Administration > Network Settings

Use the Administration > Network Settings page to set or update the DNS servers, DNS suffixes, SMTP servers, NTP servers, and syslog servers used by the search appliance, or to run network diagnostic tests.

This help page contains information on the following topics:

• Network Settings
• Viewing or Editing Network Settings
• Setting Static Routes
• Network Diagnostics
• Running Network Diagnostics
• For More Information

Network Settings

You can view or update the following network settings:

• IPv4 Address or IPv6 Address. Both IPv4 and IPv6 addresses are valid. The search appliance's IP (Internet Protocol) address cannot be configured in the Admin Console. To update the search appliance's IP address, use the Network and System Settings installation wizard. See the Installation Guide for instructions on connecting to the wizard.
  
  
• DNS Servers. This is a comma-separated list of IP addresses for your Domain Name System (DNS) servers. These servers translate host names, such as www.test.com, into IP addresses. You must list DNS servers to ensure successful crawling. It is strongly recommended that you provide three IP addresses to ensure fault tolerance.
  
  
• DNS Suffix (DNS Search Path). This is a comma-separated list that gives possible expansions for host names. For example, if you define the search path domain as baz.example.com, example.com , and the crawler encounters a host test, it expands the host name to test.baz.example.com and test.example.com. To indicate that a DNS Suffix is not set, set this field to the null value.
  
  
• SMTP Server. This is the simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP) server that delivers email notifications from the search appliance to search appliance administrators.

  All email sent by the search appliance is sent from the email address nobody@localhost or the email address you enter during network configuration. The SMTP server you designate on this page must allow mail to be sent from this address. To change the address from which outgoing mail is sent, use the Administration > System Settings page.

• NTP Servers. Network Time Protocol (NTP) servers synchronize the search appliance's time setting with an outside time server. Identify the NTP servers by entering a list of comma-separate NTP servers in the NTP Servers field. It's best to enter the IP address or host name of at least one valid NTP server in the field. If you do not enter an NTP server in the field, or if the NTP servers are not reachable, the search appliance synchronizes with pool.ntp.org.


• System Time. Read-only field to provide the sytem date/time.


• The Time zone setting is a read-only field. The search appliance's time zone is selected during search appliance installation. This field can be changed only by running the Network and System Settings installation wizard.

  When you click Update Settings and Perform Diagnostics on this Admin Console page, you trigger a time synchronization with the NTP server configured for the current search appliance, provided that the NTP server is valid.

• Syslog Server. This is an optional setting. The search appliance logs user search queries. If the Syslog Server value is set, the search appliance sends the log messages to the syslog server every five minutes, assigning the messages the priority "Informational." If there weren't any new searches between the previous run and the new run, the search appliance doesn't send anything to the syslog server. To use the Syslog Server feature you must also enable Facility for usage logs.


• Facility for usage logs.The default setting is Disabled. You must enable Facility for usage logs to use the syslog server feature. You can set the usage log facility to any local use level. The Facility setting has no effect on which messages are logged. You can find more syslog documentation in Syslog Reports. For more details on the syslog protocol, see RFC 3164.


• Static Routes. A static route is a route you define to a host or network that is not on the default route followed by the search appliance. Setting a static route enables the search appliance to crawl hosts and networks that it cannot locate or connect to by following the default route. For complete information and instructions on how to set a static route, see Setting Static Routes


• Network Interface status. Displays status information about the network interface.

Viewing or Editing Network Settings

Use these instructions to view or update network settings on the search appliance.

To view or edit network settings:

1. Click Administration >Network Settings.
2. Enter the required information in the editable fields.
3. Optionally, under Network Diagnostics, enter one URL per line in the URLs to Test area to check URL accessibility.
4. Click Update Settings and Perform Diagnostics.

Setting Static Routes

A static route is a route you define to a host or network that is not on the default route the search appliance follows to the hosts that it crawls. To set a default route, you need to know the following:

• The IP address of the destination network or host
• The netmask for the destination
• The IP address of the network gateway through which the search appliance reaches the destination network or host

For example, the network IP address might be 10.1.2.0, the netmask might be 255.255.255.0, and the gateway IP address might be 172.123.154.254. The search appliance would reach the 10.1.2.0 network through the 172.123.154.254 gateway, using the netmask 255.255.255.0.

You can enter as many static routes as you need in the Static Route field.

For IPv4, use the following format, in which the destination host or network IP address, netmask, and destination gateway for a particular static route are entered on one line with a space between each part of the route:

destination_IP_address netmask destination_gateway

For example, you might enter two static routes as follows:

10.1.2.0 255.255.255.0 172.123.154.254
10.2.3.0 255.255.255.0 172.123.154.225

For IPv6, use the following format, in which the destination host or network IP address/prefix length, and destination gateway for a particular static route are entered on one line with a space between the two parts of the route:

destination_IPv6_address/prefix_length destination_gateway

For example, you might enter the following static route:

2001::1/64 2640::80

If you make an invalid entry, you see the following error message:

Invalid Static Routes (need one route per line):

To set static routes:

1. Click Administration >Network Settings.
2. In the Static Routes field, enter the required static routes, with one route per line. Ensure that the destination host or network IP address, netmask, and destination gateway for a particular static route are entered on one line with a space between each part of the route.
3. Click Update Settings and Perform Diagnostics.

Network Diagnostics

Use Network Diagnostics and the URLs to Test field to provide information on the search appliance's ability to use the different servers designated in Network Settings and connect to the test URLs. The test ensures the following:

• The URL is valid and can be resolved by DNS.
• The appliance can ping the host.
• A head request can retrieve a web page on the host without error.

This is useful for diagnosing network problems when it appears the search appliance cannot crawl particular URLs.

Use the Host to ping field to test whether the specified host is reachable across the network. Use the Host to tracepath field to determine the route taken to the specified host across the network.

After you click the Update Settings and Perform Diagnostics button, the Admin Console displays a table of diagnostic information. The table contains a status line for each network parameter. If the search appliance can communicate correctly with the designated host, the third column contains the word OK on a green background. If the appliance cannot communicate with the host, the last column is red and displays a diagnostic error message, such as unpingable or cannot resolve hostname.

Common problems are described in the following table.

HTTP Error Code	Description	Who Should Fix It
returncode 401, should be 200	Authenticated site	See Crawler Access for information on crawling and serving secure information.
401 and 403	Disallowed access	Webmaster must resolve.
404	URL not found	Webmaster must resolve.
connection timed out	One possibility is that a router between the search appliance and a URL is blocked by an ACL. Another is that the host is not running.	Network administrator must resolve.
unpingable	non-existent domain	Check your entry for typographical errors before contacting your web master.

If you specified a Host to ping, the Admin Console displays ping output. If you specified Host to tracepath, the Admin Console displays tracepath output.

Running Network Diagnostics

To run network diagnostic tests:

1. Click Administration >Network Settings.
2. Under Network Diagnostics, enter one URL per line in the URLs to Test field.
3. Click Update Settings and Perform Diagnostics.

For More Information

Most of the settings on this page are initially set during the search appliance configuration process and are best determined before installation. For more information on the settings, see "Planning for Search Appliance Installation," which is linked to the Google Search Appliance help center.