SporkBomb

When I run backups on SharePoint, I do both database backups and individual site backups via a script utilizing the stsadm.exe tool. This gives me the opportunity to both be able to be granular in my restores and also be ready for a disaster scenario.

Today I had to restore a whole site from a .dat file. Simple enough, right? Fire up stsadm and type:

stsadm -o restore -url http://path/to/site -filename e:\backup\path\of\file.dat -overwrite

At first everything seemed like it will be fine. Since this is a command line utility, I didn’t have a progress bar to give me hope, but I was sure of the process and of the outcome; or so I thought…

After 4-5 hours of waiting for the restore to finish, the SharePoint portal went down. The reason was a complete re-crawl of the ENTIRE portal and non-portal data. This kind of thing is done at night and on weekends for a reason! Why did I wait 5 hours? Well, the site in question was 10GB in size. The biggest restore I did up to that point was during off hours and of a 500MB site.

There is no clear cut answer to this on SharePoint 2003. I tried stopping the search service, but this didn’t stop the re-crawl. The solution ended up being desperate–a reboot. I had backups for all the data in case the worst happened. So I rebooted and I waited. The server came back online and after taking around 45 minutes to recheck the databases, it finally settled down and became accessible to everyone. In addition to this, the site restore I was doing also turned out to be successful.

The moral of the story in my case is not to trust SharePoint 2003 with anything. It’s a decent piece of software and 2007 is even better. It just always seems to do things just a bit off of what a person would expect–enough to get you in hot water.

If you have a SharePoint 2.0 server and you have installed SharePoint Services 2.0 SP3, you may have notices a few issues. Among the several issues with the service part there are two which stand out.

1. Data view web parts cause users with access to SharePoint sites to be denied access. When users attempt to access sites, they receive an authentication prompt, which fails after being filled out with correct information. The quick workaround for this issue is adding users to the local Administrators group. This was the best (so to speak) solution to this problem before a hotfix was released.

2. The edit in datasheet View feature in lists does not work correctly. It redirects the users back to the standard view. The fix for this issue was quickly released by the community, and later corrected by Microsoft via a hotfix.

The above issues are addressed in hotfixes 948919 and 941412. You will need to fill out a request for these hotfixes.

IMPORTANT: When you apply the fix for issue 1, an immediate rebuild of your portal and non-portal content will follow. On some setups this is known to slow down normal SharePoint access to a crawl. Always backup your SharePoint database before applying hotfixes.

My laptop is 100% “Linux-sized” now. Ubuntu 7.10 Gusty Gibbon it is. I’ve been using it for a couple of days now and I have to say that I really enjoy the compiz effects. My Intel graphics card was on the compiz black list, but the fix for that was easy.

I’m currently sitting on my tower computer, which happens to be my main computing location.  I have 2 USB hard drives attached to it, trying to extract all the valuable data off the NTFS volumes. There are thousands of duplicate files from years of reinstalling, a few months of running a Mac Mini, and them getting back to Windows. The situation is a mess.

I have one problem left which is making me think that I will need a Windows installation on the tower computer. The issue has to do with my iPod Video (5th gen 80 gig). I know that there are linux programs like GTKPod and Amarok which can utilize the iPod, and I may have gone with them in the past, but I know that they are not exactly perfect. I happen to enjoy my iTunes experience a lot and I don’t want to go back to hunting down podcasts and uploading them individually.

So here’s the plan: Dell Laptop = Linux; Tower = Linux and Windows XP. I promise that I will only use the Windows partition for syncing my iPod.

Ever since 1995 I have been a user of Windows. It all started with my mother bringing a Windows 95 computer into the house. Long story short: I know Windows inside out. I wasn’t satisfied with this. I wanted more toys. There is only so deep you can go with Windows. The innards of the operating system are always hidden from you; you cannot change them in any sensible and easy way. What’s in the NT kernel? Can I read the source code? Legally? Nope, I cannot.

So in 2002, I went into a CompUSA store and purchased (or was it a gift?) a copy of RedHat 7.3. I tried installing it and it didn’t work! I tried again and it didn’t work again. I got frustrated and quit trying for four whole years.

In 2006, I discovered Ubuntu. I liked it, but I wanted to keep exploring. I tried everything I could get my hands on. Debian, Slackware, Knoppix, DSL, Gentoo, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Mint, PCLinuxOS, and many, many others. I remember the days when I reinstalled Gentoo over 40 times in a row. Compiling that thing over 40 times and then emerging X11 + KDE was great.

The thing is, I never switched to Linux. I tried, but it never lasted. I have one Dell Vostro laptop and a huge tower (dual core opteron, 3 GB of Ram, 1 TB of storage) at home. Up to now, I have been dual booting the laptop between Windows XP and Ubuntu and the only thing I have on the tower is Windows. Why do I keep living like this? I know what I’m doing (well, I do reasonably well) when it comes to Linux and BSD. I guess old habits die hard. Between running a Windows environment at work and doing the same at home, I never wanted to get off my rhythm. Well, that’s over folks.

The reason why I’m writing this is because my case is by no means an anomaly. There are thousands upon thousands of folks out there who like Linux–who use Linux! Yet, they never got around to switching. Do it now! Learn! Grow!

In a future post (hopefully tomorrow), I will outline the reasons why I believe free, libre and/or open source software is superior to commercial software (in certain situations).

Note: Linux = GNU/Linux and vice versa. I won’t want to bother with this argument… yet.

For the purpose of this guide I’m going to assume that you own a copy of SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005. I don’t recommend using the MSDE engine due to its severe limitations. Any organization no matter how small has the ability to reach MCDE’s database size limit. Just don’t use it.

1. Install IIS6, .NET 2.0 Framework, and ASP.net and reboot
2. Install SQL Server 2000 and reboot
3. Install SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4 and reboot
4. Start SharePoint setup wizard and accept all defaults up to that Database Selection screen. Pick Install Without Database Engine. You do this because you already have SQL Server 2000 installed
   
5. Under the Account Information screen type the credentials of the current local administrator (RECOMMENDED: If you like to harden your installs, read the Microsoft guide and only assign the minimal necessary permissions for SharePoint services to run under)
6. Finish the main setup and reboot
7. Install the latest SharePoint 2003 service packs, rebooting after each one
8. Launch the SharePoint Central Administration and you will be greeted with the friendly blue Configure Server Farm Account Settings screen. Use the same credentials you used in step #5. Again, feel free to harden.
9. Next you’ll see the Specify Configuration Database Settings for X. Choose the Create configuration database option and click OK
10. On the next screen, fill in your contact information and proxy settings
11. The setup will bounce you back to a general screen. On this screen in the bottom right you’ll see a Configure Components button. Select that.
12. In the Change Component Assignments screen, check all options under Component Assignment and select your server under the Job Server Component
13. Open the SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Backup and Restore and select the Restore tab. Select your manifest file, select all components under the restore, select Edit on the right side and accept all defaults.
14. Start the restore and if it doesn’t error out right away then just walk away for a few hours because it may be a while.

Installing SharePoint Portal Server 2003:Once the restore is complete, your server is back. Now all you have to do is figure out the 1,000 errors which prevent it from working properly. I could go over all of them but that would take entirely too much time. Good luck.

2008-01-18 Update: I’ve recently had the pleasure of playing with SharePoint 2003 on almost a daily basis. Let me just say that if you’re doing a SharePoint install, make absolutely sure that you have at least 100 GB on your C:\ drive. While I didn’t deploy the current SharePoint server at my workplace, having a limited space on my root partition really made things very difficult for me.

Do not! I repeat, do not install SharePoint Services 2.0 Service Pack 3 (SP3)! A simple Google search will show you that this so called service pack may hose your SharePoint servers, inconvenience your users and anger your boss. As of this writing, the issues of the service pack have not been resolved. I will post back here when I have the hotfix “in my hands.”