As much as I fight basic authentication, there are still people out there who want to use it. SharePoint Enterprise Search can crawl a site requiring basic authentication through the use of Crawl Rules.
- Browse to the Shared Services Provider page within Central Administration.
- Click on Search Settings -> Content sources and crawl schedules.
- I recommend adding the source as a new content source.
- Once you have created the new content source return to the Search Settings screen.
- Click on Crawl Rules -> New Crawl Rule.
- Enter the path this rule will affect. Using wildcards is the easiest way to make sure the enter server is being crawled with the account specified.
- Change the crawl configuration to 'Include all items in this path'. Specify other settings if necessary.
- Change the authentication to 'Specify a different content access account'.
- DO NOT CHECK 'Do not allow Basic Authentication'.
- Click OK to save the settings and your new crawl rule will appear in the list.
- Kick off a full crawl of the content source for the rule to take effect.
Simple I know. But I was hit up for this multiple times so I figured I would write a post on it.
Jeff