The Search Administration Component runs system processes required for search. It is responsible for search provisioning and managing topology changes, and it coordinates interaction between the other search components-Content Processing, Query Processing, Analytics Processing, and Index Component. The Search Administration database, which stores the Analytics settings, also stores the configuration elements relevant to the Search Administration Component. These elements include:
- Search topology
- Crawl rules
- Query rules
- Managed property mappings
- Content sources
Crawl schedules
The Search Administration database no longer stores access control lists (ACLs), like it did in previous versions of SharePoint. This information is now stored in the Search index. The search processes provisioned by the Search Administration Component include:
- NodeRunner.exe. This is the process that hosts the search components. You may have multiple
- instances of NodeRunner.exe on a single server, each of which hosts one search component.
- Host Controller. This is a Windows Service that supervises NodeRunner.exe process instances on a
- server system. If any of the NodeRunner.exe processes fail, the Host Controller detects this and
- restarts the process automatically.
- MSSearch.exe. This is the Windows Service that hosts the Crawl Component.