Post-Deployment Actions
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The Geoportal that is implemented out-of-the-box is meant to be a site starter and sample application. It is strongly recommended that all users make certain modifications to their Geoportal instance prior to going live on a production system



Below, a few of the most important suggested actions are discussed.

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Customize the User Interface for your Organization's Look and Feel

One of the first activities that you should pursue with respects to your new Geoportal instance is to customize it - to make it look like your own, and to match its look & feel with that of other web pages in your organization.



For detailed information on customizing the User Interface, please refer to the section on Geoportal Customizations.

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Modify Default Usernames and Passwords

If you followed the installation guide closely during your Geoportal setup, you are likely using default usernames and passwords as outlined in the installation guide, or defaulted in the gpt.xml configuration file.



If you leave the defaults as they are, your Geoportal is vulnerable for manipulation by anyone else that also has a Geoportal instance, since they are knowledgeable as to the default username and password settings.



It is therefore strongly recommended that once your Geoportal goes into production, you reset the default usernames and password, so as to secure your Portal from uninvited users. It is also recommended to encrypt passwords in your Geoportal configuration files. To encrypt passwords please see the section titled Encryption Concepts.

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Schedule Synchronization

The scheduling of geoportal synchronizers is very important to the performance of your geoportal. Only one thread - which is run by a synchronizer - can run at a time. If one of the synchronizers is running, and another is scheduled to start, the second synchronizer will not be able to start. Instead, it will wait until its next scheduled time and attempt to start again. In this section, we discuss three synchronization activities, why they are important, and how to schedule them.An important post-deployment activity is to consider your CatalogSynchronizer, LuceneIndexOptimizer, and (optionally-configured) AGSSynchronizer thread time attributes. Make sure that none of these are configured to start at the same time. Additionally, because there can be multiple AGSSynchronizer threads it is important to make sure that AGSSynchronizer threads have staggered start times. This can be done by configuring the delay attribute in the AGSSynchronizer <thread> element.

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Register the Geoportal Sitemap with Search Engines

A sitemap is an xml file that shows the structure of a website, and provides additional information on the pages within the site. If a sitemap is submitted to search engines - such as Google, Yahoo!, or Microsoft - users may be able to find records from the Geoportal by using these search engines directly. Sitemap.org has a helpful page on how to submit your sitemap. Only public records are included in the sitemap.



The Geoportal extension automatically provides a sitemap file for your organization's deployed Geoportal. See the default sitemap by pasting the following in a web browser, replacing the 'host' with your web server's name, the 'port' with your servlet engine port number, and the 'contextPath' with the name of your geoportal web application ("geoportal" by default).



http://host:port/contextPath/sitemap



After accessing this url, register the response with a search engine of your choice.



You can modify the following sitemap settings in the <TOMCAT>/webapps/geoportal/WEB-INF/classes/gpt/config/gpt.xml file. More details for each of these parameters are found in the comments within the gpt.xml file.

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Expose the Geoportal to OpenSearch

The Geoportal is exposed through OpenSearch, which means that certain browsers - such as Mozilla Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7 and 8- will support searching the Geoportal as a search provider directly from the browser. Results will be returned as a georss feed - a list of metadata documents matching your search criteria. This provides greater accessibility of your Geoportal to users, especially those who visit often and may not want to launch the Geoportal search page every time they search for metadata. For more information on Geoportal OpenSearch, see Add the Geoportal Search to a List of Search Providers.



Because users may have many search providers registered with their browser, the name of your Geoportal search provider should be distinguishable. The image below shows the default name of the Geoportal Search provider.





To change the name that will appear in the list of search providers, do the following:
  1. Navigate to the \\geoportal\WEB-INF\classes\gpt\resources folder.
  2. Open gpt.properties in a text editor.
  3. Find the line that reads "OpenSearch resources".
  4. In the "catalog.openSearch.shortName" parameter, change the associated "GPT9 Search" text to read something specific to your organization. This is the name that will appear in the list of search providers in the browser interface by default. For example, a good shortName parameter may include the name of your organization.
  5. You can also change the text associated with the "catalog.openSearch.description" parameter to match a description specific to your organization.
  6. Save the gpt.properties file.
  7. Restart Tomcat.


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Update the CS-W Service Provider Information

When you first access your Geoportal's CS-W service through the GetCapabilities request - sample shown below - you will see a list of the capabilities of the service.



http://serverName:portNumber/geoportal/csw/discovery?Request=GetCapabilities&Service=CSW&Version=2.0.2



You will also see information about the service, such as what organization is providing the service and keywords. To customize this information for your organization, navigate to the \\geoportal\WEB-INF\classes\gpt\metadata directory on your Geoportal server and edit the "cswCapabilities.xml" file accordingly. Restart your geoportal web application, and the next time you access the GetCapabilities request, you should see your updated provider information in the response.