Configuring external Share

To enable your users to share documents and folders with users outside of your organization, you must configure sharing for the repository in IBM® Content Navigator.

Before you begin

This procedure applies to configuring external Share in an on-premises environment. For external Share information in a container environment, see Optional: Configuring external share for containers.

If you are upgrading from the previous version, see Upgrading the external share feature.

Note the following requirements and constraints for configuring and using external share:
  • WebSphere Application Server V9.0 is required for external share.
  • Users relying on keyboard navigation are not able to use Shift + F10 to access the context menu on Windows 10 systems. Users must navigate to the action button instead.
  • External share can be used only on one FileNet P8 domain. However, multiple repositories in the domain can be enabled for share.
  • A separate IBM Content Navigator external desktop is required for each repository that is enabled for use with the external share feature.
  • The Classic user interface style is not supported for the external desktop.
  • External Share is not supported for Object Stores that have the IBM Connections add-ons.
  • FileNet P8 5.5.2 is required.
For more requirements, see Sharing objects with external users.
Note: By default, external Share requires HTTPS. To use external Share with HTTP for development or testing on a non-production system, you can update the ESAPI Web Application Firewall Policy XML configuration, which is located in install_dir/WEB-INF/ESAPIWafPolicy.xml. Remove the ECM-XSRF-Token cookie under the add-secure-flag list. Make sure that this cookie is always marked as secure in a production system.

About this task

The configuration tasks include defining a special desktop that is used by the external users to access any shared content. After you configure the environment to support external sharing, internal users can specify content that they want to share with external users. An email template is used to generate a message to the external user with a link to accept the content share. The share issuer can choose the level of access the external user has to the content, and how long the shared content is available to the user. The external user can also see a list of all the content that has been shared with them.

In order for a user to share an item, that user must be the owner of the item and have the Manage Permissions privilege.

Procedure

To configure external share, complete the following steps:

  1. To make IBM Content Navigator aware of the external user LDAP directory server, add a new Configure the Connection to Your LDAP Server task in the IBM Content Navigator Configuration Manager, and then run the new task to configure the external LDAP.
    For more information, see Sharing objects with external users.
  2. Install the Share plug-in by logging in to the IBM Content Navigator Desktop. You must have FileNet P8 domain administrator permissions to the repository.
  3. Click Plug-ins > New Plug-in
  4. Enter the path to the plug-in. Example: /opt/IBM/ECMClient/plugins/sharePlugin.jar
  5. Load the plug-in and save your changes.
  6. Specify the REST API URL.

    For an on-premises environment, you can enter either an absolute or a relative URL. For the relative URL, enter /contentapi/rest/share/v1.

  7. Click the Verify button to ensure that the URL that you specified can access the REST API.

    The IBM Content Navigator URL and the REST API URL must both be either HTTP or HTTPS.

    The context root, by default, is the /contentapi folder in the IBM Content Navigator installation path.

  8. In the Repositories list, click the name of the repository where you want to enable sharing, and then click Configure Share.
  9. Add the appropriate settings for the share configuration.
    • External URL: The IBM Content Navigator URL that external users access for the share desktop.
    • External desktop: Provide a desktop name and ID. A new desktop is created for you. You can also choose an existing desktop, but you must modify the desktop to remove any functions that are not available for external users. For more information, see Configuring an external share desktop.
    • Consent agreement: Optionally add the text that share recipients see when they are invited to accept a content share. To format the message, use HTML tags in the text that you enter.
    • Default expiration: Specify the expiration options.
  10. Click OK and then save the configuration.

    Repositories that are configured for share display a checkmark in the listing. If you uncheck a repository, this action does not remove the configuration for the external share capability. Instead, it makes the Share action unavailable for users of that repository. Users who had previously shared content from that repository can still view and monitor their shared content, and external recipients can still access the content that was shared with them before the repository setting was updated.

What to do next