How to restore WebSphere Portal back to the out-of-the-box security configuration

One of my colleague was engaged in an assignment this week where he needed to revert back the existing security with LDAP to out-of-the-box security (File repository). Here are the steps which we followed to complete this task.

We are using portal 6.1. So, we need to install the required patch for this task. We installed PK73815 and update the Portal configuration. You can down load this APAR from the IBM fix central.

• Modify the wkplc.properties file for the following changes. Add this properties at the end fo the file.
  

# The realm name to be used. A realm with this name will be created.
restore.file.realm=federatedRealm
restore.file.delimiter=/

# Portal and WAS admin UID (short name) and password
restore.file.primaryAdminId=adminUID
restore.file.primaryAdminPassword=adminPWD

# CN of portal admin group (short name)
restore.file.primaryPortalAdminGroup=adminGroupCN

• Make sure that your WAS admin password and your Portal admin password are populated in wkplc.properties file.
• Start Websphere Application Server and Websphere Portal server before running the task.
• Navigate to the /opt/ibm/WebSphere/wp_profile/ConfigEngin directory. Run the following command from here.
  wp-restore-default-repository-configuration
• The wp-restore-default-repository-configuration task allows you to return to the default VMM setup with a federated file repository. The task will create a new realm, delete all existing repositories, and configure a file repository in VMM.
• If you want the admin user to be added to the admin group, restart both the servers and run the following command from /opt/ibm/WebSphere/wp_profile/ConfigEngin
  wp-restore-default-repository-add-group-member

This process will revert back your repository back to out-of-the-box security.

References:
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=688&ca=portall2&uid=swg21368395

How to provide anonymous access to your web content

It's sometimes so frustrating to see that some thing which you have already done once is giving you a hard time doing again.

This is exactly what I faced today. I have configured anonymous access to the web content for my site and have configured Web Content Viewer portlet for anonymous access in my devl environment. But when I tried the same thing today in Production, it's just not working. After so many tries looking for the solution what I found, is a small mistake which cost me dearly.

This has again inspired me to put this thing on papaer to make my life easy. So, for all you people out there who are also into such kind of scenarios, here is a quick note on how to assign anonymous access to web content.

Steps:

1. Create a copy of the "Web Content Viewer" portlet and rename it to whatever name you like.
2. Add "Anonymous Portal User" into the user role of the portlet.
3. Add "Anonymous Portal User" into the user role of your content library.
4. If point -3 doesn't suits to your access policy, then atleast make sure that you need to have user access for "Anonymous Portal User" on every item in the path to the current content item. i.e. library/site/site area/content item and ofcourse on the Authoring Template and presentation Template.
5. Modify the Edit Shared Settings in the portlet and configure the content item to be displayed.

Hope this helps to some extent when you really need it. :)

Learning WebSphere Portal Enable, Extend, and Express 6.1 for Administrators

It's been quite a while since I blog . Busy with ongoing assignments and of course my wedding is around the corner. :)

For the people who are more aligned towards portal administration rather than development, here is collection of all the details/know-how which will be handy while working. This is a one stop shop for administrator.

http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/dx/learning_portal_for_administrators

WebSphere Portal and Lotus Web Content Management performance tuning guides and supplemental content

While googling for some other help on Websphere Portal, I found this article/technote from IBM which is must for Portal specialist working on improve performance of the portal and it's various components.

Here is the link for that.

How to check the version of the Websphere Portal Server

Generally it sound very trivial task to get the version information about the Websphere Portal installed in your environment, but let me tell you some times it's not. :)

Last week I wasted few mins in the middle of my configurations just to find out what exactly the version and the patch history for my installed portal server.

So, for all who are working on portal installation/configurations, I am writing fews steps here to find out the exact version and patch history for installed portal server along with many more details.

1. Check out the systemOut.log file for your portal server in /opt/ibm/WebSphere/wp_profile/logs/WebSphere_Portal.
WebSphere Portral writes the current version information and details bout fixes applied to this fiel at the time of startup.
2. /opt/ibm/WebSphere/PortalServer/bin/WPVersionInfo.sh : This command will write current version information on console. This will give you the information about the fixpacks installed on your server also.

Here is an example of that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IBM WebSphere Portal Product Installation Status Report
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Report at date and time 2009-07-14T06:45:01-05:00

Installation
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Product Directory /opt/ibm/WebSphere/PortalServer
Version Directory /opt/ibm/WebSphere/PortalServer/version
DTD Directory /opt/ibm/WebSphere/PortalServer/version/dtd
Log Directory /opt/ibm/WebSphere/PortalServer/version/log
Backup Directory /opt/ibm/WebSphere/PortalServer/version/backup
TMP Directory /tmp

Installation Platform
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name IBM WebSphere Portal
Version 6.1

Technology List
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MP installed
WCM installed

Installed Product
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name IBM WebSphere Portal MultiPlatform
Version 6.1.0.1
ID MP
Build Level wp6101_115_01 2008-11-15
Build Date 11/15/2008

Installed Product
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name IBM Lotus Web Content Management
Version 6.1.0.1
ID WCM
Build Level Build 119.2
Build Date 2008/11/13 at 16:44:38 EST

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
End Installation Status Report
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. There are other two commands also which will help generate the report in html format for version information. They are /opt/ibm/WebSphere/PortalServer/bin/genVersionReport.sh and genHistoryReport.sh.

PumaEnvironment Usage in WebSphere Portal 6.1

PumaAdminHome is deprecated as of WebSphere Portal 6.1 onward. A recommended approach is to use PumaEnvironment.

From WP 6.1 onward, PumaAdminHome is deprecated. One might need a way to use the PumaEnvironment interface to execute a PUMA query. Using PumaEnvironment, one can make a PUMA query without Puma having to make any check on access control.

Read More.

How to reset the administrator's password in the file registry

If you forget your WebSphere Application Server administrator's password and/or your WebSphere Portal administrator's password, and your administrative users are stored in the file registry, how can you reset the forgotten password in the file registry?

Here is the way how you can achieve this.

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?rs=688&context=SSHRKX&dc=DB560&dc=DB520&uid=swg21392427&loc=en_US&cs=UTF-8&lang=en&rss=ct688websphere