Microsoft SharePoint
Quick Start

SharePoint Service Applications

Before installing Raytion BCS Solution, the target SharePoint farm must have the following Managed Service applications:

  1. Business Data Connectivity Service (BCS) Application

  2. Search Service Application

Service accounts

  1. To perform the installation steps of BCS Solution, you must have administration privileges for SharePoint, and you must be allowed to open a SharePoint management shell. To avoid access related issue during the installation process, we recommend using “farm account” for installing the BCS Solution.

  2. Search Service Account OR a service (crawl) account with access to Search Service and BCS services.

  3. Crawl trigger user (configured in Connector) should have access to SharePoint web application (e.g. CA) to access Crawl trigger webservice.

Also note

  1. Crawl trigger web service Application Pool account user should have access to Search services to access content sources to start incremental crawls accordingly.

  2. Search Service Application crawl account should have access to BCS Services and External content types, so when a crawl is initiated at content source, it should reach the corresponding Connector end point.

Access and ports

  1. Access between SharePoint crawl servers and Connector VM.

  2. Connector server should be able to access SharePoint (CA) web application (where crawl trigger web service is running) to initiate crawls at SharePoint Search Services.

  3. SharePoint crawl servers should be able to access Connector server (on port: 16400) to fetch the documents for indexing.

  4. If installing Raytion CSM on a different server than Connector, then

    • Connector server should have access to CSM Server.

    • SharePoint Query/crawl servers should have access to CSM server (on port 16400).

Following tasks must be executed in order to prepare SharePoint:

  • Install the Raytion SharePoint BCS connector.

  • Add a content source.

  • Configure the Raytion SharePoint BCS connector.

Installation

We recommend logging into any SharePoint Admin servers as “farm account” to install the solution.

Unzip the BCS connector package (raytion-connector-for-sharepoint-bcs-<version>.zip) to a folder e.g.

C:\raytion\BCS\

This directory will be referred to as SOLUTION_DIR. Open a SharePoint management shell as Administrator, and change directory to SOLUTION_DIR\scripts.

Execute/run Register.ps1 to start the installation.

.\Register.ps1

The installation script registers the following BCS components:

  • Security Trimmer used by the BCS connector

  • SPBackend

    • SharePoint Backend Assemblies (SharePointBackendAssemblies_AppServer)

    • SharePoint Backend Web Resources (SPBackendSPWebResources)

  • SharePoint Backend Crawl Trigger (SPBackend-CrawlTrigger)

  • Logging

    • Raytion.SharePoint.Core.Logging

    • Raytion.SharePoint.Core.UI

  • Raytion BDC Model in SharePoint Business Data Connectivity Service (BCS) Application

Make sure that the following Windows services are restarted on the hosts in SharePoint farm. In case you see any warnings like "RPC service not available" preventing the services to restart, the Windows services must be restarted manually:

  • SharePoint Search Host Controller

  • SharePoint Server Search 16

  • SharePoint Administration

  • IIS

After a successful installation, you will see a new Raytion menu in the Central Administration.

bcs successful installation

Add a Content Source

After a successful installation the content source needs to be added to the SharePoint BCS.

  • Open a SharePoint management shell and change directory to SOLUTION_DIR\scripts.

  • Execute the following command to add a new content source:

.\AddContentSourceToRaytionSPBackend.ps1

Newly created content source name will be used in Connector configurations, e.g. OTCS.

Configuration

After a successful installation, you will find a new menu Raytion within the Central Administration. Within SharePoint Backend Configuration you will configure the URLs of the connector and the CSM. In general the SharePoint Backend Configuration can be accessed via the following URL:

http(s)://<SharePoint.Central.Admin.Webapplication>:<port>/_admin/Raytion/SPBackendConfigurationPage.aspx
bcs central administration

Grant Access to Search Service Application

The Raytion SharePoint BCS connector does not only comprise a new external content type, but also a web application, which is used by the Connector Server to start new crawls, called crawl trigger.

The application pool user of this web application needs to have the right to execute stored procedures for the search service application in SharePoint, i.e., retrieving the crawl status of content sources and starting new crawls for the configured content source. To do so, the application pool user needs to gain read access in the administrator’s group of the Search Service Application:

  1. Open Central Administration > Application Management > Manage Service Applications and mark Search Service Application.

  2. Click on Administrators in the tab on the top.

  3. Choose the application pool user who executes the crawl trigger application.

  4. Click on Add and choose Read as permission.

  5. Save your changes.

Grant Access to BCS - External Content Type

Prior to the first crawl, you need to make the external content type being accessible for the default content access account. Crawling will only work if this account is allowed to execute and select items from the Submission content source:

  1. Open External Content Types (Central Administration > Application Management > Manage Service Applications > Business Data Connectivity Service).

  2. Open the context menu of Submission, click on Set Permissions.

  3. Enter the name of the default content access account within the first field. Afterward, click on Add.

  4. Finally choose at least Selectable in Clients and Execute. If this is the only account that will be granted permissions for this external content source, you must also choose Set Permissions. Afterward, click on OK.

Kerberos Authentication

If you want the connector to authenticate with SharePoint via Kerberos, complete the following steps:

  1. Navigate to <CONNECTOR_HOME>/bin where <CONNECTOR_HOME> is the folder of your connector installation.

  2. Edit the connector.bat or connector.sh depending on your operating system.

  3. Create a krb5.conf file for your kerberos configuration.

  4. Create a login.conf file. Alternatively, use the basic version of this file which is delivered with the connector and should cover most use cases. This can be found under ./kerberos/login.conf.

  5. Add the following JVM-parameters to the variable DEFAULT_JVM_OPTS:

    • "-Djava.security.krb5.conf=<PATH_TO_KRB5_CONF>"

      where <PATH_TO_KRB5_CONF> is a valid, accessible path to your krb5.conf file.

    • "-Djava.security.auth.login.config=<PATH_TO_LOGIN_CONF>"

      where <PATH_TO_LOGIN_CONF> is a valid, accessible path to your login.conf file.

  6. Set the Authentication Scheme in the Connector Configuration to NEGOTIATE

  7. Restart your connector