Based on Re: How to disable web help - Esri Community
Securing ArcGIS Enterprise's Help Documentation - Esri Community
"The installed help documents for ArcGIS Enterprise are provided for everyone anonymously. The content is not sensitive, and can be easily found on the web. Sometimes however, organisations have policies that require that any website under their authority require authentication for all endpoints, and that can cause a challenge for site managers whose only other path is to seek an exclusion. Other organisations have strict policies regarding aged 3rd party libraries that support the installed help help doc. Regardless of the use case, some organisations may choose to prevent access to these pages. "
In addition to the reasons quoted above, here are some more why the web help may not be wanted:
- it allows potential attackers to identify the ArcGIS Enterprise Version installed, even if all other points of entry are secured. (It is currently not explicitly recommended anywhere to consider blocking the help)
- in some countries all publicly accessible websites need an legal notice. The local help would have to be modified (added footer with legal notice of institution/company hosting the help). It´s easier to disable.
Please provide a way to completely disable the help endpoints in ArcGIS Enterprise.
Currently it is possible to enable the public help for Portal in the Portal settings, but this does not disable the local endpoint, it is just a redirect. The local page is loaded for a brief moment prior the redirect.
Also this does not disable the ArcGIS Server help endpoint.
Three options:
- provide flags to disable the help in portal and server admin
- allow to exclude the help during installation
- when changing the help from local to web, disable all local endpoints and replace all links with online links without redirect
This should apply for all web help pages and sdk help pages
