1>Deployment and configuration of FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint (Beta)

2>Installation-and-configuration-of-fast-search-server-for-sharepoint-2010

i will continue updating this post as and when find new ones…..

People Picker can do wildcard searches for Active Directory Windows group names. There are multiple people picker property one can set and I have listed them below . The scope of this post is not to discuss on these properties as there are already very good articles available .

activedirectorysearchtimeout

searchadcustomfilter

distributionlistsearchdomains

onlysearchwithinsitecollection

searchadforests

searchadcustomquery

nowindowsaccountsfornonwindowsauthenticationmode 

I have seen people setting up “searchadcustomfilter” property on the people picker. This  enables a farm administrator to specify a unique search query. Now the issue I am going to discuss happens if the following conditions are true

your farm is on April 09 CU.

if you have any alternate access setting for web application which has 5 incoming URLs

people picker property set example “searchadcustomfilter”.

Run the below command and you will be able to see the property value

stsadm -o getproperty -url <URL of webapp> -pn peoplepicker-searchadcustomfilter

Assume you want to either set the property to a specific filter or reset the property and set it to default.<Note : Its assumed that you will have working copy of backup of the environment and an output of the get property before you run the command below>.

Example to set a people picker property

stsadm -o setproperty -url <URL of webapp> -pn peoplepicker-searchadcustomfilter –pv  “ property value “

You will get an error as in the print screen below

Example to reset the people picker searchadcustomfilter property to default.

stsadm -o setproperty -url <URL of webapp> -pn peoplepicker-searchadcustomfilter –pv  “  “

You should see same error message on the command prompt.

Unexpected end of file has occurred. The following elements are not closed: Alternate Domains. Line 32, position 11” Note the line and the position number may vary on your environment.

ULS logs verbose should give you similar message as below

STSADM.EXE (0x237C) 0x2190  Windows SharePoint Services   Topology  8dyc       High       Setting backwards compatible virtual server property failed, vs: SPWebApplication Name= URL =SPWebService key: defaultzoneoutgoingurl value: https://example/pages/default.aspx . Unexpected end of file while parsing Name has occurred. Line 28, position 16.

Alternate access mappings are stored in the following places within SharePoint databases. (Note: Editing of SharePoint databases is not supported . For more information read https://support.microsoft.com/kb/841057 )

a. config DB,  dbo.Objects table
b. content DB, in the table dbo.DatabaseInformation . For 'AlternateAccessMappingXml' the value (nvarchar(1023)) is an Xml string containing all the AAMs. Unexpected end of file has occurred” that we see on errors is the xml string stored in the line ‘AlternateAccessMappingXml’ .After this exception is thrown, you will not be able to add or delete an Alternate Access Mapping. So trying to temporarily remove a AAM entry and making the changes to people picker property will not be an option as well.

Fix:-

Unable to delete AAM entries was a known issue after April 09 CU and was fixed in August 2009 CU. People picker properties are set per URL of web application. So when a reset operation for a property is done it tries a write operation and fails.  In order to successfully remove/add the people picker property you need to upgrade the environment to August 2009 CU 

I always feel there should be a consolidated page to track all SharePoint hofixes  with links to download the same. Post below has links to major SharePoint fixes currently available . I will update the post as and when a new patch is released . Also I have tracked a few major SQL server fixes.

SharePoint 2001 Tahoe Server

Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001                                                   10.145.3941 

Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001 with Service Pack 1           10.145.4629  

Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001 with Service Pack 2           10.145.6011  

Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001 with Service Pack 2a         10.145.6011.5

Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001 with Service Pack 3           10.145.7329

Consolidated article to download and get information about all SharePoint 2001 hotfixes and patches  KB312963

Now lets look at Windows SharePoint Services 2.0 & SharePoint 2003 major patch releases

Now lets look at Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 & SharePoint 2007 major patch releases .

Lets now look at Language Pack Download Links

WSS 3.0 Language Packs

32 Bit                                                                                       64 Bit

WSS 3.0 LP RTM                                                                   WSS 3.0 LP RTM

WSS3.0 LP SP1                                                                      WSS 3.0 LP SP1

WSS 3.0 LP SP2                                                                     WSS 3.0 LP SP2

MOSS 2007 Language Packs

32 Bit                                                                                       64 Bit

MOSS LP RTM                                                                        MOSS LP RTM

MOSS LP SP1                                                                          MOSS LP SP1

MOSS LP SP2                                                                          MOSS LP SP2

Trial version of WSS 3.0 and SharePoint 2007 click on the link below

Download Windows SharePoint Services 3.0

https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=D51730B5-48FC-4CA2-B454-8DC2CAF93951&displaylang=en

Download SharePoint 2007 Trial

https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=2E6E5A9C-EBF6-4F7F-8467-F4DE6BD6B831&displaylang=en

Download SharePoint Designer.

 https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=BAA3AD86-BFC1-4BD4-9812-D9E710D44F42&displaylang=en

SQL Server Major Patches

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights. This post just has links to download patches from Microsoft site . Blog owner does not confer any rights to any URL redirection issues or any issue with original patch . Its recommended that you match the KB article number ,check the problem description and follow all recommendations from the patch download site before downloading.

An upgrade of SharePoint Portal Server 2001 can be performed  to Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2003 using the upgrade tool . You can access the same on the the product media. Please ensure that you perform back up and restore the data on the SharePoint Portal Server 2001 before staring of with the upgrade to SharePoint Portal Server 2003. Once the replica is built and verified that all data is intact the original server is all ready to start with the upgrade. Of course its recommended to understand what we get by Importing SharePoint Portal server 2001 data

The following changes occur when the SharePoint Portal Server 2001 configuration information is imported into the new SharePoint Portal Server 2003 portal site:

Categories become Topics.

Documents in each category become document links to the documents stored in the backward-compatible document store.

Content sources do not change - they are imported directly.

Security settings from roles in SharePoint Portal Server 2001 are mapped to site groups in SharePoint Portal Server 2003, based on the rights assigned to each role.

Keyword Best Bets are imported directly.

It is recommended that you look at the below URL before proceeding

https://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/office/sps2003/deploy/spst2003.mspx

The inplace upgrade from SharePoint Portal Server 2001 to SharePoint Portal Server 2003 consists of the following steps .

a>Back up the SharePoint Portal Server 2001 data
b>Export the SharePoint Portal Server 2001 configuration information
c>Upgrade Windows 2000 Server to Windows Server 2003
d>Upgrade the SharePoint Portal Server 2001 document store to the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 backward-compatible document store
e>Install SharePoint Portal Server 2003
f>Import SharePoint Portal Server 2001 configuration information into the new portal site

Step a: Back up the SharePoint Portal Server 2001 data

Navigate to c:\program files\sharepoint portal server\bin\ in a command prompt with an account having administrator access to the Portal

Type msdmback.vbs /b  path (e.g c:\spsbackup\backup.bak)

You should see a small box and it high probability that you see 0 next to the bytes . Just be patient for a couple of minutes and you should see some progress and the bytes count increases. Once the dialog box is off your screen the backup is complete. As mentioned above its highly recommended to test out the restore on a different server with the backup  taken to confirm there are no issues with the backup and restoration . As I have mentioned once this is done only after that the server is safe and ready for an upgrade < At least I feel so>

Step b: Export the SharePoint Portal Server 2001 configuration information

Insert sps2003 cd and click launch.exe which will show you the below screen
Choose the first option “Upgrade SharePoint portal server components”

Choose a location to export the data and specify a password. This is purely for data safety.

This completes the exporting of the sps2001 data and we are good to proceed to step 3

Once the data is exported if possible keep a copy of the exported data on a different server . Again I always like to be extra sure and cautious and this step is purely for data safety.

The next step is where you server OS actually gets upgraded from Windows 2000 to Windows 2003 and one would need to look at hardware compatibility and need to have Windows 2003 OS media Some references of the same can be found on the link below

https://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/upgrading/w2k/default.mspx. Its highly recommended that your server is checked for any compatibility issues and all data is backed up and ensured that a working copy of backup is

Once the OS is successfully upgraded you need to proceed with Step 4

Step 4: Upgrade the SharePoint Portal Server 2001 document store to the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 backward-compatible document store

Put the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 media and start the launch.exe

A successful upgrade session will show the window below

Click on next and choose the option upgrade

You should be prompted and your screen should look like below

Click on next and the upgrade continues . I have seen the upgrade process to be quite smooth but on and often we have seen the error as in the image below .

I am making a notes of this one as I have seen this error message that often holds the upgrade process and we are not really sure what to do next. You can try a simple step below. This normally happens because of issue with the windows installer to cleanly remove the Client Components
Again please ensure that you get the exact error message as in the print screen above before you follow the step. If you are sure that you are please run

msiexec /x {9A2E39DF-08FA-47DA-97AD-98F479C8EA89} /qb SERVERINSTALL=1 /L*v
C:\errorlog.txt. Get the error log .txt and ensure that the client component has been successfully uninstalled

The successful completion of the wizard would  look like the printscreen below .

Click on next and the below mentioned screen might take a minute or two to come up so please wait till you see the following screen

And once it completes successfully you should see something like the below image

Now comes the next step to Install SharePoint Portal Server 2003 . Step 5: Install SharePoint Portal Server 2003. I would not go into details of installing the same as the steps are quite simple and once can find many articles in the Internet which talks about the same

I have not documented a couple of screen between the above image and the one below as they are pretty self explanatory .Choose the database server type from the screen below

A successful completion of the installation would look like image below. The service account needs to be filled up.

Once you have the service account credentials filled up and you click on next the wizard is completed and you can configure the central Administration. Now the SharePoint Portal Server 2003  is installed but still we did not create a portal site. At this moment one can  still access the sps2001 documents using the web folders

Next is the important step of creating a Portal 2003 site . Browse to the central  administration and key in the details of creating a Portal site . Again this post is more towards an upgrade of SharePoint 2001 so I am not concentrating on the portal creation steps .

Once we click on OK and the portal creation completes we should be able to successfully browse to the Portal home page below

Now comes step 6 i.e to import the SharePoint 2001 data

Step 6: Import SharePoint Portal Server 2001 configuration information into the new portal site

Browse to Portal you created click on site settings. Now under Portal site content click on Import Microsoft SharePoint Portal Server 2001 data

The next screen should be something like the image below

Next provide the path to the export location you had exported the SharePoint 2001 data. You should see a screen as image below . The options are quite self explanatory .Click on OK once you are done.

Once the import is done browse to Central Administration and click on Configure Server Topology page and click on change components button and specify the server name in document library server component. You should see a page similar to the image below 

Browse to central administration and under component configuration click on the link Configure Document Library (web Storage System Based)  . It should bring up a page similar to the image below

Now it brings up the next page and you will have to click on connect . Check the image below

Once you click on connect you should see the screen below

The document libraries you add can be seen on the next page and after you click on OK you should see a page as on the image

Once you do the above step you can see the document library as an area on the homepage of the portal site.

Disclaimer : This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Microsoft SharePoint Team Blog:Configuring Multiple Authentication Providers for SharePoint 2007

Forms Based Authentication in MOSS

What I want to put across in this posting of mine is some basic configuration steps required for configuring Forms Based Authentication along with some print screen from a test environment which I used to configure for a demo.

Now one very basic question ….What is FBA

FBA…Forms Based Authentication is web browser based logon mechanism commonly used besides regular Integrated, Basic authentication mechanism used for login to SharePoint environments .FBA is  preferred option for companies running SharePoint 2007 because it is easiest way via which you can give external clients access to your SharePoint sites without having to give them a full blown Windows domain account. Unless you have customized your login screen a typical out of box FBA login page would be quite similar like the image below

Now what are a few basic steps we require to configure FBA

Create and Extend web application to the NTLM one which you would be using for FBA.

Add Membership Provider and Role Manager to web.config files

Set FBA authentication for extended web application through Central Administration

Add users to Policy for web application

In the sample configuration below I would share with you prints screen from my test environment along with the step by step configuration . My NTLM site is say https://portal.mossadmin.com

Now is the next task of extending the site . we navigate to Central Administration>>> Application Management>>Create or Extend Web Application. Choose the option Extend An existing Web Application

Now from the list of web application choose the web application that you want to extend and map. In my case the same is portal.mossadmin.com. You can either choose to create a new website in IIS or use one if already present . The remaining information is quite easy to key in and I would not detail it out.

If you navigate to IIS manager you will be now be able to see the web application you just extended

Now comes the most important part of modifying the web.config files. <Important> Ensure that you have a working copy of the web.config handy before you make any changes . If the changes made to the web config does not work  you can easily revert back the default one. So a quick question How to Locate web.config file. Lets look at the one for central administration .Navigate to IIS manager on the server hosting the same and click on the web application SharePoint Central Administration V3 . On the right hand side you will be able to see the web.config 

Now once you locate the web config on the server we need to add the membership provider . I have attached a copy of the web.config file as a screenshot below . Also this same step needs to be followed for the web config for the web application to be set with FBA as well that is the extended web application.

Sample Web.config for Central Administration

Sample Web.config for Web Application

Next comes the task of changing the Authentication Method for Extended Site . Browse to central administration> Application management >Authentication providers> Choose the correct web application from the web application drop down and mention the membership and the role providers.

I have chosen “Client Integration” as No however if you want client integration to work then its recommend you have SP2 installed on the farm. Check out article for more information

https://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2009/05/13/update-on-sharepoint-forms-based-authentication-fba-and-office-client.aspx

Now we are done with the configuration and your FBA site will be accessible If you now browse to the web application extended earlier you will see a login screen as below . I will continue with the login mechanism with an user called fbauser

Once you successfully login you will be able to add additional users by browsing to people and groups and search for users as well. A print screen of a sample user is below

That brings us to a end of the basic configuration steps required to configure a Forms based authentication site for MOSS. I am planning to set up a similar post with some basic configuration steps required for SQL ASP.Net membership provider.  

Disclaimer : This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.