...
The Aspire SharePoint connector can run on either Windows or Linux. It uses web services over HTTP or HTTPS to communicate with SharePoint.
...
Without the extension, security information will be retrieved for only for sites and lists, and their ACLs will be automatically propagated to all of the items they contain. Individual document-level security ACLs will not be available.
Without the extension, the URL must be a site collection URL.
This is used to implement the Aspire Corporate-Wide Sitemap feature.
...