Deploy a simple farm on the Windows Server 2008 operating system (Windows SharePoint Services)

Applies To: Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

 

Topic Last Modified: 2010-11-08

In this article:

  • Deployment overview

  • Deploy and configure the server infrastructure

  • Configure Windows Firewall with Advanced Security

  • Perform additional configuration tasks

  • Create a site collection and a SharePoint site

  • Configure the trace log

As of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), you can now install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on Windows Server 2008. As with the Windows Server 2003 operating system, you must download and run Setup and the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard. You cannot install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 without service packs on Windows Server 2008.

Important

The following components are required for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to run correctly: the Web Server role, the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0, and Active Directory Domain Services. Do not uninstall them, or Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 will cease to run.

Deployment overview

Important

This article discusses how to do a clean installation of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP1 in a server farm environment on Windows Server 2008. It does not cover upgrading the operating system from Windows Server 2003 to Windows Server 2008. For more information about upgrading the operating system, see Upgrading to Windows Server 2008 for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP1.

Note

This article does not cover installing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a single computer as a stand-alone installation on Windows Server 2008. For more information, see Install a stand-alone server on Windows Server 2008 (Windows SharePoint Services).

You can deploy Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in a server farm environment if you are hosting a large number of sites, if you want the best possible performance, or if you want the scalability of a multi-tier topology. A server farm consists of one or more servers dedicated to running Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

Note

There is no direct upgrade from a stand-alone installation to a farm installation.

Because a server farm deployment of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is more complex than a stand-alone deployment, we recommend that you plan your deployment. Planning your deployment can help you to gather the information you need and to make important decisions before beginning to deploy. For information about planning, see Planning and architecture for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 technology.

Deploying Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in a DBA environment

In many IT environments, database creation and management are handled by the database administrator (DBA). Security and other policies might require that the DBA create the databases required by Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. For more information about deploying using DBA-created databases, including detailed procedures that describe how the DBA can create these databases, see Deploy using DBA-created databases (Windows SharePoint Services).

Suggested topologies

Server farm environments can encompass a wide range of topologies and can include many servers or as few as two servers.

A server farm typically consists of a database server running either Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with the most recent service pack, and one or more servers running Internet Information Services (IIS) and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. In this configuration, the front-end servers are configured as Web servers. The Web server role provides Web content and services such as search.

A large server farm typically consists of two or more clustered database servers, several load-balanced front-end Web servers running IIS and Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, and two or more servers providing search services.

Before you begin deployment

This section provides information about actions that you must perform before you begin deployment.

  • To deploy Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in a server farm environment, you must provide credentials for several different accounts. For information about these accounts, see Plan for administrative and service accounts (Windows SharePoint Services).

  • You must install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on the same drive on all load-balanced front-end Web servers.

  • All the instances of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in the farm must be in the same language. For example, you cannot have both an English version of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 and a Japanese version of Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 in the same farm.

    Note

    We recommend that you read the Known Issues/Readme documentation before you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a domain controller. Installing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on a domain controller requires additional configuration steps that are not discussed in this article.

Overview of the deployment process

The deployment process consists of two phases: deploying and configuring the server infrastructure, and deploying and configuring SharePoint site collections and sites.

Phase 1: Deploy and configure the server infrastructure

Deploying and configuring the server infrastructure consists of the following steps:

  • Preparing the database server.

  • Preinstalling databases (optional).

  • Verifying that the servers meet hardware and software requirements.

  • Running Setup on all servers you want to be in the farm, including running the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard.

  • Starting the Windows SharePoint Services Search service.

Phase 2: Deploy and configure SharePoint site collections and sites

Deploying and configuring SharePoint site collections and sites consists of the following steps:

  • Creating site collections.

  • Creating SharePoint sites.

Deploy and configure the server infrastructure

Prepare the database server

The database server computer must be running Microsoft SQL Server 2005 or Microsoft SQL Server 2000 with the most recent service pack.

The Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Setup program automatically creates the necessary databases when you install and configure Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Optionally, you can preinstall the required databases if your IT environment or policies require this.

For more information about prerequisites, see Determine hardware and software requirements (Windows SharePoint Services).

If you are using SQL Server 2005, you must also change the surface area settings.

Configure surface area settings in SQL Server 2005

  1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Microsoft SQL Server 2005, point to Configuration Tools, and then click SQL Server Surface Area Configuration.

  2. In the SQL Server 2005 Surface Area Configuration dialog box, click Surface Area Configuration for Services and Connections.

  3. In the tree view, expand the node for your instance of SQL Server, expand the Database Engine node, and then click Remote Connections.

  4. Select Local and Remote Connections, select Using both TCP/IP and named pipes, and then click OK.

SQL Server and database collation

The SQL Server collation must be configured for case-insensitive. The SQL Server database collation must be configured for case-insensitive, accent-sensitive, Kana-sensitive, and width-sensitive. This is used to ensure file name uniqueness consistent with the Windows operating system. For more information about collations, see Selecting a SQL Collation (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=121667&clcid=0x409) or Collation Settings in Setup (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=121669&clcid=0x409) in SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

Required accounts

The following table describes the accounts that are used to configure SQL Server and to install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. For more information about the required accounts, including specific role memberships and permissions required for these accounts, see Plan for administrative and service accounts (Windows SharePoint Services).

Account Purpose Requirements

SQL Server Service Account

This account is used as the service account for the following SQL Server services:

  • MSSQLSERVER

  • SQLSERVERAGENT

If you are not using the default instance, these services will be shown as:

  • MSSQL$InstanceName

  • SQLAgent$InstanceName

SQL Server prompts for this account during SQL Server Setup. You have two options:

  • Assign one of the built-in system accounts (Local System, Network Service, or Local Service) to the logon for the configurable SQL Server services. For more information about these accounts and security considerations, refer to the Setting Up Windows Service Accounts topic (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=121664&clcid=0x409) in the SQL Server documentation.

  • Assign a domain user account to the logon for the service. However, if you use this option you must take the additional steps required to configure Service Principal Names (SPNs) in Active Directory in order to support Kerberos authentication, which SQL Server uses.

Setup user account

The Setup user account is used to run the following:

  • Setup on each server

  • The SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard

  • The PSConfig command-line tool

  • The Stsadm command-line tool

  • Domain user account

  • Member of the Administrators group on each server on which Setup is run

  • SQL Server login on the computer running SQL Server

  • Member of the following SQL Server security roles:

    • securityadmin fixed server role

    • dbcreator fixed server role

If you run Stsadm command-line tool commands that read from or write to a database, this account must be a member of the db_owner fixed database role for the database.

Server farm account/Database access account

The Server farm account is used to:

  • Act as the application pool identity for the SharePoint Central Administration application pool.

  • Run the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service.

  • Domain user account.

  • If the server farm is a child farm with Web applications that consume shared services from a larger farm, this account must be a member of the db_owner fixed database role on the configuration database of the larger farm.

Additional permissions are automatically granted for this account on Web servers and application servers that are joined to a server farm.

This account is automatically added as a SQL Server login on the computer running SQL Server and added to the following SQL Server security roles:

  • dbcreator fixed server role

  • securityadmin fixed server role

  • db_owner fixed database role for all databases in the server farm

Verify that servers meet hardware and software requirements

Before you install and configure Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, be sure that your servers have the recommended hardware and software. To deploy a server farm, you need at least one server computer acting as a Web server and an application server, and one server computer acting as a database server. For more information about these requirements, see Determine hardware and software requirements (Windows SharePoint Services).

Important

Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 requires Active Directory Domain Services for farm deployments in a Windows Server 2008 environment.

Install Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0

Before you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on Windows Server 2008, you must install the Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0. You do not need to install the Web Server role or the Windows Process Activation Service; these are installed automatically along with the Windows Internal Database when you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, Service Pack 1. Use the following procedure to install Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0.

Install Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0

  1. Click Start, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Server Manager.

  2. In Server Manager, on the Action menu, click Add features.

  3. In the Features list, select the .NET Framework 3.0 Features check box, and then click Next.

  4. Follow the wizard steps to install Microsoft .NET Framework version 3.0.

Run Setup on all servers in the farm

Run Setup and then the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard on all your farm servers. Adding servers to the farm can be done at any time to add redundancy — for example, adding load-balanced Web servers.

Note

We recommend that you run Setup on all the servers that will be in the farm before you configure the farm.

When you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on the first server, you establish the farm. Any additional servers that you add must be joined to this farm.

Setting up the first server involves two steps: installing the Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 components on the server, and configuring the farm. After Setup finishes, you can use the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard to configure Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard automates several configuration tasks, including: installing and configuring the configuration database, installing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 services, and creating the Central Administration Web site.

Run Setup on the first server

We recommend that you install and configure Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on all of your farm servers before you configure Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 services and create sites. You must have SQL Server database software running on at least one back-end database server before you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on your farm servers.

Note

Setup installs the Central Administration Web site on the first server on which you run Setup. Therefore, we recommend that the first server on which you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is a server on which you want to run the Central Administration Web site.

Run Setup on the first server

  1. Download Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP1 from the Microsoft Web site, and then run SharePoint.exe on one of your Web server computers.

  2. On the Read the Microsoft Software License Terms page, review the terms, select the I accept the terms of this agreement check box, and then click Continue.

  3. On the Choose the installation you want page, click Advanced. The Basic option is for stand-alone installations.

  4. On the Server Type tab, click Web Front End. The Stand-alone option is for stand-alone installations.

  5. Optionally, to install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 at a custom location, select the Data Location tab, and then type the location name or Browse to the location.

  6. Optionally, to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program, select the Feedback tab and select the option you want. To learn more about the program, click the link. You must have an Internet connection to view the program information.

  7. When you have chosen the correct options, click Install Now.

  8. When Setup finishes, a dialog box appears that prompts you to complete the configuration of your server. Be sure that the Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard now check box is selected.

  9. Click Close to start the configuration wizard. Instructions for completing the wizard are provided in the next set of steps.

Note

Do not add any server roles in Windows Server 2008 Server Manager before setup for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 is complete. If you add a server role, the setup process will fail and you will need to uninstall and reinstall Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard

After Setup finishes, you can use the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard to configure Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The configuration wizard automates several configuration tasks, including: installing and configuring the configuration database, installing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 services, and creating the Central Administration Web site. Use the following instructions to run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard.

Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard

  1. On the Welcome to SharePoint Products and Technologies page, click Next.

  2. Click Yes in the dialog box that notifies you that some services might need to be restarted during configuration.

  3. On the Connect to a server farm page, click No, I want to create a new server farm, and then click Next.

  4. In the Specify Configuration Database Settings dialog box, in the Database server box, type the name of the computer that is running SQL Server.

  5. Type a name for your configuration database in the Database name box, or use the default database name. The default name is "SharePoint_Config".

  6. In the User name box, type the user name of the server farm account. (Be sure to type the user name in the format DOMAIN\username.)

    Important

    This account is the server farm account and is used to access your SharePoint configuration database. It also acts as the application pool identity for the SharePoint Central Administration application pool and it is the account under which the Windows SharePoint Services Timer service runs. The SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard adds this account to the SQL Server logins, and to the dbcreator and securityadmin fixed server roles in SQL Server. The user account that you specify as the service account must be a domain user account, but it does not need to be a member of any specific security group on your Web servers or your back-end database servers. We recommend that you follow the principle of least-privilege administration by specifying a user account that is not a member of the Administrators group on your Web servers or your back-end servers.

  7. In the Password box, type the user's password, and then click Next.

  8. On the Configure SharePoint Central Administration Web Application page, select the Specify port number check box and type a port number if you want the SharePoint Central Administration Web application to use a specific port, or leave the Specify port number check box cleared if you do not care which port number the SharePoint Central Administration Web application uses.

  9. On the Configure SharePoint Central Administration Web Application dialog box, do one of the following:

  10. On the Completing the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard page, click Next.

  11. On the Configuration Successful page, click Finish.

    The SharePoint Central Administration Web site home page opens.

    Note

    If you are prompted for your user name and password, you might need to add the SharePoint Central Administration site to the list of trusted sites and configure user authentication settings in Internet Explorer. Instructions for configuring these settings are provided in the next set of steps.

    Note

    If a proxy server error message appears, you might need to configure your proxy server settings so that local addresses bypass the proxy server. Instructions for configuring this setting are provided later in this section.

Add the SharePoint Central Administration Web site to the list of trusted sites

  1. In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.

  2. On the Security tab, in the Select a Web content zone to specify its security settings box, click Trusted sites, and then click Sites.

  3. Clear the Require server verification (https:) for all sites in this zone check box.

  4. In the Add this Web site to the zone box, type the URL for the SharePoint Central Administration Web site, and then click Add.

  5. Click Close to close the Trusted sites dialog box.

  6. Click OK to close the Internet Options dialog box.

Configure proxy server settings to bypass the proxy server for local addresses

  1. In Internet Explorer, on the Tools menu, click Internet Options.

  2. On the Connections tab, in the Local Area Network (LAN) settings area, click LAN Settings.

  3. In the Automatic configuration section, clear the Automatically detect settings check box.

  4. In the Proxy Server section, select the Use a proxy server for your LAN check box.

  5. Type the address of the proxy server in the Address box.

  6. Type the port number of the proxy server in the Port box.

  7. Select the Bypass proxy server for local addresses check box.

  8. Click OK to close the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings dialog box.

  9. Click OK to close the Internet Options dialog box.

Add servers to the farm

We recommend that you install and configure Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on all of your farm servers before you configure Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 services and create sites. You must have SQL Server running on at least one back-end database server before you install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on your farm servers.

Note

If you uninstall Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, and then later install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 on the same computer, the Setup program could fail when creating the configuration database causing the entire installation process to fail. You can prevent this failure by either deleting all the existing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 databases on the computer or by creating a new configuration database. You can create a new configuration database by running the following command from the path %COMMONPROGRAMFILES%\Microsoft shared\Web server extensions\12\bin:
psconfig -cmd configdb -create -database <unique database name>

Run Setup on additional servers

  1. Download Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 with SP1 from the Microsoft Web site, and then run SharePoint.exe on one of your additional Web server computers.

  2. On the Read the Microsoft Software License Terms page, review the terms, select the I accept the terms of this agreement check box, and then click Continue.

  3. On the Choose the installation you want page, click Advanced. The Basic option is for stand-alone installations.

  4. On the Server Type tab, click Web Front End. The Stand-alone option is for stand-alone installations.

  5. Optionally, to install Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 at a custom location, select the Data Location tab, and then type the location name or Browse to the location.

  6. Optionally, to participate in the Customer Experience Improvement Program, select the Feedback tab and select the option you want. To learn more about the program, click the link. You must have an Internet connection to view the program information.

  7. When you have chosen the correct options, click Install Now.

  8. When Setup finishes, a dialog box appears that prompts you to complete the configuration of your server. Be sure that the Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard now check box is selected.

  9. Click Close to start the configuration wizard. Instructions for completing the wizard are provided in the next set of steps.

Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard on additional servers

After Setup finishes, use the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard to configure Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. The configuration wizard automates several configuration tasks, including: installing and configuring the configuration database, and installing Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 services. Use the following instructions to run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard.

Run the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard

  1. On the Welcome to SharePoint Products and Technologies page, click Next.

  2. Click Yes in the dialog box that notifies you that some services might need to be restarted during configuration.

  3. On the Connect to a server farm page, click Yes, I want to connect to an existing server farm, and then click Next.

  4. In the Specify Configuration Database Settings dialog box, in the Database server box, type the name of the computer that is running SQL Server.

  5. Click Retrieve Database Names, and then from the Database name list, select the database name that you created when you configured the first server in your server farm.

  6. In the User name box, type the user name of the account used to connect to the computer running SQL Server. (Be sure to type the user name in the format DOMAIN\username.) This must be the same user account you used when configuring the first server.

  7. In the Password box, type the user's password, and then click Next.

  8. On the Completing the SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard page, click Next.

  9. On the Configuration Successful page, click Finish.

Start the Windows SharePoint Services Search service

You must start the Windows SharePoint Services Search service on every computer that you want to search over content. You must start it on at least one of your servers.

Start the Windows SharePoint Services Search service

  1. On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, click the Operations tab on the top link bar.

  2. On the Operations page, in the Topology and Services section, click Servers in farm.

  3. On the Servers in Farm page, click the server on which you want to start the Windows SharePoint Services Search service.

  4. Next to Window SharePoint Services Search, click Start.

  5. On the Configure Windows SharePoint Services Search Service Settings page, in the Service Account section, specify the user name and password for the user account under which the search service will run.

  6. In the Content Access Account section, specify the user name and password for the user account that the search service will use to search over content. This account must have read access to all the content you want it to search over. If you do not enter credentials, the same account used for the search service will be used.

  7. In the Indexing Schedule section, either accept the default settings, or specify the schedule that you want the search service to use when searching over content.

  8. After you have configured all the settings, click Start.

Configure Windows Firewall with Advanced Security

After you create Web applications in your server farm, you must use Windows Firewall with Advanced Security in Windows Server 2008 to open ports on computers that host Web Applications.

After you create Web applications in your server farm, you must use Windows Firewall with Advanced Security in Windows Server 2008 to open ports on computers that host Web Applications.

By default, port 80 is open on Web servers, but to be able to communicate with other computers you must open the port for Central Administration. You must also open the ports for any additional Web applications that you create in your server farm.

The default configuration of the Windows Server 2008 firewall is to deny all connections unless there is an exception. Make sure you create the exceptions for the currently enabled profile (Private, Public, or Domain) when you are making changes to ports. If you create the exceptions in the wrong profile they will not work.

Note

If you configure host headers in IIS, the ports for the Web Applications will be created on port 80 and you may not have to perform the procedures in this section. If, however, you use the host header mode in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to create multiple domain-named sites in a single Web application you will need to perform the procedures in this section to determine which ports the Web applications, including Central Administration, will use in your server farm.

Determine ports used by Web Applications

  1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.

  2. On the Central Administration site, click Application Management.

  3. On the Application Management Web page, in the SharePoint Web Application Management section, click Web application list.

  4. On the Web Application List Web page, in the URL column, the server name with port number is listed for each Web application.

You should use Windows Firewall with Advanced Security to open the ports required for your server farm as identified in the Determine ports used by Web Applications procedure.

For ease in managing the rules, we recommend that you create one rule per Web application. Alternatively, for more centralized rule management you can create one rule to manage all the ports.

For Web applications you only need to create a rule to open a port for incoming connections.

Configure Windows Firewall with Advanced Security

  1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click Windows Firewall with Advanced Security.

  2. On the details pane, in the Overview section, verify that the domain profile is active by noting if the domain network location entry displays Domain Profile is Active.

  3. In the Domain Profile is Active area, depending on how the inbound connections rule is configured, choose one of these options.

    • If it is Inbound connections that do not match a rule are allowed, then you do not need to complete this procedure.

    • If it is Inbound connections that do not match a rule are blocked, then you must proceed to the next step in this procedure to configure the firewall to allow Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 traffic.

  4. On the console tree, select Inbound Rules, and then in the action pane click New Rule.

  5. Complete the New Inbound Rule Wizard using the settings from the following table.

    Wizard page Settings

    Rule Type

    Select Port.

    Protocol and Ports

    Select TCP.

    Select Specific local ports. In the Specific local ports text box, identify all the ports that you need.

    Action

    Select Allow the connection.

    Profile

    Enable Domain.

    Clear Private and Public.

    Name

    In the Name and Description text boxes type information that is both descriptive and meaningful for your network administrators. As a best practice, we recommend that you give the firewall rules a unique name. Unique names makes management using the netsh commands much easier.

For more information about Windows Firewall with Advanced Security, see Windows Firewall.

Perform additional configuration tasks

After Setup finishes, your browser window opens to the home page of your new SharePoint site. Although you can start adding content to the site or customizing the site, we recommend that you first perform the following administrative tasks by using the SharePoint Central Administration Web site.

  • Configure incoming e-mail settings   You can configure incoming e-mail settings so that SharePoint sites accept and archive incoming e-mail. You can also configure incoming e-mail settings so that SharePoint sites can archive e-mail discussions as they happen, save e-mailed documents, and show e-mailed meetings on site calendars. In addition, you can configure the SharePoint Directory Management Service to provide support for e-mail distribution list creation and management. For more information, see Configure incoming e-mail settings (Windows SharePoint Services).

  • Configure outgoing e-mail settings   You can configure outgoing e-mail settings so that your Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server sends e-mail alerts to site users and notifications to site administrators. You can configure both the "From" e-mail address and the "Reply" e-mail address that appear in outgoing alerts. For more information, see Configure outgoing e-mail settings (Windows SharePoint Services).

  • Configure diagnostic logging settings   You can configure several diagnostic logging settings to help with troubleshooting. This includes enabling and configuring trace logs, event messages, user-mode error messages, and Customer Experience Improvement Program events. For more information, see Configure diagnostic logging settings (Windows SharePoint Services).

  • Configure antivirus protection settings   You can configure several antivirus settings if you have an antivirus program that is designed for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0. Antivirus settings enable you to control whether documents are scanned on upload or download and whether users can download infected documents. You can also specify how long you want the antivirus program to run before it times out, and you can specify how many execution threads the antivirus program can use on the server. For more information, see Configure anti-virus settings (Windows SharePoint Services).

Perform administrator tasks by using the Central Administration site

  1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Administrative Tools, and then click SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.

  2. On the Central Administration home page, in the Administrator Tasks section, click the task you want to perform.

  3. On the Administrator Tasks page, next to Action, click the task.

Create a site collection and a SharePoint site

This section guides you through the process of creating a single site collection containing a single SharePoint site. You can create many site collections and many sites under each site collection. For more information, see Chapter overview: Deploy and configure SharePoint sites (Windows SharePoint Services). For information about planning SharePoint sites and site collections, see Plan Web site structure and publishing (Windows SharePoint Services).

Before you can create a site or a site collection, you must first create a Web application. A Web application is composed of an Internet Information Services (IIS) site with a unique application pool. When you create a new Web application, you also create a new database and define the authentication method used to connect to the database.

If you are in an extranet environment where you want different users to access content by using different domains, you might also need to extend a Web application to another IIS Web site. This action exposes the same content to different sets of users by using an additional IIS Web site to host the same content.

Create a new Web application

  1. In the SharePoint Central Administration Web site, on the Application Management page, in the SharePoint Web Application Management section, click Create or extend Web application.

  2. On the Create or Extend Web Application page, in the Adding a SharePoint Web Application section, click Create a new Web application.

  3. On the Create New Web Application page, in the IIS Web Site section, you can configure the settings for your new Web application.

    1. To choose to use an existing Web site, select Use an existing Web site, and specify the Web site on which to install your new Web application by selecting it from the drop-down menu.

    2. To choose to create a new Web site, select Create a new IIS Web site, and type the name of the Web site in the Description box.

    3. In the Port box, type the port number you want to use to access the Web application. If you are creating a new Web site, this field is populated with a suggested port number. If you are using an existing Web site, this field is populated with the current port number.

    4. In the Host Header box, type the URL you want to use to access the Web application. This is an optional field.

    5. In the Path box, type the path to the site directory on the server. If you are creating a new Web site, this field is populated with a suggested path. If you are using an existing Web site, this field is populated with the current path.

  4. In the Security Configuration section, configure authentication and encryption for your Web application.

    1. In the Authentication Provider section, choose either Negotiate (Kerberos) or NTLM.

      Note

      To enable Kerberos authentication, you must perform additional configuration. For more information about authentication methods, see Plan authentication methods (Windows SharePoint Services).

    2. In the Allow Anonymous section, choose Yes or No. If you choose to allow anonymous access, this enables anonymous access to the Web site by using the computer-specific anonymous access account (that is, IUSR_<computername>).

      Note

      If you want users to be able to access any site content anonymously, you must enable anonymous access for the entire Web application. Later, site owners can configure how anonymous access is used within their sites. For more information about anonymous access, see Choose which security groups to use (Windows SharePoint Services).

    3. In the Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) section, select Yes or No. If you choose to enable SSL for the Web site, you must configure SSL by requesting and installing an SSL certificate.

      Important

      If you use SSL, you must add the appropriate certificate on each server by using IIS administration tools. For more information about using SSL, see Plan for secure communication within a server farm (Windows SharePoint Services).

  5. In the Load Balanced URL section, type the URL for the domain name for all sites that users will access in this Web application. This URL domain will be used in all links shown on pages within the Web application. By default, the box is populated with the current server name and port.

    The Zone box is automatically set to Default for a new Web application, and cannot be changed from this page. To change the zone for a Web application, see Create or extend Web applications (Windows SharePoint Services).

  6. In the Application Pool section, choose whether to use an existing application pool or create a new application pool for this Web application. To use an existing application pool, select Use existing application pool. Then select the application pool you want to use from the drop-down menu.

    1. To create a new application pool, select Create a new application pool.

    2. In the Application pool name box, type the name of the new application pool, or keep the default name.

    3. In the Select a security account for this application pool section, select Predefined to use an existing application pool security account, and then select the security account from the drop-down menu.

    4. Select Configurable to use an account that is not currently being used as a security account for an existing application pool. In the User name box, type the user name of the account you want to use, and type the password for the account in the Password box.

  7. In the Reset Internet Information Services section, choose whether to allow Windows SharePoint Services to restart IIS on other farm servers. The local server must be restarted manually for the process to finish. If this option is not selected and you have more than one server in the farm, you must wait until the IIS Web site is created on all servers and then run iisreset/noforce on each Web server. The new IIS site is not usable until that action is completed. The choices are unavailable if your farm only contains a single server.

  8. In the Database Name and Authentication section, choose the database server, database name, and authentication method for your new Web application.

    Item Action

    Database Server

    Type the name of the database server and Microsoft SQL Server instance you want to use in the format <Server name\instance>. You can also use the default entry.

    Database Name

    Type the name of the database, or use the default entry.

    Database Authentication

    Choose whether to use Windows authentication (recommended) or SQL authentication.

    • If you want to use Windows authentication, leave this option selected.

    • If you want to use SQL authentication, select SQL authentication. In the Account box, type the name of the account you want the Web application to use to authenticate to the SQL Server database, and then type the password in the Password box.

  9. Click OK to create the new Web application, or click Cancel to cancel the process and return to the Application Management page.

Create a site collection

  1. On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, click the Application Management tab on the top link bar.

  2. On the Application Management page, in the SharePoint Site Management section, click Create site collection.

  3. On the Create Site Collection page, in the Web Application section, select a Web application to host the site collection from the Web Application drop-down list.

  4. In the Title and Description section, type a title and description for the site collection.

  5. In the Web Site Address section, select a URL type (personal or sites), and then type a URL for the site collection.

  6. In the Template Selection section, select a template from the tabbed template control.

  7. In the Primary Site Collection Administrator section, specify the user account for the user you want to be the primary administrator for the site collection. You can also browse for the user account by clicking the Book icon to the right of the text box. You can check the user account by clicking the Check Names icon to the right of the text box.

  8. Optionally, in the Secondary Site Collection Administrator section, specify the user account for the user you want to be the secondary administrator for the site collection. You can also browse for the user account by clicking the Book icon to the right of the text box. You can check the user account by clicking the Check Names icon to the right of the text box.

  9. Click Create to create the site collection.

Create a SharePoint site

  1. On the SharePoint Central Administration home page, click the Application Management tab on the top link bar.

  2. On the Application Management page, in the SharePoint Site Management section, click Site collection list.

  3. On the Site Collection List page, in the URL column, click the URL for the site collection to which you want to add a site. The full URL path for the site collection appears in the URL box.

  4. Copy and paste the full URL path into your browser, and then, on the home page of the top-level site for the site collection, on the Site Actions menu, click Create.

  5. On the Create page, in the Web Pages section, click Sites and Workplaces.

  6. On the New SharePoint Site page, in the Title and Description section, type a title and description for the site.

  7. In the Web Site Address section, type a URL for the site.

  8. In the Template Selection section, select a template from the tabbed template control.

  9. Either change other settings, or click Create to create the site.

  10. The new site opens.

After creating sites, you might want to configure alternate access mappings. Alternate access mappings direct users to the correct URLs during their interaction with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 (while browsing to the home page of a Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Web site, for example). Alternate access mappings enable Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to map Web requests to the correct Web applications and sites, and they enable Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 to serve the correct content back to the user. For more information, see Plan alternate access mappings (Windows SharePoint Services).

Configure the trace log

The trace log can be useful for analyzing problems that might occur. You can use events that are written to the trace log to determine what configuration changes were made in Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 before the problem occurred.

By default, Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 saves two days of events in the trace log files. This means that trace log files that contain events that are older than two days are deleted. When you are using the Windows SharePoint Services Search service, we recommend that you configure the trace log to save seven days of events.

You can use the Diagnostic Logging page in Central Administration to configure the maximum number of trace log files to maintain and how long (in minutes) to capture events to each log file. By default, 96 log files are kept, each one containing 30 minutes of events.

96 log files * 30 minutes of events per file = 2880 minutes or two days of events.

You can also specify the location where the log files are written or accept the default path.

Configure the trace log to save seven days of events

  1. In Central Administration, on the Operations tab, in the Logging and Reporting section, click Diagnostic logging.

  2. On the Diagnostic Logging page, in the Trace Log section, do the following:

    • In the Number of log files box, type 336.

    • In the Number of minutes to use a log file box, type 30.

      Tip

      To save 10,080 minutes (seven days) of events, you can use any combination of number of log files and minutes to store in each log file.

  3. Ensure that the path specified in the Path box has enough room to store the extra log files, or change the path to another location.

    Tip

    We recommend that you store log files on a hard drive partition that is used to store log files only.

  4. Click OK.

Trace log files can help you to troubleshoot issues related to configuration changes of the Windows SharePoint Services Search service. Because problems related to configuration changes are not always immediately discovered, we recommend that you save all trace log files that the system creates on any day that you make any configuration changes related to either search service. Store these log files for an extended period of time in a safe location that will not be overwritten. See step 3 in the previous procedure to determine the location that the system stores trace log files for your system.

Configure Windows Server Backup

If you want to use Windows Server Backup with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, you must configure the following registry keys. If you do not configure these registry keys, Windows Server Backup will not work properly with Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.

Important

You must be logged on as a member of the Administrators group on the local server computer to edit the registry. Incorrectly editing the registry might severely damage your system. Before making changes to the registry, you should back up any valued data on the computer.

Configure registry keys for Windows Server Backup

  1. Click Start, click Run, and in the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.

  2. In the User Account Control dialog box, click Continue to open the Registry Editor.

  3. Navigate to the following path:

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\

  4. On the Edit menu, click New, and then click Key.

  5. Type WindowsServerBackup, and then press ENTER.

  6. Select the WindowsServerBackup key, and then on the Edit menu, click New, and then click Key.

  7. Type Application Support, and then press ENTER.

  8. Select the Application Support key, and then on the Edit menu, click New, and then click Key.

  9. Type {c2f52614-5e53-4858-a589-38eeb25c6184} as the key name and then press ENTER.

    This is the GUID for the WSS Writer.

  10. Select the new key, and then on the Edit menu, click New, and then click String Value.

  11. Type Application Identifier as the new value name, and then press ENTER.

  12. Right click the Application Identifier value, and then click Modify.

  13. In the Value Data box, type Windows SharePoint Services, and then click OK.

  14. On the Edit menu, click New, and then click DWORD (32-bit) Value.

  15. Type UseSameVssContext as the new value name, and then press ENTER.

  16. Right-click the UseSameVssContext value, and then click Modify.

  17. In the Value Data box, type 00000001, and then click OK.

Download this book

This topic is included in the following downloadable book for easier reading and printing:

See the full list of available books at Downloadable content for Windows SharePoint Services 3.0.