How to configure a Dedicated Web Front End for crawling in SharePoint 2010

########## Start of Script to Configure a Dedicated Web Frontend in SharePoint 2010  ##########

$listOfUri = new-object System.Collections.Generic.List[System.Uri](1)

$zoneUrl = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPUrlZone]'Default'

$webAppUrl = "Your Default Zone FQDN URL"

$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication -Identity $webAppUrl

$webApp.SiteDataServers.Remove($zoneUrl)          ## By default this has no items to remove

$listOfUri.Add("Your Dedicated WFE Server URL");

$webApp.SiteDataServers.Add($zoneUrl, $listOfUri);

$WebApp.Update()

########## End of Script to Configure a Dedicated Web Frontend in SharePoint 2010  ##########

Now you might have a requirement to roll back this change, which means change the setting back to "Use all web front end computers for crawling". The script for doing that is as follows,

########## Start of Script to reset Dedicated Web Front end crawling settings to default in SharePoint 2010  ##########

$zoneUrl = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPUrlZone]'Default'

$webAppUrl = "Your Default Zone FQDN URL"

$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication -Identity $webAppUrl

$webApp.SiteDataServers.Remove($zoneUrl);

$WebApp.Update()

########## End of Script to reset Dedicated Web Front end crawling settings to default in SharePoint 2010  ##########

Note :

$webAppUrl = "Your Default Zone FQDN URL" - This is your load balanced URL.

$listOfUri.Add("Your Dedicated WFE Server URL");  - This is the URL of the WFE that you would like to dedicate for crawling.

if your crawler is currently hitting the load balanced URL and you would like to configure it for a single WFE (new one say WFE3). For this, you will first need to introduce the new WFE into the environment. I guess you know how to do this by running PSConfig and joining an existing farm. Once this happens, and the new WFE starts functioning do not add it to the load balancer. Now from the above script change it to include the new WFE name & FQDN name.

########## Start of Script to Configure a Dedicated Web Frontend in SharePoint 2010  ##########

$listOfUri = new-object System.Collections.Generic.List[System.Uri](1)

$zoneUrl = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPUrlZone]'Default'

$webAppUrl = "http://portal.domain.local"    <- Change here

$webApp = Get-SPWebApplication -Identity $webAppUrl

$webApp.SiteDataServers.Remove($zoneUrl)          ## By default this has no items to remove

$listOfUri.Add("http://WFE3");    <- Change here

$webApp.SiteDataServers.Add($zoneUrl, $listOfUri);

$WebApp.Update()

########## End of Script to Configure a Dedicated Web Frontend in SharePoint 2010  ##########