Enabling and Disabling Self-Care in WebSphere Portal 6.1

It is often a requirement to suppress the so-called Self-Care elements of WebSphere Portal, which includes the Sign Up and Edit my Profile links.

The Q&D approach is to simply hack the relevant theme JSPs, but we don't want to do that - we want a far more elegant solution that can be implemented by a non-developer ( like me ).

Using this Technote as source: -

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21386605

I established that it is possible to enable AND disable these two links via a pair of XML files and a script.

In essence, you use an XML script via the built-in XMLAccess tool to export the relevant elements of the theme policy - this generates an XML file which can then be edited to enable or disable the links.

First, you need to export the theme policy by creating an XML file, ExportPages.xml, containing the following text: -

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<request

    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"

    xsi:noNamespaceSchemaLocation="PortalConfig_1.4.xsd"

    type="export">

    <portal action="locate">

   

        <content-node action="export" uniquename="wps.Login"/>

        <content-node action="export" uniquename="wps.Selfcare"/>

    </portal>

</request>

I used VI to create the file - other editors are available - and I placed the file in /tmp on my Linux-based portal server.

I then ran the following commands to export the relevant elements of the theme policy to another XML file - /tmp/Login_Selfcare.xml : -

cd /opt/IBM/WebSphere/AppServer/profiles/wp_profile/PortalServer/bin

./xmlaccess.sh -in /tmp/ExportPages.xml -out /tmp/Login_Selfcare.xml -url http://portaldemo.uk.ibm.com:10040/wps/config -user wpsadmin -password passw0rd

( note that the URL is /wps/config rather than the more usual /wps/portal )

I then BACKED UP and edited the generated file, /tmp/Login_Selfcare.xml looking for: -

<content-node action="update" active="true" allportletsallowed="true" content-parentref="6_000000000000000000000000A0" create-type="explicit" domain="rel" objectid="6_CGAH47L0082M302B566VO730M6" ordinal="350" type="page" uniquename="wps.Login">

and: -

<content-node action="update" active="true" allportletsallowed="true" content-parentref="6_000000000000000000000000A0" create-type="explicit" domain="rel" objectid="6_CGAH47L0082M302B566VO730E2" ordinal="1400" type="page" uniquename="wps.Selfcare">

( note that the specifics will vary from installation to installation - if needed, merely search for the string "<content-node action="update" active="true""

The flag active="true" means that both links will be displayed in the theme, therefore I simply changed this flag to read active="false" : -

<content-node action="update" active="false" allportletsallowed="true" content-parentref="6_000000000000000000000000A0" create-type="explicit" domain="rel" objectid="6_CGAH47L0082M302B566VO730M6" ordinal="350" type="page" uniquename="wps.Login">

and: -

<content-node action="update" active="false" allportletsallowed="true" content-parentref="6_000000000000000000000000A0" create-type="explicit" domain="rel" objectid="6_CGAH47L0082M302B566VO730E2" ordinal="1400" type="page" uniquename="wps.Selfcare">

Finally, I imported the now-edited /tmp/Login_Selfcare.xml file into the portal, again using XMLAccess as follows: -

./xmlaccess.sh -in /tmp/Login_Selfcare.xml -url http://portaldemo.uk.ibm.com:10040/wps/config -user wpsadmin -password wpsadm1n

C'est voila, the links are no longer displayed in the theme.

Note that I did NOT need to stop/start the portal server; merely reloading the login page.

The benefit of taking a backup of the Login_Selfcare.xml file is that I can very easily switch Self-Care back on by running the import again: -

./xmlaccess.sh -in /tmp/Login_Selfcare.xml.BACKUP -url http://portaldemo.uk.ibm.com:10040/wps/config -user wpsadmin -password wpsadm1n

Note that I'm currently using the PortalWeb2 theme and the default DoubleTopNav theme policy, but this approach should work for the currently active theme.