FAST Search for SharePoint 2010 Installation [Updated]

Last week, I’ve been honored as a speaker of Best Practices Conference 2010 in Washington DC, and got a lot of questions about the installation of FAST Search Server for SharePoint 2010. So that, I’ve decided to collect my tips and best practices and publish here. I know my list is not full and definitely will be growing in the future.

1. Install FAST Search Server to one or more separated box, not to the SharePoint server(s). – Why? Because in this case not only the performance will be better but you’ll have a more manageable and maintainable environment. For example, checking the performance or troubleshooting is much easier in this case. Of course, exceptions can be happened always. Although the best practice is to have separated App Servers and WFEs as well as separated Admin and Non-Admin FAST servers in the farm, in some cases we should deploy some different architecture. Even in my case: as you know, I make a lot of sessions and presentations, online as well as personally. If you have speaker experience, you know: basically we have three options to make a demo during the presentation:
   • Bring the farm to the venue. – Yes, sometimes it’s an option, for example if the event is in the office of your company. But in most cases this option is not an option, you cannot bring 2-3-5-… boxes to a foreign conference.
   • Connect to a remote farm. – If you leave the farm in the office (or at home), you can connect to that from your session via Remote Desktop, or simply in the browser, for example. It’s a good choice if you have a good Internet connection, otherwise all your presentation can be collapsed on the demo unable to work.
   • Have the demo environment on your laptop. – Ok, you can do that only in case if you have a proper laptop. But even if you have, it’s not to easy to have a full SharePoint 2010 farm, SQL, AD and FAST Search Server all together on your laptop. But I can say: it’s not impossible 🙂 I have installed a VMware image to my laptop (HP8530p with 8GB RAM), Win2008 R2 as a domain controller, SQL Express and SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise on it, as well as FAST Search Server on the same virtual box. So it works, but of course it’s not a production environment: doesn’t contain too much content, there are no crawlings scheduled, etc. It’s just a simple demo machine for my sessions. So please don’t do this kind of installation, except you really need a demo environment! In production, never. Never! Please…
2. After installing the FAST bits, use the FAST Configuration Wizard for the final steps, but don’t forget the additional steps! – First of all, the Config Wizard doesn’t create and import the certificates, so you have to do that manually. The following steps have to be performed:
   • Export the certificate with the following Powershell command running in the SharePoint 2010 Management Shell:
     

     $stsCert = (Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).LocalLoginProvider.SigningCertificate

     $stsCert.Export(“cert”) | Set-Content -encoding byte MOSS_STS.cer

   • Import the certificate on the FAST Search Server, either in the Certificates MMC Console or by running Powershell again.
     

     

   • [Update 03/10/2010] If you get a Certificate error during the configuration (check the config log for the error message), don’t panic: close the FAST Search Configuration Wizard, and start it again as Administrator (‘Run as Administrator’). It’ll work.

3. Check InstallInfo.txt before deploying the FAST Service Applications. – Even if you’ve installed a lot of FAST Servers and think you know every port numbers and settings, please check the InstallInfo.txt. It contains all URLs and port numbers for the proper deployment, and believe me: it worth some seconds!
4. Doublecheck all the URLs and port numbers when deploying the FAST Service Applications.
5. If you’re ready with installation and configuration, create a FAST Search Center, and don’t forget to crawl your content!
   • [Update 03/11/2010] If the SharePoint content cannot be crawled in the FAST Content SSA, and the only thing you get instead of the result set is an error message like We did not find any results, but anything else (see point 6.) looks fine, check the Firewall on the servers in the farm. You might have an error Unable to resolve Contentdistributor in the Event Log too.
6. If the content has been crawled, check the environment with querying something on the FAST Search Center. If you get some error, don’t panic! 🙂
   • The search request was unable to connect to the Search Service – This error means that SharePoint is unable to make connection to the FAST engine. Its reason can be vary on your settings, please check all of them:
     • Check the services with the command nctrl status.
     • Check the URLs and port numbers: compare if your Service Application settings fit to the InstallInfo.txt. Don’t forget to check the protocols as well (HTTP or HTTPS), as the port numbers can be different with the different protocols. And don’t forget to check both FAST Content SSA and FAST Query SSA.
     • Check if the FAST Query SSA is associated to your Web Application, and this is the default one.
     • Check if the credential has been imported properly to the FAST Server. Don’t copy it from another farm!
     • [Update 03/10/2010] Check [FASTSearchDirectory]etccontentdistributor.cfg for the Content Distributor URL and port number.
     • [Update 03/11/2010] Check if the FAST Server has been restarted after the installation. If not, probably you’ll get an error” Unexpected error occurred while communicating with Administration Service too when trying to configure the FAST settings on SharePoint 2010 (for example, keywords, user context, etc.) Restart it (again) if it’s necessary.
   • Unable to display this Web part – This error message means that probably you have something misconfigured in FAST Search Server for SharePoint 2010.
     • Check the services with the command nctrl status.
     • Check the Managed Properties settings on the FAST Query SSA / FAST Search Administration page. If you get an error here, the FAST Search Server definitely doesn’t work properly and you should check it not the SharePoint. If you get the list of the managed properties, the FAST Search Server component is definitely running.
     • Check the URLs and port numbers: compare if your Service Application settings fit to the InstallInfo.txt. Don’t forget to check the protocols as well (HTTP or HTTPS), as the port numbers can be different with the different protocols. And don’t forget to check both FAST Content SSA and FAST Query SSA.
   • [Update 03/11/2010] Unexpected error occurred while communicating with Administration Service – The FAST Search Server’s Administration Service cannot be reached by SP2010.
     • Check the services with the command nctrl status.
     • Check the URLs and port numbers: compare if your Service Application settings fit to the InstallInfo.txt. Don’t forget to check the protocols as well (HTTP or HTTPS), as the port numbers can be different with the different protocols.
     • Check if the FAST Server has been restarted after the installation. Restart it (again) if it’s necessary.
   • [Update 03/10/2010] If the Word/PowerPoint thumbnails and preview don’t work, check Office Web Apps (try to open some documents in the browser). Be careful, because on DCs you can have a strange issue: if the operation ‘Edit in Browser’ works but ‘View in Browser’ doesn’t, check this article, run IISRESET and you might run also SharePoint 2010 Config Wizard. After these steps Office Web Apps should start to work properly. You might also have a Full Crawling before having it working on FAST Result Pages.
   • [Update 03/10/2010] Sometimes it looks like FAST Search results are got from an old index: the result set contains some items don’t exist anymore and doesn’t contain some new items. If a new crawling doesn’t help, clear the FAST Content Collection by running this command in the FAST Search Server for SharePoint 2010 Management shell: Clear-FASTSearchContentCollection –Name <ContentCollectionName> and run an IISRESET. Of course, a new crawling will be needed to get the correct index again.
   • [Update 04/12/2010] In case of you get an error like Failed to communicate with WCF service.  when running FAST admin functions (for example, Clear-FASTContentCollection), check if you have FAST admin privileges on the server. If not, try again to run the command as a different user with admin privileges.

Stay tuned, more details and updates are coming later, regarding to my experiences!