Enterprise Portal Solution

Improve LDAP performance in VMM using attribute ibm-allGroups

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 13:56:00 +0000

Guys,

While searching for performance tuning tips, I found this really helpful article from Alex Lang Portal administration and performance blog.

https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/mydeveloperworks/blogs/portalops/entry/using_ibm_allgroups_in_vmm_to_improve_ldap_performance6?lang=en

Users in nested LDAP group cannot view Portal content due to VMM group configuration properties

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 12:26:00 +0000

Come across this really helpful IBM document while searching for the exact solution.

Users in a nested group in LDAP log in to the Portal successfully but do not see pages or portlets to which their group has been assigned access.

Here is a solution to that..

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?mynp=OCSSHRKX&mync=R&uid=swg21496174&myns=swgws

Problem configuring portal 6 with AD 2007 on Windows 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 12:04:00 +0000

It's been long break for me here. Busy with an SSO solution for one of our prestigious client. Will be posting on that as well in next few days.. :) But for now it's something which I encountered recently while enabling security of Portal 6.0 with AD 2007 hosted on Windows 2008.

During the enable-security-wmmur-ldap script, I was getting following error at the Portal server startup task.

Target started: action-configure-content-security

action-configure-content-security:
xmlaccess EJPXB0006I: Connecting to URL http://localhost:10038/wps/config/
xmlaccess EJPXB0002I: Reading input file D:\WPS6\IBM\WEBSPH~1\PORTAL~1\config\work\ContentAdminGroupsPAC.xml
Error 404: Initialization of one or more services failed.
xmlaccess EJPXB0015E: Server response indicates an error.
xmlaccess EJPXB0015E: Server response indicates an error.
xmlaccess EJPXB0006I: Connecting to URL http://localhost:10038/wps/config/
xmlaccess EJPXB0002I: Reading input file D:\WPS6\IBM\WEBSPH~1\PORTAL~1\config\work\ContentUserGroupsPAC.xml
Error 404: Initialization of one or more services failed.
xmlaccess EJPXB0015E: Server response indicates an error.
xmlaccess EJPXB0015E: Server response indicates an error.
Mon Jan 31 21:59:35 IST 2011
Target started: action-init-accesscontrol

action-init-accesscontrol:
echo Calling ContentModelInitializer
Target finished: action-init-accesscontrol
Target finished: action-configure-content-security
Target finished: enable-security-wmmur-ldap

When I checked the sysout.log file I found the following error.

~~1/31/11 21:54:22:023 IST~~ 0000000a Servlet E com.ibm.wps.engine.Servlet init EJPFD0016E: Initialization of service failed.
com.ibm.wps.ac.DomainAdministratorNotFoundException: EJPSB0107E: Exception occurred while retrieving the identity of the domain adminuser/admingroup cn=wpadmin,cn=users,dc=newmail,dc=com.

When I troubleshooted further, I found that this is because of the password policy implementation in WPS which restricts some special characters to be used as usename and password. In windows 2008 you have certain password policy constraints that prevents a plain password to be entered while creating a user. You atleast need to enter one special character.

I found this link on the infocenter which elaborates on the special characters for username and password.

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wpdoc/v6r0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.wp.ent.doc/wpf/sec_chars.html

Based on this I have used "Underscore" in the password rather then restrictive special characters in WPS while creating user in AD and then try running the above task and it successfully completed.

Hope this small troubleshooting may help somebody in his hard times with portal integration with LDAP.

Step-by-Step Cluster Guide for IBM WebSphere Portal v7.0.0

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 07:04:00 +0000

Just got this link for Creating cluster in WebSphere Portal V7.0.

Step-by-Step Cluster Guide for IBM WebSphere Portal v7.0.0

Where to learn WebSphere Portal Administration

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 06:16:00 +0000

As WebSphere Portal moving into the new version with more facilities and functionality, more it's getting attention as a robust technology and more people want to know about it and learn about this product as a technology.

I can see that in IBM forums and different communities where people are showing there eagerness about this product and want to find out how they can start learning it. For those enthusiasts, I have prepared some useful links to start with. This is mainly a WebSphere Portal administration know how but you can still get a fare amount of idea on WebSphere Portal as a product.

WebSphere Portal Infocenter : This is a one stop shop for you. You will get everything here. It's updated frequently to cover all the necessary updates the product might have for you. http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/wpdoc/v6r1/topic/com.ibm.wp.ent.doc_v615/welcome_main.html
WebSphere Portal Family Wiki : Wiki covers all the learning resources as well as case studies and best practices. http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf
WebSphere Portal Product Documentation Site: This site contains all the relevant documentation for the product version wise. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/portal/proddoc.html#v70proddocwiki
WebSphere Portal Developerworks Forum : You can exchange you knowledge with some of the experts here and can post your query about the product. http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/forum.jspa?forumID=168
WebSphere Portal Developerworks Zone : http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/portal/
IBM WebSphere Portal Channel on YouTube : IBM WebSphere Portal YouTube channel provides demos and videos to help you get the most out of WebSphere Portal. http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/dx/IBM_WebSphere_Portal_channel_on_YouTube
Resources for IBM WebSphere Portal Administrators and Developers: http://www-10.lotus.com/ldd/portalwiki.nsf/xpViewCategories.xsp?lookupName=Resources%20for%20WebSphere%20Portal%20administrators%20and%20developers

Hope I have covered most of the resources link which can give good reference to the product. You can always add in to make it more compiled list.

WebSphere Portal Server V7.0 is out

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 06:16:00 +0000

Today, IBM has released WebSphere Portal Server V7.0 officially and made it available through passport advantage site. I am going to download it this weekend and will try to get some hands-on with new features. :) Anybody wants to have some useful links for WPS 7.0, I have made it available right here.

Download : You can download it from passport advantage site.

Download document : http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24026527

Hardware & Software requirements : http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27019556#Red%20Hat%20Enterprise%20Linux%20%28RHEL%29%20AS/ES

Product documentation : http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/websphere/zones/portal/proddoc.html

Guide for basics of LDAP

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 07:17:00 +0000

I have come across this really useful document on basic LDAP concepts. Anybody who needs to have basic understanding about the LDAP and it's architecture can take benefit from this document published in developerworks site.

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/tivoli/library/t-ldap01/index.html#N10070

Integrating Facebook pages with business portals

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 07:20:00 +0000

This demonstration shows you how companies can create pages and applications to establish customized and personalized presences on Facebook. This demonstration uses the Open Financial Network and the Banking template as an example scenario.

Here is a link for the DEMO. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vy29PQgovsw

Cleared Test 955 IBM WebSphere Portal 6.1 Deployment and Administration

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 05:09:00 +0000

It's a great feeling after clearing my first certificate in IBM Websphere Portal after being in this technology for almost over 5 years. Last week I appeared for the test and cleared it with score of 95 which is great relief. Planning to give one for content management as well in near future.

How to attach default skin to Theme using xmlAccess

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Fri, 21 May 2010 11:51:00 +0000

Today, I encountered a really interesting problem reported by my ex-colleague. While working on the portal, accidentally he has removed skins which are attached to default theme of the portal. Now this has resulted in him not able log in to the portal.This is due to no portlet display because of the skin being deleted.
When he tried log in using direct portal url which bypasses the log in portlet he found out the pages are there but portlets are not rendered while clicked on those pages. He was not even get back to the default settings using themes and skins page from the administration section.

Solution to this problem is getting back the default settings for the themes/skins using xmlAccess.
To resolve this we followed below steps.

1. We exported the complete portal configuration using xmlAccess. For this we have used sample ExportRelease.xml which comes with default portal installation. This can be found under [Portal_server_root]/doc/xml-samples. Here is a command to do that

./xmlaccess.bat -in C:/Program Files/IBM/WebSphere/PortalServer/doc/xml-samples/ExportRelease.xml -user wpsadmin -password wpsadmin -url http://localhost:10038/wps/config -out wpsserver_config.xml

2. Open the exported file, which in this case wpsserver_config.xml and find the entry which starts with theme action="update" active="true" default="true". Add a parameter defaultskinref="K_NO2UF4I1186E1026H4BLVI00E6" to it. Here value for the defaultskinref is the ID of the skin which is deployed in your environment. This will be a default skin to your theme. You can fine skins in the same xml file. Find using skin action="update" text.

3. Once updated and saved, import this xml file to your portal server using xmlAccess. Here is a command for it.

xmlaccess.bat -in C:/updatedXML/wpsserver_config.xml -user wpsadmin -password wpsadmin -url http://localhost:10038/wps/config

That's it. We are able to access portal as it was before the problem. :)

A new Kid on the block - JBOSS GateIn

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Mon, 17 May 2010 06:44:00 +0000

The best of exo and JBOSS portals has arrived as they called it : JBOSS GateIn. Have a look at it

http://www.jboss.org/gatein/gallery.html

A First Look at IBM's WebSphere Portal Server 7

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Fri, 14 May 2010 10:09:00 +0000

I just got this alert about IBM Websphere Portal 7 Beta, I thought I should share it with you all.

http://www.theserverside.com/report/Evaluating-WebSphere-Portal-Server-7-A-journey-Into-the-WPS-Unknown

How to improve performance of your WCM server

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Tue, 11 May 2010 09:37:00 +0000

Well, it's been quite hectic last few weeks for me. Engaged in fine tuning our production environment with remote WCM content rendering. During this task I was going through many documents on performance improvement. I have jotted down few points here for ease.

Application server tinning
---------------------------
Here you need to set the min and max value for the following parameters
Web Container Thread Pool - 60/60
Data source connection Pool - JCRDB - 10/150

Cache Manager Service tuning
------------------------------
Open the CacheManagerService.properties file and modify the following values.

cacheinstance.com.ibm.workplace.searchmenu.helper.SearchMenuCacheHelper.size 5000
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ContainedRolesCache.size 500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.AccessControlUserContextCache.size 5000
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ApplicationRolesForPrincipalCache.size 12500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.AccessControlUserContextCache.lifetime 10800
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ExplicitEntitlementsCache.size 500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ExplicitEntitlementsCache.ICM_CONTENT.size 12000
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ExplicitEntitlementsCache.VIRTUAL.size 500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ProtectedResourceCache.size 12500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ExternalOIDCache.size 12000
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.AccessControlUserContextCache.lifetime 10800
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.RolesCache.size 7500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.groupmanagement.NestedGroupCache.size 1200
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.datastore.pageinstance.DerivationCache.size 250
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.datastore.pageinstance.OIDCache.size 250
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.datastore.services.Identification.SerializedOidString.cache.size 500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.model.content.impl.ResourceCache.size 500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.model.content.impl.TopologyCache.size 500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.pe.portletentity.size 250
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.services.cache.cachedstate.CachedStateServiceSession
Bound.cache.size 250
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ApplicationRoleChildrenCache.size 500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ApplicationRoleDescriptorCache.size 500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ApplicationRoleOIDCache.size 500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ChildEntitlementsCache.size 500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.ac.ExplicitEntitlementsCache.APPLICATION_ROLE.size 500
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.policy.services.PolicyCacheManager.lifetime 28800
cacheinstance.com.ibm.wps.model.content.impl.ResourceCache.lifetime 14400

Navigation Service Tuning
--------------------------
Open the NavigatorService.properties file and enable the public session required for rendering portlets on anonymous pages.

public.session = true

WCM object Cache settings
---------------------------
abspath 8000
abspathreverse 8000
processing 10000
session 6000
menu 500
nav 500
strategy 8000
global 100
module 100

WCM Configuration Service
---------------------------
Enable the user cache

Find the WCMConfigService.properties file under:
/PortalServer/wcm/shared/app/config/wcmservices
Set user.cache=true

How to create empty virtual portal using configuration Task

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 09:41:00 +0000

This post is more in continuation of my last blog entry regarding changing host name for your existing virtual portal. Fulfilling this task requires you to create an empty virtual portal as mentioned in a separate step.

Here is how you can create virtual portal with the help of configuration task

create-virtual-portal.

1. Back up wkplc.properties file under

/WebSphere/wp_profile/ConfigEngine/properties folder.

2. Modify it for the following configuration properties and save.

# Title of the Virtual Portal
VirtualPortalTitle=
# Realm of the Virtual Portal
VirtualPortalRealm=
# Hostname of the Virtual Portal.If you set the hostname, the portal sets the hostname, and the portal
parameter context is ignored.
VirtualPortalHostName=
# Context of the Virtual Portal
VirtualPortalContext=
# File which contains language specific information for the Virtual Portal
VirtualPortalNlsFile=
# VirtualPortalObjectId: ObjectId of the Virtual Portal
# The ObjectId is needed to modify, delete Virtual Portals and
# can be obtained by running task list-all-virtual-portals
# Note: Do not delete the default Virtual Portal (ObjectId ends with _0)
VirtualPortalObjectId=

3. Run the following command to create an empty virtual portal using above mentioned parameters.
./ConfigEngine.sh create-virtual-portal

4. Execute the ./ConfigEngine.sh list-all-virtual-portals task to make sure that the virtual portal is created on the target environment.

5. You can access virtual portal through http://localhost:10040/wps/portal/ URL. You will get a blank page with message "Error 404: There is no content available."

In my next blog I will show you how you can populate empty virtual portal.

Using a new host name for an existing virtual portal

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:29:00 +0000

Currently while working on my project I encountered an issue as a result of upgrading portal to 6.1.0.3.
The issue was regarding virtual portal that I created before an upgrade and assigned "Host Name" parameter to it. To troubleshoot the issue I had to change the "Host Name" value, in fact needed to remove it. Anyone played with Virtual portal might have got that this is not possible by just editing the virtual portal settings using Administrative portlet. You can not modify this entry after you assigned it. I have gone through the infocenter and found that this is know limitation for virtual portal and one has to follow below mentioned series of steps to achieve this task.

1. Export the content of your existing virtual portal using xmlAccess interface.
[Portal_server_root]/bin $ ./xmlaccess.sh -user admin -password secrete -url http://hostname:port/wps/config/virtual_portal_context -in /opt/IBM/WebSphere/PortalServer/doc/xml-samples/Export.xml -out result.xml

2. Delete existing virtual portal using manage virutal portal portlet.

3. Clean up any references to the deleted virtual portal by using the Task.xml of xmlAccess.
./xmlaccess.sh -user admin -password secrete -url http://hostname:port/wps/config -in /opt/IBM/WebSphere/PortalServer/doc/xml-samples/Task.xml -out result_cleanup.xml

4. Create a new empty virtual portal by running configuration task create-virtual-portal. Use the context of the deleted virtual portal and do not provide any host name parameter value.

5. Import the contents of the original virtual portal to the new virtual portal using xmlAccess interface.
./xmlaccess.sh -user admin-password secrete -url http://hostname:port/wps/config/New_virtual_Portal_Context -in /opt/IBM/WebSphere/PortalServer/bin/result.xml -out result_import_VP.xml

Now you are ready to access your virtual portal :). Hope this helps the community in some way.

How to remove maximize and minimize links in the Portlet context menu

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Sat, 10 Apr 2010 09:57:00 +0000

In certain cases it is an desired behavior to disable the minimize and maximize functionality of portlets in IBM WebSphere Portal. you can achieve this behavior by following the simple step mentioned here.

1. Take a backup of portletContextMenu.jsp file from your custom theme war file. It can be loacated at (WarFileName)/themes/html/Portal folder, where (WarFileName)
is the name of your web application containing your themes.

2. Open the portletContextMenu.jsp file and search for the following elements for the minimize and maximize links. Remove the following two "c-rt:if" elements:

3. Save the modified file in your web application and redeploy the web application. Pages with your custom theme applied will now not render any minimize and maximize links in the portlet context menu.

Troubleshooting Port conflict in Websphere Portal

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:08:00 +0000

Today, I found this strange error while starting "Websphere application server" and "Websphere Poral server" on my box which already running one more instance of WPS. I was able to start only one process at a time but not both. I got this error while starting the server1 when websphere Portal is already started.

WsServerImpl E WSVR0009E: Error occurred during startup
com.ibm.ws.exception.RuntimeError: com.ibm.ws.exception.RuntimeError: org.omg.CORBA.INTERNAL: CREATE_LISTENER_FAILED_4 vmcid: 0x49421000 minor code: 56 completed: No

This was due to port conflict between processes "server1" and "Websphere Portal". To resolve this perform the following steps.

1. Stop all WebSphere processes: Application Servers, nodeagents, and the deployment manager.
2. View all ports in use on the operating system by issuing a netstat -a command. Make note of any ports in use.
3. Open the serverindex.xml file for your server. You can find it in the directory /config/cells//nodes//serverindex.xml
4. Check this file for any of the port conflict with the result in step-2.
5. Resolve the port conflict by editing the serverindex.xml and change the conflicting port number to one that is not in use, then restart all the WebSphere processes.

Websphere Portal isses with IE8

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 14:40:00 +0000

In my current project, I got this request from our client that they need portal application to be tested on IE8. Sounds pretty easy to me at the first glance but to my surprise I found few really interesting issues and their solution. So I thought let me share it with other community members as well.

Main issues which I dealt with were regarding java script used in themes/skins as well as portlet applications. One major issue was with Portlet context menu not displaying at all in IE8. Also the pagination was broken in IE8 as well. Our developer has spent substantial time on fixing this but eventually I found this out of the wood solution for that.. :)

1. In Websphere Portal navigate to Administrative portlets and click on Supported Clients.

2. You can see the "Manage Clients" Portlet. Click on Add New Client link
3. Fill up the necessary details about IE8 as shown below.

4. Save it and you are done.

Here are few more options that you can provide in the form above.
User Agent: .*MSIE 8.0.*
Markup: html
Markup version: ie
Manufacturer: Microsoft
Model: Internet Explorer
Version: 8.0
Capabilities: CACHE_VARY,
HTML_2_0,
HTML_JAVA,
HTML_CSS,
HTML_FRAME,
HTML_TABLE,
HTML_4_0,
HTML_3_2,
HTML_JAVASCRIPT,
HTML_3_0,
HTML_NESTED_TABLE,
FRAGMENT_IDENTIFIER,
HTML_IFRAME

Hope you like this hidden feature of IBM. :)

Sample virtual member manager plug-in for WebSphere Application Server Version 6.1 and above

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 05:10:00 +0000

I got this very nice article on virtual member manager plug-in for WAS 6.1 and above while browsing through developerworks site. The plug-in manager provides a framework that enables you to write extensions to virtual member manager API to consume a variety of services that can be added in the future

You can find complete article here.

WebSphere Portal NOW:- Jump Start a Content Portal in Less Than a Month!

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 07:47:00 +0000

Just back from a long break. Stepped in to second phase of my life- After marriage :) Starting year 2010 with an excellent offer from IBM once again.

IBM has just released a new software template and services solution for WebSphere Portal that handles the majority of requirements most companies have for a basic content portal.
The WebSphere Portal NOW is a reusable software template and a well-defined services process, which allows for deployment of a fully working portal and content solution for customers in less than a month.
Basic Features:

WebSphere Portal structure for a pre-configured environment with two themes, including a Home Page with links to critical information, feeds, documents, processes or applications.
Pre-configured Web Content Management with support for different types of content, organized publishing streams for authors and editors, and flexible publication scheduling.
Ready to use Services, such as application or web site links, RSS feeds, Sametime contacts, document management, or people finder.

More information can be found here.

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:07:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:18:00 +0000

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:

Create a copy of the "Web Content Viewer" portlet and rename it to whatever name you like.
Add "Anonymous Portal User" into the user role of the portlet.
Add "Anonymous Portal User" into the user role of your content library.
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.
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

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 07:11:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:17:00 +0000

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

noreply@blogger.com (Mihir Shah) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:28:00 +0000

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.