MOSS: Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content.

When working with MOSS today: Running a farm setup on a single machine with Server 2008, Sql Server 2008, and MOSS 2007.

Trying to get the search service to complete a Crawl of the local SharePoint sites, I was receiving "Access is denied. Check that the Default Content Access Account has access to this content, or add a crawl rule to crawl this content."

After validating that the account had access to the content (sites), and verifying that there were no crawl rules, I eventually expected to find the answer in the event log.

In the event log, there were no entries like the expected "Login failed for user 'NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE'. [CLIENT: ]", and according to the log everything was running correctly.

As an additional check, I set up the crawler service to run against another SharePoint server, using the same crawl account credentials. Worked fine without a problem.

After checking around, I ran across this post on Microsoft TechNet Forums: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sharepointsearch/thread/84f93fbe-f4a6-4683-b25b-b595b9006ad7/

Within the post, someone recommends re-entering the crawler account credentials. I re-entered the credentials, and initiated a full site crawl. The error still occurred, with the same message.

After reading further into others that had encountered this problem, it would appear that the Loopback check security feature is back in Server 2008. After running the work-around http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861 (see Method 1: Disable the loopback check), and restarting the machine the site can now be crawled.

Resources:
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/sharepointsearch/thread/84f93fbe-f4a6-4683-b25b-b595b9006ad7/
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861

Shared Service Providers (SSP) with MOSS 2007

What are Shared Service Providers (SSP) with MOSS 2007?

I've recently started digging into the Shared Service Providers (SSP) for MOSS 2007.

The idea behind the Shared Service Providers (SSP) within Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) is to allow for centralized control of features that are common among different sites. This also allows for sharing of these features between sites.

The Shared Service Providers completes all of the work around it's various processes, and is used by your web applications to locate the information requested.

SSPs are separate web applications and surprising are not required when setting up a site, but some features (like Search) will not work correctly until the first SSP is set up and configured.

This is the list of shared services that are handled by the Shared Service Providers model:

Search
Index
Audience compilation and User profiles database
My Sites
Business Data Catalogue (BDC)
Excel Services

How to set up a Shared Service Providers (SSP) with MOSS 2007

1. Open SharePoint central administration site

2. Click on "Shared Service Administration" on the left naviation

3. Click on "New SSP" below "Manage this Farm's Shared Services"

Here are some articles that I was able to locate on the topic:
MOSS Architecture and Shared Services
What is a Shared Service Provider?

SharePoint Wiki

Lately I've been working with the Wiki from Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, and it's pretty limited.

One of the topics that I was (and still am) interested in is what Wiki commands will work in the SharePoint version.

If your reading this, and wondering what will work, you should be glad to know your search is over.

The total number of supported wiki commands: 1

Link to Wiki Article
Link to Page: [[Page Name]]
However, it does support adding a link with different text, following this syntax: [[Page NameDisplay Text]]

Example: [[MoneyFinancial Information]]