How to install and configure FAST Search for SharePoint

Before you install FAST Search for SharePoint, you must know that you shouldn't install SharePoint and FAST Search for SharePoint in a same server. There are two major issues. The first one is performance, the second one is there may be some scripts run into errors but no error messages show up. I really suggest you separate the server roles. I configured a successful environment. Below are the configuration.

	Server 0	Server 1
CPU	AMD Athlon X2 215 Processor 2.70GHz	Intel Core i5, M460 2.53GHz
Memory	4 GB	6 GB
System	Windows Server 2008 R2	Windows Server 2008 R2
Role	SharePoint Server	DB Server, FAST Search
Software installed	Windows Server 2008 R2, SharePoint Server 2010, SharePoint Designer 2010, Office 2010 x64	Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server 2008 R2 Developer Edition, FAST Search for SharePoint, Office 2010

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Installing FAST Search for SharePoint 2010
1. Double click the splash.hta file, then you will get the following dialog.

2. Click on Install software prerequisites -> click Next -> Accept License Agreement and click Next

3. Once the prerequisites installation is done, click Finish.
4. Click on Install FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint -> click Next -> Accept License Agreement and click Next.

5. Click Next and click Install. The installation will take a few minutes and click Finish once done.
Configuring FAST Search for SharePoint 2010
1. Enable PowerShell script execution (If you go to the configuration wizard without enable this script, you will receive an error)

    a. Click Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint

 

    b. Right click on Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint shell and click on Run as administrator

    c. Type set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned and press Enter

2. Click Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint -> right click Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint wizard and click on Run as administrator

 

3. You will be greeted by the Welcome screen -> click Next. 

4. Select the deployment type, since we are doing a Single server installation we will select Single server (stand-alone) and click Next. (More information about the deployment type, please refer: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff381240.aspx)

 5. Enter the user name and password of the account we have chosen for FAST Search for SharePoint -> click Next

 

6. Enter a certification password. This password will be used to protected the FAST Search certification -> click Next

7. On the Server settings, enter the fully qualified domain name of the FAST Search -> click Next.

8. On the Database settings screen, enter the SQL database information i.e. SQL Server Name and SQL Server Instance. Since I have SQL Server configured with default instance, I will enter SQL Server Name and that should be fine. Click Next (Before go to next step, please make sure the user has a dbcreator role)

NOTE: just in case you happen to see the following error

  

Verify that the the account we added in step 5 has dbcreator role permission on the SQL Server.

9. On the click-through relevancy settings, add the desired relevancy setting. Since I have SharePoint 2010 installed using Server Farm option, I will add the domain user I had added in Step 6 of my earlier post. You can also check for the user who is running the SharePoint 2010 Timer service. Click Next

10. On the Configuration settings summary, review the settings and click Configure

 

11. Once the post-setup configuration is successful –> click Finish

12. Before you restart the server make sure the account that you will use to administer FAST Search is added in the local FASTSearchAdministrators group.

13. Restart the server

14. To verify if FAST Search modules are running, open the command prompt and type nctrl status, make sure all the modules have status Running