Sharepoint Portal Server Basics

Introduction

• Sharepoint server belongs to Microsoft family of servers

• Integrated suite of server capabilities• Hosted Application – i.e. runs on a

windows server O/S• Support for Intranet, extranet access

available• Improves organizational effectiveness by

sharing information, content management

Beneficiaries of Sharepoint• Business Manager

– Can access contents (files) that are confidential from remote place if provided with proper credentials

– Minimizes operation cycle time and travel time• IT Professional

– High availability, security of artifacts– Simplicity in accessing contents

• End user– Alerts through email– Dash boards to compare results– Message boards to discuss matters

Features• Document Management

– Can create, upload, modify, check in and check out, delete documents

– Centrally store documents and access them from anywhere.

• User Management– Create users, groups, change password

• Content Management– Can create sites and sub sites for every entity like

testing team, development team, guests etc and provide contents appropriate for them

Architecture

Creating a Top level site

• Follow these steps to create a top level site– Open IIS and create a virtual directory and assign a

port number other than 80 (as it will be used by http request)

– In the sharepoint administration, click on “Extend Virtual Server” under server administration, click Ok in the new page that was opened after giving administrator details, sharepoint server details

– Click on “Create Content db” under server administration. In the landing page click ok, after selecting server and db.

Top level site – contd…

• Select the virtual server that was created (virtual directory port will be listed)

• Give a name for the site and click OK• The url for the site will be displayed• Click on the url.• A new window will be opened with the

template selection screen• Select a template for the site and give OK

Logging in to a sharepoint site

Sample Site

Managing Users

• Add the users to the sharepoint portal group– Go to Computer Management– Select users and groups– Under groups, select Sharepoint user group and right

click on it to add new user.– In the new user dialog box, give the user details as

DomainName\UserName and press OK. That user will be associated to the group

– We can also create local users in the computer and make them access sharepoint

Users (Contd..)• Log in to the sharepoint site –

http://servername:portnumber/site/default.aspx as an administrator

• Navigate to Settings tab in the top of the site• Click on Manage Users• Click on Add Users and give the user details,

email Id, select the sharepoint group to which the user will be associated and click Ok.

• Email will be sent to the user along with the link to the sharepoint site

Managing Groups• Users can be assigned to the default groups

present in sharepoint– Administrator : Has overall control of the site– Contributor : Can contribute items for the site– Web Designer : Can add new pages– Reader : Can only view the contents

• We can also add new groups and assign access rights for the groups

• Click on Manage groups in the Settings page and click on Add New Group to add new group

Creating Sub sites

• To add a new sub site, click on the “Create” link• Click on “Sites” link on the page• Give a name for the sub site and click OK• Choose a template for the site and the new site

will open up• Go to Site administration page and click on add

users• Enter user detail and associate the user with the

Administrator group

Configuring Email Server

• Open Sharepoint central administration window

• Click on Configure email settings link under “Server Configuration”

• Give name for the smtp server• Click Ok• Now all mails related to the sites operation

will be routed via the email server specified.

Databases used• Configuration DB:

– This is the database that contains all configuration information related to the server database connection etc

• Content DB:– This database contains the sites, subsites data– For each site a new content db is created

• Component Services DB:– This contains details regarding the sharepoint

services like alerts, messages, site quota, content db details etc

Creating Site Templates

• Choose a sharepoint site that we need to save as a template

• Go to Site Administration page • Click on “Save Site as Template” link• It will ask a name for the template and an option

to save the data of the site page too. Give a name for the template

• The site will be saved as a template and can be used while creating a new sharepoint site

Viewing Statistics

• In the site administration page, we have options for– Viewing site usage

• Who have accessed the site• When the site has been accessed• How many hits have been there for this site

– Viewing site quota• How much space available for a site• How many users can be created for a site• How many users have been added• How many space has been used, by which module etc

Web Parts• Web parts enhance the site’s functionality• They are all additional component that can be

added to the site• We can add custom parts to the site• Custom parts can be created using visual studio

and they can be saved as dwp files• Search, Browse, Upload are few of the available

web parts• They can be added by administrator, using Site

Settings -> Add Web Parts link

Anonymous Access

• Go to Sharepoint administration console• Click on Anonymous Access setting• Give the portal name for which

anonymous access need to be given• Check the Allow Anonymous Access

check box and give OK• We need to be careful before giving

anonymous access as anyone will be able to crawl through the site content

Intranet / Extranet setting• We can give separate intranet name or extranet

name for the portal site• Click on Configure Site settings for intranet /

extranet access on the central administration page

• Give the sharepoint url for the default url• Give names for intranet (inside a company),

extranet (outside a company) accesses and give Ok

• Now we can access the portal site using the new names given

Back up and Restore

• There is a sharepoint Back Up – Restore utility that allows us to take back up of a sharepoint database, portal site and restore the same in another machine or in the same machine in case of any calamity

• This is for disaster recovery

Back Up

• The available components are listed and we can select a component and take a back up.

• Back up will create two files – XML configuration file that tells about the server from which back up was taken, status of the operation etc

• Back up file with an extension SPB (Share Point Backup) that has the data

Restore

• Available components that are ready for restore will be listed

• We need to mention a configuration file (XML file) to restore

• Once the information about XML file is given and component for restore is selected, restore will begin

• The status will be communicated to the administrator

Back up / Restore Command line utility

• The following tool comes along with sharepoint• They are located in the bin folder in the path

where sharepoint is installed– Spsbackup : takes back up of all sites and dbs– Spsadm : takes back up of windows sharepoint

service site collections– Smigrate : migration and upgradation tool used for

migrating database or portal site from one system to another or from one version to another

Third Party Recovery tool• Veritas – Back Up Exec10.0

– Sharepoint server level back up• CA – Brightstor ARC Serve Back Up

– Back up and restore of sharepoint db hosted on various SQL server across enterprise

– Advanced document level back up and restore support• Ave Point – DocAve

– Item level back up and restore• CommVault – GA – Galaxy

– SPS 2003 DB level backup and recovery– Webstore back up and support