1. A method of minimizing storage time for security credentials for a secure crawl, comprising: initiating, at a computer system, a crawl of a secure source; indexing, at the computer system, a plurality of documents in an index which results from the crawling; in response to initiating the crawl of the secure source, examining, at the computer system, a setting for the secure source, the setting selected by an administrator or user to determine and specify whether the administrator or user has specified that the secure source requires security credentials including a temporary password for the secure source to be stored temporarily; in response to examining the setting, determining that security credentials including the temporary password for the secure source are required to be stored temporarily, and prompting, at the computer system, for security credentials including the temporary password at a time of the crawl based on determining that the administrator or user has specified that the secure source requires security credentials including the temporary password to be temporary; wherein the security credentials including the temporary password are associated with said administrator or user; writing, at the computer system, the security credentials including the temporary password to temporary storage; crawling a plurality of documents obtained from the secure source using the security credentials including the temporary password, and indexing at the computer system the plurality of documents; stamping, at the computer system, the plurality of documents with security credentials consistent with the identity of the administrator or user such that stamped documents are only available for search in the index by the administrator or user; retaining the security credentials including the temporary password until a final crawl when multiple crawls are initiated that utilize the security credentials including the temporary password; and deleting, at the computer system, the security credentials including the temporary password from temporary storage when no longer needed for the crawling.
1. A method of minimizing storage time for security credentials for a secure crawl, comprising: initiating, at a computer system, a crawl of a secure source; indexing, at the computer system, a plurality of documents in an index which results from the crawling; in response to initiating the crawl of the secure source, examining, at the computer system, a setting for the secure source, the setting selected by an administrator or user to determine and specify whether the administrator or user has specified that the secure source requires security credentials including a temporary password for the secure source to be stored temporarily; in response to examining the setting, determining that security credentials including the temporary password for the secure source are required to be stored temporarily, and prompting, at the computer system, for security credentials including the temporary password at a time of the crawl based on determining that the administrator or user has specified that the secure source requires security credentials including the temporary password to be temporary; wherein the security credentials including the temporary password are associated with said administrator or user; writing, at the computer system, the security credentials including the temporary password to temporary storage; crawling a plurality of documents obtained from the secure source using the security credentials including the temporary password, and indexing at the computer system the plurality of documents; stamping, at the computer system, the plurality of documents with security credentials consistent with the identity of the administrator or user such that stamped documents are only available for search in the index by the administrator or user; retaining the security credentials including the temporary password until a final crawl when multiple crawls are initiated that utilize the security credentials including the temporary password; and deleting, at the computer system, the security credentials including the temporary password from temporary storage when no longer needed for the crawling. 3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein: deleting the security credentials including the temporary password includes deleting the security credentials including the temporary password from resident memory at the end of the crawling.