Apache ManifoldCF on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Overview

Apache ManifoldCF is an open source framework for moving content out of the systems it lives in and into a search target. Connectors pull documents from filesystems, web sites, SharePoint, RSS feeds, relational databases, email stores and document management systems, and output connectors push them into search engines such as Apache Solr, Elasticsearch and OpenSearch. Between the two sits a crawl scheduler that tracks per document state, so a repeat run only reprocesses what actually changed rather than re indexing everything.

What sets ManifoldCF apart from a plain crawler is its security model. Its authority services translate a user identity into the access tokens that user holds in the source repository, and those tokens are indexed alongside each document, so a search front end can return only the documents a given person is entitled to open. That makes it a common choice in front of SharePoint and filesystem content that carries real access control lists, where showing a user a document title they are not cleared for is itself a disclosure. It suits search and knowledge management teams building enterprise search over content that is spread across many systems and governed by existing permissions.

Common uses

• Enterprise search across filesystems, SharePoint and web content
• Scheduled incremental crawls into Solr, Elasticsearch or OpenSearch
• Search results filtered by each user's repository permissions

See it running

Real screenshots taken while testing this image against its deployment guide.