Changing Administration(wpsadmin/wpsbind) passwords in IBM WebSphere Portal 6.0

Generally we don't need to change the administration password for the portal once installed and configured properly. But there might be a situations or unavoidable circumstances when you want to change the administration passwords after installation or may be at any point of time when you need it badly. In fact I need it last week.. ;). So here are the steps to do it. These are the steps already mentioned in the websphere portal resources, I just made it easier to access...


IBM WebSphere Portal and IBM WebSphere Application Server use some user account as "Security Server ID" for the WebSphere Application Server JVM, access ID or bind ID for authenticated access to databases and LDAP servers, and WebSphere Application Server and WebSphere Portal administrative ID's.

If the password for any user ID is changed either by Websphere portal edit profile screen or through LDAP directly then the password value stored in the appropriate configuration file must be changed.

Changing the WebSphere Portal administrator password

WebSphere Portal treats wpsadmin (the administrator) as any other user, just with more permission granted. It is possible to change the wpsadmin or equivalent password through the user interface (UI), just like any other user can manage their own password through the UI. However, if the wpsadmin account is also used for more than just the administrator, then additional changes, outlined in other steps in this section, must be made to accommodate the change.

Follow these steps to change the WebSphere Portal administrator password:

1. Log in to WebSphere Portal as the administrator.
2. Click Edit My Profile.
3. Change your password in the appropriate box.
4. Click Continue.

Note: You can also change the WebSphere Portal Administrator password, like any other user password, using an LDAP editor.

Note: The WebSphere Portal configuration tasks that enable security automatically set the Security Cache Timeout to a value specified in the wpconfig.properties file. Old passwords are stored in cache for this amount of time. The default value is 600 seconds.

For the version 6.0.1

After successfully changing your password, you will need to make additional changes to the RunAsRole passwords; see WebSphere Portal requires additional changes to the RunAsRole passwords for the EJBs to support password change for WPSAdmin and WASAdmin users for information.

Changing the WebSphere Application Server administrator password using WebSphere Portal

You can change the password for the IBM WebSphere Application Server administrator user ID using the WebSphere Application Server Administrative Console.

• Confirm that the WebSphere Application Server Administrative Server and Administrative Console are running.
• Log in to the WebSphere Application Server Administrative Console as the administrator.
• Log in to WebSphere Portal as the WebSphere Application Server administrator and select Edit Profile.
• Type a new password and click OK.
• In the WebSphere Application Server Administrative Console do one of the following, depending on the type of security installation:

• LDAP (non-realm): Click Security > Global Security > User registries > LDAP.
• LDAP (realm): Click Security > Global Security > User registries > Custom.

Note: As we are have configured LDAP with realm support we will take that scenario for this document.

§ From the command prompt, change to the portal_server_root/config directory.

§ Enter the following appropriate command to encrypt the new password:

WPSconfig.bat -DPassword=<new_password> wmm-encrypt

§ The script returns a value for the ASCII encrypted string. You can see that in your command prompt.

§ If you have a Base installation, open the portal_server_root/wmm/wmmWASAdmin.xml file with a text editor.

§ Copy the value from the ASCII encrypted string and paste it in the logonPassword field of the wmmWASAdmin.xml file.

§ Adapt the admin logon and uniqueUserid fields to the distinguished name of the new user.

• Change Server User Password to the new value using admin console for application server and save the changes.
• Stop and restart the WebSphere_Portal and server1 servers.

Note: The configuration tasks that enable security automatically set the Security Cache Timeout to a value specified in the wpconfig.properties file. Old passwords are stored in cache for this amount of time. The default value is 600 seconds.

For the version 6.0.1

After successfully changing your password, you will need to make additional changes to the RunAsRole passwords; see WebSphere Portal requires additional changes to the RunAsRole passwords for the EJBs to support password change for WPSAdmin and WASAdmin users for information.

I have successfully implemented these steps. :) If any of you find it hard on your portal environment, just drop a comment, may be I can help you.

Naming convention for Websphere Portal Resources

Last week I came across an article on Websphere portal wiki which gives some idea on portal naming convention. In my past portal projects I have seen that usually project team do not give a due importance to this little thing which can be very handy. Following are the few points for your quick reference.

1. Every portal page must have a uniqueName defined by the administrator
   
   Use your own uniqueName instead of the automatically generated one.
   


2. Portal page uniqueNames will follow the java package naming conventions
   For example, the uniqueName of the home page would be :
   
   com.yash.portal.home
   
   the uniqueName of the 'Home >About Us' page would be
   
   com.yash.portal.home.aboutUs
   
   the uniqueName of the 'Home > About Us > Leadership team' would be
   
   com.yash.portal.home.aboutUs.Business Leadership
   
   


3. Using this name convention, we can reserve special suffixes for particuliar processing the .hidden suffix will be used for pages that should not appear in the navigation menus. We can then code the Theme so as to filter out of the navigation menus, all pages whose uniquename ends with the .hidden suffix
   


4. All custom coded WAR files will be prefixed by the Company Name.
   
   For example YASH_ContentPortlet.war
   
   
   This helps when updating portlet applications from the admin console, as you can quickly find the company's own portlets by using 'Title starts with' Filter
   

WebSphere Portal 6.1.0.1 Beta 1 with support for WebSphere Application Server (WAS) 7.0

If you are interested in taking advantage of the new features of WebSphere Application Server 7 with WebSphere Portal, an open beta is available for test / pilot WebSphere Portal.It is available on VM Suse image. Just load the VM image and start the server. Here is the link for that...

WebSphere Portal 6.1.0.1 Beta 1 with support for WebSphere Application Server (WAS) 7.0

Hiding a Portal page in Websphere portal

In WebSphere Portal, when creating a new page under content root, it will be shown on the quick links navigation. If you do not want a page that you create to appear in the main menu, you can hide the page. You can use own customize links or navigation to access the page via direct URL mapping. To hide the page, it can be done through WebSphere Portal XML configuration interface. You do this by setting the hidden flag for the page parameter for the content-node tag in XML.

You can use the following XML snippet:

<request xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" nonamespaceschemalocation="PortalConfig_1.4.xsd" type="update" oids="true"></span><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><portal action = "locate"> <content-node action="update" uniquename="com.mypage" active = "true"> <parameter name="com.ibm.portal.Hidden" type="string" update="set"><![CDATA[true]]></parameter></Content-node></portal></request>

Webcast: Migrating WebSphere Portal V6.0 to V6.1 Webcast on 4 December 2008

Abstract
You are invited to attend a Webcast on the topic of migrating WebSphere Portal V6.0 to V6.1 on 4 December 2008.

Content
IBM Support is hosting a Tech Exchange webcast and call on the topic of migrating WebSphere Portal V6.0 to V6.1. This presentation will take place on Thursday, December 4, 2008 at 10:00 AM EST (3:00:00 PM GMT). Webcasts are slide presentations by a single presenter followed by questions & answers related to the material covered, as time permits.

To submit a question in advance, please post a reply to the following topic in the WebSphere Portal forum:

Migrating WebSphere Portal V6.0 to V6.1 Webcast on December 4, 2008

Session details

Date: 4 December 2008
Time: 10:00 AM EST - 11:30 AM (3:00 PM GMT)

Webcast:

URL: http://www.webdialogs.com/join
Enter conference ID 5260580


Audio by phone:

North America, Toll free: 888-208-1815
North America, Toll: 719-325-2472

Confirmation Code: 1084193

WebSphere Portal 6.1 Features Guide

It's been a long time since I first thought to blog on Enterprise Portal world. I must thank my project manager for urging me to blog more frequently on some of the important topics of today's enterprise protal scene.

To start with let me first focus on unargueably the most popular portal product that is IBM Websphere Portal (I can see those raised eyebrows from MS users :)). Recently they have released IBM Websphere Portal V6.1. I have gone through few documents on this and tried to summarise it's features in this blog. Hope this will help you getting started with 6.1.

IBM Websphere Portal 6.1 now supports full implementation of newly released JSR-286 specification,WSRP 2.0,web 2.0 capabilities and Interportlet communication

Web 2.0 Portal Theme



WebSphere Portal 6.1 supports Web 2.0 theme by default. This theme uses AJAX, XSLT, and a new client-Side Aggregation (CSA) an aggrigation model.
The Portal Web 2.0 Theme is a specialized theme which only renders the parts of the page that user has changed by performing some action on it. Which means if there are four different portlets on a page and a user interacts with a single portlet on the page, only the portlet the user interacts with is updated. If a user updates page on the Portal navigation links, only the affected navigation elements are updated, and the new page contents are rendered. Rather than updating and refreshing the entire page on every user interaction, the CSA aggregator only updates the parts of the page that changed.



Live Text (Semantic Tags)


Live Text is a simple way of adding semantic tags (keywords) to the HTML markup to simplify information discovery, retrieval, and navigation. For example, Live Text presents access to relevant information, such as e-mail address, job role of an employee in organization, when the user clicks on the employee name link in the portlet.



Web Application Integrator


With this newly added feature you can integrate external Web applications with WebSphere Portal by easily embedding existing Web applications into WebSphere Portal without any portlet development required.
You perform this integration by "injecting" Portal navigation markup into the external Web application. As the Portal navigation is displayed in the Web application, the user experience suggests the user is still in the Portal environment even though he is, in reality, natively browsing the external Web application. Because the Portal navigation is displayed on the Web application, the user can navigate back to Portal by clicking on any Portal page link.


Note: Web Application Integrator for WebSphere Portal Server 6.0.x is available for download in the IBM portlet catalog.



Site management


You can use site management to manage the individual pages and groups of page and properties that make up those pages by providing an easy way to move them around between Portal environments. For instance, if you need to move a page called "Home" from a Portal development server to a Portal staging server.
The new Resource Manager Portlet lets administrators create a page on a source server, then publish it to a target server where only a selected group of users can see and test the new page. After testing is complete, you can promote the new page so all users on the target server with the appropriate access rights can view the new page.
Portal Administrators can use the Site Management capability by accessing the Resource Manager Portlet on the Site Management page in the Portal Administration area.



Theme Customizer


The Theme Customizer portlet features a tabbed design and live preview you can use to customize key site elements including the banner, navigation, fonts, and colors, turn areas of the page on and off, and adjust the settings for areas of the page such as the navigation. This portlet includes a wizard-driven branding and in-place customization, designed to simplify new theme style creation or updates.



Search Enhancements


Portal Search is enhanced with features designed to enrich the search experience for users and improve Portal Search consumption. In version 6.1, searching Portal content is remotely accessible through REST Services, letting clients (e.g., Lotus Sametime) integrate search functionality.
The new AJAX Search Center is based on a set of customizable components which may be Portlets or Dojo Widgets. The components are designed to be "mashed-up" to create a search experience to match the needs of each organization.
You can also add a new External Search Results portlet to the Search Center. This portlet displays search results from third-party search engines such as Yahoo!, Google, or Flickr and you can configure it to display different number of results.
The new Suggested Links portlet enriches the user's search by displaying recommended results to users that are relevant to the query in separation from the regular results. The recommended results can be based on keywords only or keywords and documents content.