Configure trust for search between two SharePoint Server farms

Article
01/19/2023

APPLIES TO: yes-img-13 2013 yes-img-16 2016 yes-img-19 2019 yes-img-se Subscription Edition no-img-sop SharePoint in Microsoft 365

To configure an on-premises SharePoint Server content farm to return results from its search index to a separate on-premises SharePoint Server farm, you must perform the following two main procedures:

In the farm that will receive the search queries, configure trust of the farm that will send the queries by doing the following:

Configure a server-to-server trust relationship by using the Open Authorization 2.0 (OAuth 2.0) web authorization protocol.
Enable the farm that receives the queries to return search results from all of its web applications that host content.

In the farm that will send the search queries, create a result source that does each of the following:

Specifies Remote SharePoint as the protocol.
Specifies the address of any root site collection in the SharePoint Server farm that will receive the search queries.

For more information, see Configure result sources for search in SharePoint Server.

Note

After you create the result source, you expose the search results that it provides by using it in a Web Part or a query-rule action. In this way, users of the farm that is sending search queries can see results from the farm that is receiving the queries. For more information, see Understanding result sources for search in SharePoint Server.

This article describes how to perform the first procedure in the list above: how to configure the farm that receives search queries to trust the farm that sends the queries.

For brevity in this article, the following terms are used:


SendingFarm	An on-premises SharePoint Server farm that has a search service that sends search queries to ReceivingFarm.
ReceivingFarm	An on-premises SharePoint Server content farm that has a search index that receives search queries from SendingFarm. In this article, it is assumed that ReceivingFarm has at least one web application that hosts content.

In order for SendingFarm to be able to get search results from the search index in ReceivingFarm, the farms must have the following characteristics:

Each farm is a SharePoint Server on-premises deployment.
User profiles in the two farms are synchronized. For more information, see Server-to-server authentication and user profiles in SharePoint Server.

Note

Because SharePoint Server runs as websites in Internet Information Services (IIS), administrators and users depend on the accessibility features that browsers provide. SharePoint Server supports the accessibility features of supported browsers. For more information, see the following resources:

To configure ReceivingFarm to trust SendingFarm

Verify that the account that performs this procedure is a member of the following groups:

Farm Administrators group in ReceivingFarm.
Administrators group on the server on which you are running Microsoft PowerShell cmdlets.

An administrator of that server can use the Add-SPShellAdmin cmdlet to grant someone permission to use SharePoint Server cmdlets. When you run the Add-SPShellAdmin cmdlet, you must have membership in the securityadmin fixed server role on the SQL Server instances, and you must have membership in the db_owner fixed database role on all databases that are to be updated. For more information, see Add-SPShellAdmin. Contact your system administrator or SQL Server administrator to request these memberships if you do not have them.

On a server in ReceivingFarm, start the SharePoint Management Shell.
- For Windows Server 2008 R2:
  
  In the SharePoint Server environment, on the Start menu, select All Programs, select SharePoint 2016, and then select SharePoint Management Shell.
- For Windows Server 2012:
- In the SharePoint Server environment, on the Start page, select SharePoint Management Shell.
- If SharePoint Management Shell is not on the Start page, right-click Computer, select All apps, and then select SharePoint Management Shell.
For more info about how to interact with Windows Server 2012, see Common Management Tasks and Navigation in Windows Server 2012.
On a server in ReceivingFarm, run the following commands at a PowerShell command prompt. The commands use the OAuth 2.0 web authorization protocol to configure a server-to-server trust, so that ReceivingFarm will trust SendingFarm.
```
# Create a trusted security token issuer
$i = New-SPTrustedSecurityTokenIssuer -Name "SendingFarm" -IsTrustBroker:$false -MetadataEndpoint "https://<SendingFarm_web_application>/_layouts/15/metadata/json/1"
# Configure trust of the token-signing certificate'
# by adding the trust used to sign oAuth tokens'
# to the list of trusted root authorities'
# in ReceivingFarm
New-SPTrustedRootAuthority -Name "SendingFarm" -MetadataEndPoint https://<SendingFarm_web_application>/_layouts/15/metadata/json/1/rootcertificate
```
Where:

https://<SendingFarm_web_application> is any SSL-enabled web application in SendingFarm

Important

Web applications that include server-to-server authentication endpoints for incoming server-to-server requests, or that make outgoing server-to-server requests, should be configured to use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). For information about how to configure a web application to use SSL, see Create claims-based web applications in SharePoint Server. For information about how to configure HTTP support for server-to-server requests, see Configure server-to-server authentication between SharePoint Server farms in Configure server-to-server authentication in SharePoint Server.

On a server in ReceivingFarm, at a PowerShell command prompt, run the following command:

# Use $realm to store the string'
# that comes after the "@" character'
# in the value of $i.NameId
$realm = $i.NameId.Split("@")

On a server in ReceivingFarm, at a PowerShell command prompt, run the following commands to enable all web applications in ReceivingFarm to return search results to SendingFarm:

$s1 = Get-SPSite -Identity https://<ReceivingFarm_web_application>
$sc1 = Get-SPServiceContext -Site $s1
# Set up an authentication realm for'
# a web application that hosts content in ReceivingFarm 
Set-SPAuthenticationRealm -ServiceContext $sc1 -Realm $realm[1]
# Get a reference to the application principal'
# for that web application in Farm B
$p = Get-SPAppPrincipal -Site https://<ReceivingFarm_web_application> -NameIdentifier $i.NameId
# Grant rights to the application principal'
# that SendingFarm will use'
# when it sends queries to ReceivingFarm
Set-SPAppPrincipalPermission -Site https://<ReceivingFarm_web_application> -AppPrincipal $p -Scope SiteCollection -Right FullControl

Where:

https://<ReceivingFarm_web_application> is an SSL-enabled web application in ReceivingFarm.

Repeat the previous step (step 5) for each web application in ReceivingFarm that hosts content that you want to search.

Configure trust for search between two SharePoint Server farms

See also

Additional resources