Introducing the Administration Tools for Windows SharePoint Services

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Microsoft includes tools to help you manage the Web sites you create. You can manage locally by using HTML Administration pages or a command-line interface, or remotely by using HTML Administration pages. In addition, you can set propertiessuch as specifying whether alert are enabled for a virtual serverby using the command-line interface or HTML Administration pages.

HTML Administration Pages

includes HTML Administration pages to help manage your Web sites and servers. You can use these forms on the local server computer or from a remote computer connected to the Internet. You must have the proper administrator rights to use HTML Administration pages.

For , there are two types of administration pages:

• Central Administration pages

• Site Administration and Site Settings pages

Central Administration Pages

The Central Administration pages allow you to manage settings for your server farm, Web server, and virtual servers. These pages are created during setup. By default, a newly created virtual server inherits settings from defaults set on the Central Administration pages. You can change these default settings and specify what settings to use for each extended virtual server. You must be either a member of the local administrators group for the server computer or a member of the SharePoint administrators group to be able to use the Central Administration pages. For more information about the SharePoint administrators group, see Managing the SharePoint Administrators Group .

You gain access to the Central Administration pages from the administration port that created during setup. To view the pages, on the Start menu, point to All Programs , click Administrative Tools , and then click SharePoint Central Administration ; or, from the browser on a remote computer, type the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) to the pages on the administration port. For example, https:// server_name:port or https://localhost: port .

Site Administration and Site Settings Pages

In addition to the Central Administration pages, which control settings for each server and virtual server, there are administration pages that control settings for each Web site. You can perform some administrative actions from the Site Settings page, and you can link from there to the Site Administration page. You must have administrator rights to the Web site to perform administrative actions on the Site Settings and Site Administration pages.

From the Site Settings and Site Administration pages, you can perform tasks such as:

• Manage users and site groups.

  You can add or remove users, edit site groups, and change a user's site group membership. For more information, see Managing Users and Cross-Site Groups and Managing Site Groups and Permissions .

• Create or delete subsites.

  You can add a subsites or manage the existing subsites to your Web site. For more information, see Creating Sites and Subsites .

• Change anonymous access.

  If anonymous access is available for the virtual server that contains your Web site, you can control whether or not it is enabled for your Web site. For more information, see Managing Site Groups and Permissions .

• Change regional settings.

  You can change the locale, time zone, sort order, and time format to use for your Web site. For more information, see Language Considerations .

• Manage Web discussions and alerts.

  You can view all Web discussion and user alerts for your Web site and delete any that are no longer needed. For more information, see Managing Web Discussions and Managing Alerts .

Note that if you are managing a subsite, the administration tasks available on the Site Administration page for the subsite are a subset of those available for top-level Web site.

The Site Settings and Site Administration pages are stored in the _layouts directory of the Web site. You can navigate to the Site Settings pages by using any of the following methods:

• In your Web site, to get to Site Settings, click Site Settings . To get to Site Administration, on the Site Settings page, click Go to Site Administration .

• In Microsoft , on the Tools menu, click Server , and then click Administration Home to get to Site Settings.

• In Microsoft Internet Explorer, type the URL to the pages.

  The path to the Site Settings page looks like this: https://websiteurl/_layouts/ lcid /settings.aspx, where lcid refers to the locale ID (LCID). For example, for U.S. English, the lcid is 1033. The path to the Site Administration page in U.S. English looks like this: https://websiteurl/_layouts/1033/webadmin.aspx.

Command-Line Administration

includes Stsadm.exe for command-line administration of servers and sites. You must be an administrator of the server computer to be able to use the Stsadm.exe tool. (The remote command-line tool for from Microsoft, Owsrmadm.exe, is not available.) For remote administration, use HTML Administration pages.

The Stsadm.exe tool provides a method for performing the administration tasks to run once, to be used in batch files, or to be used within a script. The command-line tool has a more streamlined interface than HTML Administration pages, yet allows you to perform many of the same tasks. For example, you can use the command-line tool to:

• Add or delete users.

• Create or delete Web sites.

• extend a virtual server.

• Set database connection properties.

• Set configuration properties.

Note: For a complete list of the operations you can perform by using the command-line tools, see Command-Line Operations .

The Command-Line Tool Is Not Interactive

Stsadm.exe is not an interactive tool. With Stsadm.exe, you type the operation and parameters all at once, and you cannot be prompted for and fill in missing parameters while the operation is running. If a required parameter is missing, the operation fails, and you must type the operation and parameters again.

This behavior allows better flexibility for batching commands, since the tools do not prompt you for information after you have submitted a command. If you want a more interactive tool, try using the administrative object model or HTML Administration pages.

Using the Command-Line Tool

The command-line tool is an application for the Microsoft Windows operating systems that offers a complete set of operations. You can use the command-line tool from the command line or from batch files. Stsadm.exe must be run on the server computer itself.

To use the Stsadm.exe tool, you must be a member of the local Administrators group on the server computer.When you invoke Stsadm.exe, you supply an operation and a set of command-line parameters in the form:

-operation OperationName -parameter value

Note: If a value you need to use with the command line tool includes a space or a character that is treated as special by the command-line interface, such as an ampersand (&), you can enclose the string in quotation marks ("). For example, if the URL to a site is https://my site, you can enter the URL as "https://my site".

Most parameters for the command line also have a short form that you can use instead of the full parameter name. For example, the following command sets the configuration database to use Server1_collab on Server1 and specifies the database user name and password to connect with:

stsadm.exe -o setconfigdb -connect -ds Server1 -dn Server1_collab-du User1 -dp password

The following table explains the command and parameters from this example. For detailed information about each command-line operation and related parameters, see Command-Line Operations and Command-Line Parameters .

Command or parameter	Definition
-o setconfigdb	Creates a connection between and a configuration database.
-connect	Specifies that there is an existing configuration database to use.
-ds Server1	Specifies the server name that contains the database to use.
-dn Server1_collab	Specifies the database name to use on that server.
-du User1	Specifies an administrator user name for the database.
-dp password	Specifies the password for the user.

Managing Remotely

When you install , the Central Administration pages are installed to an administration port. You use these pages on the administration port to manage your server remotely. You can open Central Administration pages from any client computer, provided you know the administration port number and log on by using an account that is a member of the Administrators group on the server. You can use the Site Administration pages by using an account that is a member of a site group with the Manage Web Site right for that site.

To help secure HTML Administration pages for , be sure to follow the security precautions discussed in this topic.

About Remote Administration and Security

When you manage a server remotely, a wider community of users is given greater access from the Internet to that Web server, which creates a security risk. In an unsecured server, an unauthorized person could gain access to Web sites based upon on your server and modify Web site settingseven delete Web sites. To help prevent such tampering during remote administration and authoring, the following precautions are recommended:

• Require the use of a non-standard HTTP port for accessing the Central Administration pages.

  This precaution makes it much more difficult for malicious users to guess the URL of HTML Administration pages or the remote administration programs. When you install on the Microsoft Windows platform, a random non-standard administration port is automatically used for the Central Administration pages.

  Note: You can use Stsadm.exe to change this administration port number. Do not use Internet Information Services to change the administration port, because that can break the shortcut to HTML Administration pages from the Start menu.

• Use IP address mask restrictions to prevent unauthorized computers from gaining access to the administration port.

  If you are exposing the administration virtual server externally to allow remote administration, use secure connections, and require users to have strong passwords that are frequently updated.Typically, any IP addresses that are not part of the corporate or data center domain are denied access. For more information, see the Internet Information Services (IIS) 6.0 Help system.

• Configure the administration virtual server to require secure connections

  In IIS, configure the administration virtual server to use a secure channel (SSL). For more information, see Configuring Authentication .

Using HTML Administration Pages Remotely

When you install , the Central Administration pages are installed to an administration port. You use these pages on the administration port to manage your server remotely. You can open Central Administration pages from any client computer, provided you log on by using an account that has administrator access rights to the server. You can open the Site Administration pages by using an account that has administrator rights to the Web site.

If you have chosen to use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) on your administration port, you must use the HTTPS protocol to navigate to the pages. For more information about configuring SSL, see Configuring Authentication .

Connect to the administration port by using the HTTPS protocol

• In the Address box of your browser, use the HTTPS protocol and type the Web address to your server's administration pages, including the server port number.

  For example, https://sample.microsoft.com:1439.

After you connect to the remote HTML Administration pages, you can perform any of the administration tasks as if you were connected locally.

Changing the Administration Port

You can change the administration port for your server to a port that is easy to remember or that is a standard installation port number for your organization. To change the administration port, use the setadminport operation. The setadminport operation takes the port parameter (specifying the new port number).

Changing the administration port can only be done from the command line. You must use the Stsadm.exe tool on the server computer itself to change the administration port. To change the administration port, use the following syntax:

Stsadm.exe o setadminport port <port>

Note: If you are using SSL for your administration port, be sure to use the -ssl parameter with the preceding command-line syntax to ensure that the links in HTML Administration work properly. For more information, see Configuring Authentication .

Setting Configuration Properties

You can configure several features of by setting the values of configuration properties. For example, you can set a property to:

• Specify whether a secondary contact name is needed when creating sites with Self-Service Site Creation.

• Specify SMTP server settings.

• Specify whether alerts are enabled for a virtual server.

Many properties are included as options in HTML Administration pages for your server or virtual server. Properties can also be set from the command line or by using the object model. For a complete list of the properties you can set from the command line, see CommandLine Properties .

Most properties have a default value that is used at site creation time if no other value is specified. These default values are not enforced in any way, and can be overwritten by changing the value in the HTML Administration pages or on the command line. Default values are a starting point, they are not enforced or secured.

Using the Command Line to Set Properties

You can set configuration property by using the command-line tool Stsadm.exe and the following operations: GetProperty and SetProperty . With these operations, you can query for or set property values directly from the command line. Because the properties are available through the command-line tools, you can set configuration properties and perform other operations by using a batch file.

When you get or set a property, you must specify the level of the Web server to which the property applies: server or virtual server. You specify the level you want for the property in the syntax of the command. The following table lists the parameters to use to specify the level of a property.

Parameter	Scope
<none>	Gets or sets the property per server. The property applies to all virtual servers, sites, and subsites on the server computer.
-url	Gets or sets the property by virtual server. The property applies to sites and subsites on a single virtual server.

Setting a Property

When you set a property, you must specify the property as a string, although some properties are interpreted numerically. You must also specify the propertyname ( -pn ) parameter and the propertyvalue ( -pv ) parameter when you set a property. In the following example, the alerts-enabled property is set for the virtual server at https://servername:

Stsadm.exe o setproperty pn alerts-enabled pv true -url https://servername

The alerts-enabled property specifies whether alerts are turned on or off for a virtual server.

Querying for a Property

You can retrieve the current state of a property by using the GetProperty operation. You specify the propertyname , and the propertyvalue is returned. For example, to see what the alerts-enabled property is currently set to for the virtual server at https://servername, you type:

Stsadm.exe o getproperty pn alerts-enabled -url https://servername

Properties and HTML Administration

Most properties that can be set from the command line are also available as options in HTML Administration pages. For example, the alerts-enabled property can be set by turning alerts on or off on the Virtual Server General Settings page. If you are mainly using HTML Administration pages to perform your administration tasks, most properties are set for you when you select options on those pages.

Related Topics

For a complete list of the operations you can perform by using the command-line tools, see Command-Line Operations .

For a complete list of the properties that you can set, see Command-Line Properties .

For a complete list of the parameters you can use with operations and properties, see Command-Line Parameters .