How to Index Physical Roots

Using Microsoft Index Server 2.0, you can index physical paths and virtual paths. This allows you to index data and return UNC pathing or FTP URLs to access the data.

You must first add the physical folders to the catalog. To do this, perform the following steps:

1. Expand the tree for the catalog in the Microsoft Management Console (MMC) by right-clicking the Directories folder.
2. Choose New and then choose Directory.
3. In the dialog box, include the full path to the directory that you want to index, along with the alias that you want returned in the search. Normally, the alias is \\machine\directory to point to a share where these files are located, or FTP://machine/directory to point to an FTP location of the data.
4. For Type, choose Include to include the directory in the catalog. Note: Exclude removes the catalog from the index (which is useful for excluding a subdirectory of a directory that you have included.)

When you have added the physical paths to the catalog, you then need to create a search page to retrieve the results. Normally, searches are run in the virtual namespace by setting the scope of the query to "/.". Setting the scope to "\" will perform the search against all documents in the physical namespace. In your search page, set the scope to "\." In an .idq file, set the scope to CiScope=\. If you use the IXSSO object in a .asp file, the scope will be set similar to the following:

The results of this query will not have a vpath record, but will have a path record that contains the local path to the data on this computer. However, the path needs to be returned using the alias you entered in step 3. Add the path column to the CiColumn statement in the .idq file, or to the Q.Columns statement in the .asp file. You will not get the alias as a result, because the catalog you are querying is on the same computer as Index Server. By default, Index server will display the local pathing in this case, not the alias.

To return the path using the alias created in step 3, point to the catalog using Named Pipes. The statement in an .idq file is as follows:

In an .asp file using the IXSSO object, the statement is as follows:

In both examples above, <machine> is the name of the server hosting the catalog, and <catalog> is the name of the catalog as it appears in the Index Server snap-in for the MMC.

The final step is to modify the results page of the query so that it returns the local path, not the vpath.

One drawback of this method is that authentication is limited to Anonymous or Basic authentication. Windows NT Challenge Response will not work with this Named Pipe query. This is a limitation of current Windows NT security.