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CHAPTER 1 SharePoint Foundation 2010 under the hood
Indexing and Gathering
The Search service’s Index service is an old hand-me-down from SPS 2003 and MOSS. The Index
service is a powerful feature that you don’t need to monitor. It takes care of itself and does its own
thing. (SharePoint Server 2010 has extensive added configuration features for indexing.) Its only
content sources are the content databases that SharePoint uses. It uses ifilters and protocol handlers
to parse documents, filter out formatting, and find words in documents. It can distinguish between
relevant words and irrelevant words or “noise.” It can handle only 64 MB of indexed words per docu-
ment. If it maxes out, it doesn’t really notify you; it just doesn’t index any more of the document,
which is another reason to keep uploads and document files from becoming bloated.
The ifilters that come with SharePoint can handle Office 2007/2010 file types, text files, HTML, and
TIFF files (the file type usually created by scanning faxes and documents). If you’d like to be able to
index other types of files, a number of additional ifilters are available from their manufacturers.
SharePoint and Email
SharePoint integrates easily with email. However, it does take some consideration concerning
how you’ll configure email when you’re planning to install SharePoint.
In addition to being capable of sending alerts and notifications (which requires properly
configured outgoing email), SharePoint can be set up to receive incoming email. This is because
several lists and libraries can be enabled to receive email. The primary benefit is that you can
send a new item to the list (or library) without going to the SharePoint site if you know that list’s
email address. And you can do all of this from the comfort of your email program. There’s no
need to open a browser.
To manage incoming email, the SharePoint server should have the SMTP service set up
locally (make sure it has started). It is best to have SMTP enabled before you install SharePoint.
When SharePoint receives email, it pulls it from the default drop directory that SMTP uses or
from the directory you specify. It gives it to the correct list or library, which parses the email for
the subject line, message body, and other pertinent header information. It then applies the infor-
mation to the appropriate fields in the list record.
Incoming email has another interesting feature called SharePoint Directory Management
Service (DMS). This service integrates SharePoint with Active Directory and Exchange. To use it,
you need to create a unique OU, give the server farm account extensive access to it, and assign the
content database accounts local administrative rights to the SharePoint server. SharePoint can allow
users to create distribution lists that show up in the OU and add the list and library incoming email
aliases to the Exchange global address list (GAL). Of course, this obviously requires Exchange, and
more specifically it works best with Exchange 2003, because it integrates so deeply with AD. Later
versions of Exchange can support DMS but may require considerable additional configuration.
Don’t Let Them Scare You
Despite occasional documents stating otherwise, SharePoint Directory Management Service does
not have to be running for SharePoint to handle incoming email. In its simple, straightforward way,
incoming email works fine without it. If you don’t want to increase the complexity of your SharePoint
install, don’t use SharePoint Directory Management Service. It is an option, not a requirement.
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