Excite - Web Site Search Utility

define a document collection -- that is, specify a set of documents to be considered a single collection over which one can search,

design customized pages for displaying to users who wish to search over that collection,

index that collection, monitoring the progress, and

search the collection.

Using EWS, it's easy to set up concept-based-searchable Web sites in minutes.

Installation

% cd
% /usr/local/contrib/excite-install

When the install script prompts you for an EWS password, enter a password you want to use to access the EWS online configuration CGI programs.

Configuration

1. Access the main EWS administration page.

   http://your-domain.com/cgi-bin/AT-admin.cgi

   Use the password that you chose when you originally installed EWS.

2. EWS calls the set of documents you want searched a "collection". To create a new collection enter a name for your collection in the first text box and click the Create New Collection button.

3. You should now see the "Configure New Collection" form. The "collection index" at the top of the page should be set correctly already.

   In the "Choose the Files to Index" section of the form you can chose which files/directories you want to include in the collection. The collection is set by default to include the /usr/local/etc/httpd/htdocs directory, which is your entire Virtual Server's web site.

   The "Index Filter" section allows you to fine tune the inclusion of pages in the search by using filters you can define. Click on the documentation link for more help.

   When you finish configuring the collection, click the Save button at the bottom of the page.

4. You can now create an index for the newly configured collection. Click the Index button. The next page will show you the configuration of your collection and you can click on the Index button on this page to begin the indexing process. The process will run in the background on your Virtual Server. You can monitor progress by clicking on the View Logs button.

   The EWS indexing process usually requires a lot of memory. You may not be able to create your index using the CGI admin programs above. If there an unspecified error occurs during the indexing run, check the bottom of the Verbose Log by clicking the Verbose Log button. If you see a line like this then EWS ran out of memory while creating the index:

   Virtual memory exceeded in `new'
   

   But, it will likely be possible to create the index using a simple command line utility that our Web Engineers have provided in the EWS distribution. In the ~/usr/local/etc/excite directory that was created when you installed EWS, there is an excite-index script. To index a collection using this script, run it from the command line, passing it the name of your collection:

   % ./excite-index <collection_name>
   

   It will probably take several minutes for the indexing to finish.

5. EWS also has a utility to create the search page for you. Click the Generate button. After filling out the form, click the Generate button at the bottom of the page. Your search page will be located at:

   http://your_domain.com/Excite/AT-<collection_name>query.html

Documentation

http://your_domain.com/Excite/AT-help.html

There is also documentation available at the EWS web site:

• EWS Support Information