The “Deployment and Configuration of FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint (Beta)”, (further referenced as Deployment Guide), which includes also a section on how to connect SharePoint 2010 to the FAST Search Server backend for querying, has a some flaws and misses some context, which I think can be useful to install, setup and  troubleshoot a FAST Search deployment.
The intention with this blog entry is to give some more context around the official deployment guide.
I will only cover the setup of the “FAST Search Query SSA”, which is used to query against the FAST Search Server.
The part on how to setup the crawler and on how to index documents seems to better described. Or may be less complicated J

Some Context

The setup which needs to be done, to "connect" MOSS 2010 to the FAST Search Server, contains really only of two different main tasks.
(Plus a workaround, if http is used as communication channel. This because of a WCF QFE which was included into the prereq-installer late in the beta process. This is covered in the development guide in the section “Enable query over http”)

Those main configurations are:

1.       Configure an SSA (Search Service Application) with specific endpoints for 3 services, so MOSS knows where the FAST Search Services are located.

2.       Exchange and register certificates and register a Service User for the Admin services.

Depending on the protocol which is used for the communication between the SSA and the FAST Search Service, different steps are required.
Let’s first have a look at this diagram:

In the diagram you can see three arrows pointing from the FAST Search Query SSA to the FAST Search Server. These are the 3 service endpoints which have to be configured. In addition the domain and username which shall be used to communicate with the Admin Services has to be set. (Not shown in the diagram. It’s used for the admin screens in central admin and SiteCollection admin)

In addition, Certificate(s) from your MOSS installation have to be copied to the FAST Search Server and need to be registered there.

If https is used, two certificates have to be copied over.
For http, only one certificate needs to be copied and registered.

Note: In the deployment guide there is a mix on the ports for the Query Service.
The guide several times references the file install_info.txt which is written by the postconfiguration script on the FAST Search server node. However this script contains a WRONG port for the query service.
The correct ports are:
HTTP:  13287
HTTPS: 13286

Configuring the SSA                  

The first step one has to do is to setup an SSA which can be used to connect to the FAST Search backend.

Before you start this configuration you have to decide which protocol for the query service shall be used. Available protocols are http or https.
I suggest that one starts with http and if need change it later to https as it means less setup and certificate registration.

Also you have to know which user you specified to install the FAST Search Backend.

If your installation already has an SSA (can be the default SSA created by a Standalone Installation), follow section “Existing SSA”, otherwise follow the section “New SSA”

Existing SSA

In this case, one can configure the properties of the SSA which define the endpoints, by executing the following PowerShell cmdlet’s on the MOSS Farm:

(Cmdlet’s have to be on one line)
Set-SPEnterpriseSearchExtendedQueryProperty -SearchApplication "Search Service Application" -Identity "FASTSearchAdminServiceLocation" -Value "net.tcp://fqdn:13256"

Set-SPEnterpriseSearchExtendedQueryProperty -SearchApplication "Search Service Application" -Identity "FASTSearchQueryServiceLocation" -Value "http://fqdn:13287"

Set-SPEnterpriseSearchExtendedQueryProperty -SearchApplication "Search Service Application" -Identity "FASTSearchResourceStoreLocation" -Value "http://fqdn:13255"

Set-SPEnterpriseSearchExtendedQueryProperty -SearchApplication "Search Service Application" -Identity "FASTSearchAdminServiceAuthenticationUser" -Value "yourdomain\yourserviceuser"

Set-SPEnterpriseSearchServiceApplication -Identity "Search Service Application" -DefaultSearchProvider "FASTSearch"

This will “transform” the standard SS14 SSA to a FAST Query SSA.

Note: The yourdomain\yourserviceuser above must be the user specified in the \psconfig.ps1 script which you run while installing FAST Search Server.

New SSA

If you setup and advanced MOSS installation there might not be an SSA be available. In this case create one as described in the Development guide. (Page 18-20)
By creating a new SSA through Central-Admin, the needed properties will already be set with the values which are provided in the UI and no additional Set-SPEnterpriseSearchExtendedQueryProperty cmdlet’s have to be called after that. (Is done in the Deployment guide, those however are redundant, and even inconsistent. http and https are is used interchangeably)

To verify that your properties are set correctly one can execute the following Cmdlet:
Get-SPEnterpriseSearchExtendedQueryProperty -SearchApplication "Search Service Application"

Note: The development guide, section “Create and set up the Query Search Service Application (SSA)”, does not mention what the value for the entry field “Account for Adminstration Service” shall be.  The user must be the user specified in the \psconfig.ps1 script which you run while installing FAST Search Server.

Now your SSA is already pointing to the FAST Search Server.
If you now do a search from MOSS you will however get an error message.

This is because of two reasons.

1.       In beta, there has to be a file changed on the FAST Search Server if http is used as protocol.

2.       Certificates need to be copied and registered.

So let’s go to ”Copy and register the certificates”

Copy and register the certificates

Depending on the communication channel, configured above, you can follow the Deployment guide on section “Enable queries over http” or “Enable queries over https”

Note: As mentioned above, the cmlets SPEnterpriseSearchExtendedQueryProperty in this section do not have to be executed anymore as the connection has already be configured.

As a last thing to get search through, follow the deployment guide section “Configure FAST Search authorization (FSA)”, which gives the FAST Search Service access to the previous registered certificates.

Happy days. J