Author: sandeeppote

Configure Azure Search for Sitecore 9.1

December 7, 2018 /

Sitecore supports mainly 3 search providers- Lucene, Solr and Azure, of this Solr comes default with the Sitecore 9x installation.

Azure is one of the search provider which is stable and easy to scale.

For more details on advantages and limitations see this -https://doc.sitecore.com/developers/91/platform-administration-and-architecture/en/sitecore-azure-search-overview.html

To configure Azure search for your Sitecore instance you may follow below steps-

Azure search resource in market place-

1.  Create a azure search resource   

az1

2. Create New Search Service

Provide a URL, Subscription, Resource Group, Location and Pricing Tier. Create a New Search Service

az2

3.   What to configure and where to find details? 

Once a resource is created you see more details in Overview tab. To configure this in Sitecore- Url, Api version and key is required. API version can be seen in “Search explorer”

az3

az4

4. Sitecore configurations

Change search to Azure in web.config –

<add key=”search:define” value=”Azure” />

Add connection string cloud.search in connectionstring.config file-

<add name=”cloud.search” connectionString=”serviceUrl=https://sc91azuresearch.search.windows.net;apiVersion=2017-11-11;apiKey=<<apikey>>” />

Create a new search index, this is optional, as you may index master and web database. Configuration for same is available in App_Config/ContentSearch.Azure folder

az8

I created a new index by copying Sitecore.ContentSearch.Azure.Index.Web.config file named “sitecore_web_search_index”

5. Create Items and rebuild index

I have create a blog items and content for same.

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Goto Control Panel >> Indexing Manager and rebuild a newly created Index.

az5

az9

6. Indexes and items in Azure

Goto Overview tab of newly created search service and open Search explorer

See the change index button and newly creaeted index can be seen along with api version and request url.

Click on Search button and the indexed items are now in there.

blog_title and blog_description fields are indexed.

az7

Hope this helps in configuring the Azure search.

Next blog will be on creating a computed field and some considerations on indexing with Azure search.

 

 

Sitecore 9.1- helix standard inborn

December 7, 2018 /

Sitecore 9.1 comes with the inbuilt Helix standards.

The folder structure i.e. Foundation, Feature, Project now comes with the Sitecore installation.

The folders are added in Layouts, Placeholder Settings, Renderings and Templates by default it seems.

sc91helix

 

Sitecore 9.0.2 xDB error- baseAddress should not be null. Parameter name: baseAddress

December 6, 2018 /

xdbError

If you see error after installing Sitecore 9 –

baseAddress should not be null. Parameter name: baseAddress error

This error comes when xDB is enabled and if connectionstring for database aren’t set. Either install xDB or disable xDB.

 

To disable xDB change following in Sitecore.Xdb.config  file, can be found in Marketing.xDB  folder

<setting name=”Xdb.Enabled” value=”false” />

 

 

Sitecore 9.1 admin password no more b

November 29, 2018 /

Managed to install Sitecore 9.1, highly recommend to use step-by-step installation guide here- https://buoctrenmay.com/2018/11/29/sitecore-xp-9-1-step-by-step-install-guide-on-your-machine/

Sitecore admin password is no longer b and is generated after the installation is complete.

scadmin

So, remember to note down the auto generated password or reset password once logged in.

Enjoy Sitecore installation!!!

sitecore 9 installation CertEnroll::CSignerCertificate::Initialize: Cannot find object or property. 0x80092004 (-2146885628 CRYPT_E_NOT_FOUND)

November 19, 2018 /

Solution:

  1. Go to mmc > Add/Remove Snap in > Certificates > Computer Account > Local Computer;
  2. Delete following certificate (if exist) under “Personal/Certificates” and “Trusted Root Certification Authorities/Certificates”;
    • *.xconnect
    • *.xconnect_client
    • <Sitecore9 site name>
    • DO_NOT_TRUST_SitecoreFundamentalsRoot
    • DO_NOT_TRUST_SitecoreRootCert
  3. Go to mmc > Add/Remove Snap in > Certificates > Computer Account > My user account;
  4. Repeat step (2);
  5. Go to C:\certificates, delete all *.crt files;

 

Referred from- https://learnsitecorebasics.wordpress.com/2018/06/28/install-sitecoreconfiguration-the-certificate-does-not-have-a-property-that-references-a-private-key/

Sitecore9 installation error: Cannot process argument transformation on parameter ‘Signer’. Cannot convert the “System.Object[]” value of type “System.Object[]” to type

November 19, 2018 /

Remove existing certificate. If you know the thumbprint use the below powershell command to remove certificate-

Get-ChildItem Cert:\LocalMachine\Root\<<thumbprint>> | Remove-Item

To list the existing certificates use following command-

Set-Location Cert:\LocalMachine\Root
Get-ChildItem | Format-Table Subject, FriendlyName, Thumbprint -AutoSize

Why build server is required?

October 27, 2018 /

Often question arises why we need build server and why not push the built code tested on dev to test environment.

Automation. 

One of the keystone for having the build server is to have the software built automatically

To have the code built, packaged and released to the prod and non-prod environments we may use automation which contains mainly 2 things, a tool to build the code i.e. Jenkins, Team city or VSTS and tool to manage releases like Octopus etc.

Automation tasks may look like this-

Get code from source control (TFS/VSTS)

Build the Software (Jenkins, TC etc)

Package the files

Push the package to Release (Octopus)

Create the release

Removes the dev machine been the source of truth

Dev machine should not be the only place to prove the code been satisfactorily built. Build server helps integrate dev team work and compiled and build at central place. Sometimes devs dont know how things got working, build server helps answer that.