MIT-Google: Secure Search
On this page:
Overview
Searching
Troubleshooting
Publishing
MIT-Google can index and search certificate-protected documents hosted on web.mit.edu.
Overview
- If you are searching MIT-Google for secure documents, MIT-Google will only return results that you are privileged to see.
- If you are a content publisher and wish to restrict access to your documents, you'll continue to secure your documents in the same way that you would with certificates but will also add the user google if you wish to have those documents searchable by the certain individuals or groups that you specify. Your content must be hosted on web.mit.edu.
Searching
To search secure documents, you must have an MIT personal certificate installed. MIT-Google will only return results that you are privileged to see.
Use this form to search secure documents.
Troubleshooting
If you experience a browser error when searching for secure documents:
- First test your certificates to ensure that they work. If not, consult Certificates at MIT for help.
- If you are using Safari, be sure to delete any previous certificates and install CertAid.
Publishing
To publish content that is both certificate-protected and searchable by users or groups that you specify:
- Publish your documents on web.mit.edu and restrict your content by following the directions carefully in the Web Publishing Reference Guide: Protecting Content.
- When creating the .htaccess.mit, as described in the link above, also add the user (or group) google.
Restrict access via https while enabling search:
To restrict to all MIT certificate holders and MIT-Google:
Format of .htaccess.mit file:
<limit GET>
require valid-user
</limit>
To restrict to a list of users:
Format of .htaccess.mit file:
<limit GET>
require user google username1 username2
</limit>
Example:
<limit GET>
require user google lisanti jlreed tgriffin
</limit>
To restrict to a group:
Format of .htaccess.mit file:
<limit GET>
require group google groupname1 groupname2
</limit>
Example:
<limit GET>
require group google network web-team
</limit>Note: Only users or groups listed in your .htaccess.mit will be able to access and search for your protected documents.
- MIT-Google will automatically find and index your protected documents, provided that there are links to them already in the MIT-Google index. Please ensure that there are other sites (e.g., departmental or organizational) that link to your documents.
