Google Search Appliance software version 6.0
Posted June 2009
Google Search Appliance version 6.0 updates are now available for the GB-1001 and GB-7007. For availability of other platforms, visit the Google Enterprise Support site.
This document describes features that are new or changed since version 5.2.
For a list of new, fixed, previous, and closed issues for software release 6.0, refer to the Google Enterprise Support Google Search Appliance Software Updates page (login required).
The following sections describe new and changed features in software release 6.0:
Release 6.0 introduces dynamic scalability, which enables multiple Google Search Appliances to work together to scale up as high as you want go - even up to billions of documents and provide unified search results. Dynamic scalability is based on a federated environment, in which multiple search appliances are configured to work together.
In a dynamic scalability configuration, one search appliance is the primary node and the others are secondary nodes. The primary search appliance aggregates results from all of the search appliances in the configuration and serves them to the search user. The primary search appliance's front end is used for searching all document corpora in the dynamic scalability configuration.
The new Federation pages in the Admin Console enable you to configure dynamic scalability.
Do not create both dynamic scalability and distributed crawling or index replication configurations for a set of search appliances.
As part of the introduction of dynamic scalability, the algorithm for calculating relevance was changed. There may be some changes in ranking in search results. In most cases, the quality of search results ranking will be improved.
For detailed information about dynamic scalability, see "Configuring Dynamic Scalability," available from the public Google Search Appliance documentation page.
Distributed crawling is release 6.0 beta scalability feature in which several search appliances are configured to act as though they are a single search appliance, which greatly increases the number of documents that can be crawled. After distributed crawling is enabled, all crawling, indexing, and serving are configured on one search appliance, called the primary search appliance or primary node.
The new Multibox page in the Admin Console enables you to configure distributed crawling.
Distributed crawling and index replication can be used together. However, do not create distributed crawling and dynamic scalability configurations for a set of search appliances.
For detailed information about distributed crawling, see "Configuring Distributed Crawling and Index Replication," available from the public Google Search Appliance documentation page.
Index replication is a release 6.0 beta feature enabling the index on one search appliance to be replicated to another search appliance, providing easily-enabled high-availability in an automatic active/passive configuration.
The new Multibox page in the Admin Console enables you to configure index replication.
Index replication and distributed crawling can be used together. However, do not create index replication and dynamic scalability configurations for a set of search appliances.
For detailed information about index replication, see "Configuring Distributed Crawling and Index Replication," available from the public Google Search Appliance documentation page
In release 6.0, the Google Search Appliance introduces policy Access Control Lists (ACLs), which enable caching permissions to increase the performance and scalability of the authorization processes. A policy ACL provides information to the Google Search Appliance about which users or groups have access to a specific URL.
Policy ACLs work with all the existing authentication mechanisms supported by the Google Search Appliance. These mechanisms include Kerberos, HTTP-Basic, NTLM, Forms Based Authentication, Certificates and SAML AuthN SPI.
The new Serving > Policy ACLs page in the Admin Console enables you to add, edit, or delete a policy ACL for a specific URL pattern.
For information about policy ACLs, see "Policy Access Control Lists."
The Google Search Appliance Policy ACL API enables developers to programmatically manage policy ACL rules on the Admin Console by specifying allowed users or groups, and by specifying rules for which URL patterns that can be accessed.
For information about the Policy ACL API, see "Google Search Appliance Administrative API Developer's Guide: Policy ACLs," available from the public Google Search Appliance documentation page.
Release 6.0 provides a new option for improving performance, which is sending multiple URLs in a single, batched Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML) authorization request. You can use batched SAML authorization requests only if your SAML provider supports the Google SAML batch authorization extension.
To submit batched SAML authorization requests, use the Serving > Access Control page in the Admin Console.
For information about batched SAML authorization requests, click Help Center > Serving > Access Control.
In release 6.0, the Crawl and Index > Forms Authentication page enables creating multiple rules to provide the crawler access to content secured by forms. In previous releases, the Forms Authentication page enabled you to create only one such rule while the Crawl and Index > Cookie Sites page enabled you to create multiple rules but forced these into public search. The Make Public function is now built into the Forms Authentication page.
With these enhancements, the Crawl and Index > Cookie Sites page has been removed.
For information about creating multiple forms authentication rules, click Help Center > Crawl and Index > Forms Authentication.
Release 6.0 introduces language bundles, which are collections of files that the search appliance uses for query expansion and spelling in several languages. You can add language bundles to a Google Search Appliance between software releases or anytime you need them.
The Google Search Appliance provides a built-in language bundle for the following languages:
Google occasionally provides new language bundles that offer support for different sets of languages.
You can install multiple language bundles on a Google Search Appliance, but only one language bundle can be active at any time. The currently active language bundle provides query expansion and spelling support for the languages in the bundle. By default, the built-in language bundle is active.
The new Serving > Language Bundles page in the Admin Console enables you to install, activate, and delete language bundles.
For information about language bundles, see "Changing Languages for Query Expansion and Spelling Suggestions."
In release 6.0, source biasing has been enhanced with result biasing by collection (a subset of the complete index). Result biasing by collection enables you to influence the order of documents based on their memberships in collections. To specify your preferred adjustments for documents in collections, identify the collections that you want to affect with source biasing.
To increase or decrease a document's score when it belongs to a collection, use the Serving > Result Biasing > Edit page in the Admin Console.
For information about biasing by collection, see "Using Source Biasing."
Release 6.0 includes a beta feature, query suggestions, that help users improve their searches when using a given front end. When query suggestions are enabled, search queries auto-complete and query suggestions appear as a user types in the search box.
To enable query suggestions, use the Serving > Front Ends > Page Layout Helper page in the Admin Console.
For information about query suggestions, see "Providing Query Suggestions."
If you are updating a Google Search Appliance from a previous software release and want to enable query suggestions, see Updating an XSLT Stylesheet for Query Suggestions.
With user-added results, a release 6.0 beta feature, you can give users the capability to add search results for certain keywords in a specific front end. User-added results cause designated documents always to appear on the results pages for specified keyword searches performed in the front end.
The Google Search Appliance includes a built-in OneBox provider for implementing user-added results. You can implement user-added results by performing the following tasks:
For information about user-added results, see "Providing User-Added Results."
The ranking framework is a release 6.0 beta feature that enables you to influence results rankings programmatically for an unlimited number of URL prefixes.
The input to the ranking framework is a configuration file that contains URL prefixes and their rescoring weights. Input by file enables you to input batch customizations for just a few to millions of URLs.
For information about the ranking framework, see "Using the Ranking Framework to Influence Result Rankings."
Release 6.0 introduces the capability of generating and downloading a file containing the current status of all the URLs that been found by the search appliance including uncrawled and indexed URLs. The file is in compressed (zip) format. After you download and uncompress the file, you can use a text editor to open it.
To generate and download a file of all URLs, use the Status and Reports > Export All URLs page in the Admin Console. For information about using this page, click Help Center > Status and Reports > Export All URLs in the Admin Console.
The Status and Reports > Serving Status page now displays a global summary of recent search latency. The information is displayed in two ways:
Release 6.0 introduces new options in the Network Diagnostics section of the Administration > Network Settings page in the Admin Console:
Use the Host to ping field to test whether the specified host is reachable across the network. Use the Host to tracepath field to determine the route taken to the specified host across the network.
In release 6.0, the Crawl and Index > Feeds page provides an option for destroying data sources. Once you have deleted a data source, you can destroy it by clicking the Destroy link. Destroying a data source removes the feed data source from this page.
Release 6.0 provides capabilities for migrating an index and avoiding having to recrawl content during Google Search Appliance software updates.
For detailed information about index migration, see the update instructions for the Google Search Appliance.
In release 6.0, error logs generated by the Authentication and Authorization SPI are visible in the Google Search Appliance Admin Console.
With release 6.0, access to the Admin Console can now be granted via an external LDAP server; a user is authenticated to the Admin Console if she has valid LDAP credentials and belongs to a specified LDAP group.
During search appliance installation, the Admin Console login page can be configured to use only the LDAP authentication, the local GSA authentication, or both. After the authentication mode is selected, configure it by using the Administration > LDAP Setup page in the Admin Console.
With release 6.0, the Google Search Appliance now crawls file shares protected by NTLM v2 security.
Release 6.0 introduces Administrative APIs, a Google Enterprise Labs feature. You can use the Administrative APIs to code applications that programmatically set administrative functions for the Admin Console of a Google Search Appliance.
For information about the Administrative APIs, see Google Search Appliance Administrative API Developer Guides, available from the public Google Search Appliance documentation page.
Administrators can configure the search appliance to resolve hostnames which overrides the response from the DNS server. The Administration > DNS Override page in the Admin Console for configuring this is at http://<appliance>:8000/EnterpriseController?actionType=dns.
Documents for release 6.0 are posted on our public Google Search Appliance documentation page. Please check them out!
Google Search Appliance software release 6.0 supports the Google Chrome browser for Windows.
Google has certified the following third-party products for use with software release 6.0.
| Category | Product Name and Version |
|---|---|
| Browsers | Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) 5.5, 6.0, 7.0 on Windows XP |
| Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and 2 on Windows XP | |
| Mozilla Firefox 2 on Linux (except for secure serving with Kerberos) | |
| Netscape 7 on Linux (except for secure serving with Kerberos) | |
| Databases | IBM DB2 |
| MS SQL Server 2000 and MS SQL Server 2005 | |
| MySQL 4.1.13 and 5.0.37. Note: Version 5.0 requires a JDBC upgrade. | |
| Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) 15 Express | |
| Oracle Database 10g Express Edition on Linux x86 and Windows platforms | |
| JDBC enablers | DB2 Universal Database (UDB) 8.1.0.64 |
| MySQL Connector/J 3.1.13 | |
| Microsoft SQL Server 2005, JDBC Driver 1.0 | |
| Sybase jConnect for JDBC 5.5, build 25137 | |
| Oracle Database 10g Release 2, 10.1.0.2.0 driver | |
| Network infrastructure | HTTP 1.1 |
| HTTPS | |
| Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers 3.0 and higher | |
| SMB | |
| SSO (Single sign-on) | Computer Associates SiteMinder 6.0, Policy
Server and Web Agent Note: There is no support for installations with multiple domains. |
| Oracle Access Manager 7.0.4 (formerly Oblix) | |
| Cams by Cafesoft, version 3.0 | |
| Web servers | Apache |
| Netscape Enterprise | |
| Microsoft Internet Information Server | |
| XSLT | EXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformations: XSLT 1.1.1.6 |
| XML Path Language: XPath 1.0 |
The information in this section applies to existing Google Search Appliance customers who are updating a Google Search Appliance from a previous software release and want to enable query suggestions.
This section contains the following information:
Before updating an existing XSLT stylesheet with query suggestions, perform the following tasks:
Use the Serving > Front Ends page in the Admin Console to perform this step.
Use XSLT Stylesheet Editor on the Serving > Front Ends > Output Format page in the Admin Console to perform this step.
Follow the steps in this section for adding code to add query suggestions to the XSLT stylesheet if you want to import a customized XSLT stylesheet from an earlier software release and use it one or more front ends.
The code that you add in the following procedure appears in the default XSLT stylesheet for release 6.0. Refer to the default XSLT stylesheet as a guide.
To add XSL code for query suggestions to an XSLT stylesheet from a software release prior to 6.0:
<!-- *** show suggestions (remote aut-completions) *** -->
<xsl:variable name="show_suggest">1</xsl:variable>
To change style attributes of query suggestions:
<xsl:template name="style">
<style>
<xsl:comment> . . . </xsl:comment>
</style>
</xsl:template>
For example, to control the font, color, and border thickness of query suggestions, insert the following code.
<xsl:if test="$show_suggest != '0'">
.ac-renderer {
position : absolute;
width : 300px;
background-color : <xsl:value-of select="$global_bg_color"/>;
border : 1px solid #999;
}
.ac-row {
position : relative;
background-color : <xsl:value-of select="$global_bg_color"/>;
margin : 1px;
padding : 1px 4px;
cursor : pointer;
}
.ac-highlighted {
color : #111;
}
.ac-active {
background-color : #AAF;
color : #111;
font : bold;
}
</xsl:if>
This table in this section describes changes to the Admin Console help center. These changes only appear in the help center that is available from public Google Search Appliance documentation page.
| Help Center Page | Description of Change |
|---|---|
| Administration > License | Corrected reference in procedure from "where you saved the license file in step 1" to "where you saved the license file in step 2." |
| Crawl and Index > Crawler Access | Removed "Note: If your environment uses a WINS server to look up hostnames, you must also configure the crawler to use this WINS server in the Administration > Network Settings." The WINS server setting has been removed from the Admin Console. |
| Federation > Host Configuration | Changed description of Scoring Bias value to "The Scoring Bias value is used for changing the weight assigned to search results served from the current search appliance." |
| Changed text from "For the federation network IP addresses, you can use any unused and available IP address range. These IP addresses are used for communications among the search appliances in the federation." to "The federation network IP addresses are used for communication among the search appliances in the federation. The federation network IP addresses must conform to the private address space as defined in RFC 1918 and must not overlap with any other private address space in use on your network." | |
| Federation > Federation Network Stats | Corrected "notes" to "nodes." |
| Multibox | Rewrote the following text: "You enable the multibox feature from the master search appliance. After the non-master primary search appliances are configured, the master and non-master search appliances behave as if they are a single search appliance. All subsequent configuration, such as setting crawl patterns, is performed only on the master search appliance." |
| Serving > Alerts | Added the following row to the table in "Before Starting this Task": "Ensure that LDAP entries contain a "mail" attribute for users." |
| Serving > Front Ends > Output Format - Page Layout Helper | Removed extra "Search" from: "3. Under Page Layout Helper on the Output Format page, click the arrow next to Search Search Results." |
| Serving > Query Expansion | Added the following information about the Name field: The name can contain only alphanumeric ASCII characters, underscores, or hyphens. |
| Added the following information about the File field: The file name may contain any UTF-8 characters. | |
| Status and Reports > Search Logs | Changed definition of report name. |
| Status and Reports > Search Reports | Changed definition of report name. |
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