About
Federated search lets people find your site's media from your organization's own search engine, such as an intranet search, alongside results from other sources.
The Federatedsearchindexing module creates the feeds that your search engine uses to index your site's content, and an app token that gives your developers secure access to them. It works with Content Hubs, the legacy Video Portal, and LMS Extensions.
Federated search is a premium module. To add it to your site, contact your Kaltura representative.
How the feeds work
The module creates two feeds. Both include only published content, never private media.
- Seed feed - All of your site's published content. Your developers use it once, to add your existing content to the search index. Because it can be very large, it's split into pages.
- Sync feed - Only the changes since the last check, including media that was deleted. After the first load, your developers check the sync feed regularly to keep the index up to date.
The sync feed can't show media that was unpublished (made private again). To remove that media from the index, your developers can reload the seed feed now and then, for example once a quarter.
To read the feeds, your developers use an app token. An app token gives limited access to your Kaltura account: it can only reach certain content and services, and you can revoke it at any time. This means you never need to share your account's admin secret.
Before you start
Make sure both of these modules are added to your site:
- Federatedsearchcore
- Federatedsearchindexing
Enable the Federatedsearchcore module first: set enabled to Yes, and click Save. If it isn't enabled, you can't save the Federatedsearchindexing module.
Configure
- Go to your Configuration Management console, locate the Federatedsearchindexing module in the left panel, then select it. You can also navigate directly using a link:
https://{your_site_url}/admin/config/tab/federatedsearchindexing - Set enabled to Yes, and click Save. The Regenerate, Generate, Download, and Upload links appear next to the fields.
- Configure the following:
- limitToItemsNotOlderThan - Enter how far back, in minutes, the sync feed looks for changes. The default is
240(4 hours), and the minimum is5. Your developers must check the sync feed at least this often, or they miss changes. If you change this value, click Save, and then click Regenerate next toindexSyncFeedUrl. - indexSyncFeedUrl - Click Regenerate to create the sync feed. The feed's URL appears in the field.
- appTokenId - Click Generate to create an app token. The ID appears in this field, and the value appears in
appTokenValue. If you already have an app token, you can enter its ID and value instead. - indexSeedFeedUrl - Click Generate to create the seed feed. The feed's URL appears in the field.
- XSLT - Optional. If your search engine needs the feeds in a specific structure, you can replace the default XSLT file, which sets the structure of the feeds. Click Download to get the default file,
default.xsl, and give it to your developers to change. Then click Upload to upload the changed file. Uploading a file regenerates both feeds.
- limitToItemsNotOlderThan - Enter how far back, in minutes, the sync feed looks for changes. The default is
- Click Save. If you leave the page without saving, the feed URLs and the app token aren't kept.
The Federatedsearchindexing page displays.
If you open a feed URL in a browser, the feed looks empty. This is expected: the feed shows its items only when a Kaltura Session (KS) is added to the URL, as described below.
Give your developers what they need
The app token gives access to all published content on your site. Share the app token ID and value securely, and don't send them in an email.
After you create the feeds and the app token, give your developers the following:
- The seed feed URL and the sync feed URL, and which is which
- The app token ID and value
- How often to check the sync feed: at least as often as the value in
limitToItemsNotOlderThan - The instructions for creating a KS with the app token: App Token Authentication. To read a feed, your developers add
&ks=and the KS to the end of the feed URL. Without a KS, the feed returns no content.
