or hours).
      For the purposes of this tutorial, you may want to select Manually and then set up a regular crawling schedule later.
  3. Click on the Action pull-down list to select one of the following: Start, Stop, Pause, or Resume.
    1. This is the action that will be performed for the specified schedule.
  4. Click on the Crawl pull-down list and select one of the following: Incremental, Full, Real Time, or Cache Groups.
    1. This will be the type of crawl to execute for the specified schedule.

After selecting a Scheduled, specify the details, if applicable:

  • Manually: No additional options.
  • Periodically: Specify the Run every options by entering the number of "hours" and "minutes."
  • Daily: Specify the Start time by clicking on the hours and minutes drop-down lists and selecting options.
  • Weekly: Specify the Start time by clicking on the hours and minutes drop-down lists and selecting options. Select the day check boxes to specify days of the week to run the crawl.
  • Advanced: Enter a custom CRON Expression (for example: 0 0 0 ? * *)

 

You can add more schedules by selecting the Add New option, and rearranging the order of the schedules.
If you want to disable the content source just clear the Enable check box. This is useful if the folder will be under maintenance and no crawls are wanted during that period of time.
Real Time and Cache Groups crawl will be available depending of the connector.

  


Step 2b. Specify the connector information

In the Connector tab, specify the connection information to crawl the CIFS.

  1. Enter the smb folder url you want to crawl.
  2. Enter the user's domain.
  3. Enter the username.
  4. Enter the user's password.
  5. Select the other options as needed:
    1. Index Containers: index subfolders as items. If unchecked, only files will be indexed.
    2. Scan recursively: Scan through subfolder's child nodes.
    3. Include/Exclude patterns: Enter regex patterns to include or exclude files/folders based on URL matches.

Step 2c. Specify workflow information

In the Workflow tab, specify the workflow steps for the jobs that come out of the crawl. Drag and drop rules to determine which steps an item should follow after being crawled.
These rules could be where to publish the document or transformations needed on the data before sending it to a search engine. See Workflow for more information.

  1. For the purpose of this tutorial, drag and drop the Publish To File rule found under the Publishers tab to the onPublish Workflow tree.
  2. Specify a Name and Description for the Publisher.
  3. Click Add.
  4. After completing these steps, click Save and Done. You'll be sent back to the Home Page.


Step 3: Initiate a Full Crawl

Now that the content source is set up, the crawl can be initiated.

  1. Click on the crawl type option to set it as Full (is set as Incremental by default and the first time it'll work like a full crawl.
    After the first crawl, set it to Incremental to crawl for any changes done in the repository).
  2. Click Start.

During the Crawl

You can do the following:
  • Click Refresh on the Content Sources page to view the latest status of the crawl.
    The status will show RUNNING while the crawl is going, and CRAWLED when it is finished.
  • Click Complete to view the number of documents crawled so far, the number of documents submitted, and the number of documents with errors.

If there are errors, you will get a clickable Error flag that will take you to a detailed error message page.



Step 4: Initiate an Incremental Crawl

If you only want to process content updates from the CIFS (documents which are added, modified, or removed), then click on Incremental instead of Full.
The CIFS connector will automatically identify only changes which have occurred since the last crawl.

If this is the first time that the connector has crawled, the action of the "Incremental" button depends on the exact method of change discovery.
It may perform the same action as a Full crawl crawling everything, or it may not crawl anything.
Thereafter, the Incremental button will only crawl updates.


Statistics are reset for every crawl.