Creating a virtual portal

Create a new virtual portal. This includes providing the title, description, and URL context for the new virtual portal, and selecting the initial administrative user group, default theme, and user realm (if applicable) for the new virtual portal.

1. Click the New Virtual Portal button. The Create New Virtual Portal panel appears.
2. Provide the following information:
   • Virtual portal title: Enter the title of the virtual portal. This field is limited to 255 characters.
   • Virtual portal description: Enter the description of the virtual portal. This field is limited to 255 characters.
   • URL Context or Virtual portal hostname:
     • URL Context: Enter the URL context. This is the last part of the URL of the virtual portal and will be preceded by http://www.yourco.com/wps/portal/.
       Note: All virtual portal URL contexts must be built from the root context for the portal server and must be unique. You cannot use sub-contexts. For example, this URL is invalid: http://www.yourco.com/wps/portal/vp1/vp2. This is the correct format: http://www.yourco.com/wps/portal/vp2.
     • Virtual portal hostname: Enter the host name for the virtual portal.
       Notes:

       • This URL is used internally to access the virtual portal instance, even if you specify a context URL that is easy to use. Make sure that the host name that you specify here is accessible.
       • You cannot use the same virtual portal host name twice in the same portal installation. The host name must be unique for the portal installation. Host names must be valid host names that are either registered on your local DNS, or internally using the "hosts" file. Host names must be registered on your system before creating a virtual portal.
       • After you create the virtual portal, you cannot change the host name that you specify for the virtual portal. If you must use a different host name for a virtual portal, see the topic about Using a new host name for an existing virtual portal.
       • If you use web content libraries, do not specify a context URL for the new virtual portal that matches the name of a library on your server. If the name of a library and the URL context of a virtual portal have the same value, incorrect rendering of web content can result.
       • If you use a host name for creating the virtual portal, you need to update the global web server plug-in configuration in the WebSphere® Integrated Solutions Console and restart the web server. If you have more than one virtual portal, you need to do this only once. For more information about updating the global web server plug-in configuration, read Creating or updating a global web server plug-in configuration file in the IBM® WebSphere Application Server product documentation.
     Notes:

     • You must specify either a host name or a context.
     • If you specify both a host name and a context, the host name takes precedence and the context is ignored.
     • There are some strings that you cannot use as URL mappings for virtual portals, for example vp. These strings are reserved names and correspond with URL codec names. For a list of these reserved strings, see Shaping the user experience.
     • Use only ASCII characters for the URL Context. For example, you cannot use a URL Context such as språk. If you use non-ASCII characters, the portal shows an error message such as the following EJPAH2009E: Invalid characters were found in a context name or label. Similarly, you cannot use escaped URL encoding either. For example, a URL Context such as spr%E5k.
   • User realm: Select a realm from the list. This pulldown appears only if realms are enabled on your environment. The default realm is portal. You can select other realms that you might have created. If you have realms enabled, but you do not want to use them for your virtual portals, you can deselect realms by selecting the blank option line from the pulldown list.
   • Initial administrative user group: Enter the name of an administrative user group, or search for a group. To search for a group, follow these steps:
     1. Click the Search icon.
     2. Select the search type from the Search by: drop-down menu. The Search: field appears.
     3. Enter the search parameters in the Search: field.
     4. Click Search.
     5. Select the appropriate user group and click OK to continue.
   • Default theme: Select the default theme for the virtual portal from the drop down list. Select the Preview icon to see a preview of the selected theme.
3. After you have provided all the information, click OK to create the virtual portal. Completing the steps to create a virtual portal also creates the virtual portal entity and calls the XML configuration interface script that creates the initial content tree.
4. Optional: If you add virtual portals to your portal installation after you install CF09 or a later cumulative fix and you use Site Builder or the Script Application, add the appropriate library or libraries to each new virtual portal. For more detailed information, read Adding the Site Builder and Script Application libraries.