A high-level overview of FileCrawler's capabilities and deployment architecture.
FileCrawler is an enterprise-grade file search engine designed specifically to index massive Windows UNC network shares. It extracts full-text content from millions of documents across your network and provides a lightning-fast, SharePoint-like search interface for your end-users.
Built for zero-configuration deployments, the system runs entirely on a self-contained web stack and features an embedded database out of the box, with full enterprise support for scaling into dedicated SQL servers if required.
FileCrawler natively supports three different database engines to fit your environment:
FileCrawler is designed to be completely standalone. It does not require IIS, WAMP, or external database servers to function.
Run the provided installer on your Windows Server. The wizard will automatically extract the necessary web services and register them in the background.
Open a web browser on the server and navigate to the local Admin Dashboard. From here, you can seamlessly add the UNC paths (e.g., \\fileserver\marketing) you wish to index.
Using the built-in Admin UI, you can schedule the background crawling engine to run at intervals that suit your organization (e.g., nightly or hourly) without ever touching the command line.
Security is not an afterthought. The architecture is designed to integrate cleanly with enterprise environments.
FileCrawler runs on standard HTTP out-of-the-box for easy local setup. For production environments, it fully supports being placed behind your organization's existing reverse proxy (e.g., Nginx, IIS, Traefik). Alternatively, you can drop your own SSL certificates directly into the application folder to enable native HTTPS.
Securely authenticate admin users against your domain. By defining an Admin Group, you guarantee that only authorized IT staff can access the dashboard to manage the crawling engine and configure shares.
A built-in backup engine safely executes snapshots of your live embedded database on an automated schedule, ensuring you never lose your indexed data.