[OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
There is no issues if you restore you farm backup to single SharePoint instance. It will work fine. It's common scenario when you design you Disaster Recovery (DR) box, and you don't need farm there - only single instance. So you restore your backup there and set up SQL mirroring. There is no OOTB way to backup content selectively and omit some files. What you can try to do is to copy your content into new content DB and remove content of doc libraries there Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Noone Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 10:40 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site Hi Michael, Sorry to pick up an old thread but I'm just getting ready to backup/restore our production environment to development in order to have a current version to work with. Is the GUI-based Farm backup in Central Administration smart enough to recognise different farm topology, configurations, paths, domains, ports etc., and update them? Having not gone down this road before I'm finding the unknown more than a little frightening. Also, does anyone know of a method to selectively backup content - i.e. _without_ the content in document libraries? Regards, Paul Online Developer, ICT CEO Sydney From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Nemtsev Sent: Saturday, 11 October 2008 11:04 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site What's the reason for this, why u need to copy the whole environment? Because usually you are doing it vice versa, from development to production Just make a whole farm backup on production box and restore on your box via OOTB backup/restore Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ken Zheng Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 3:26 PM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] create SharePoint development same as production site Hi All: Just want to find out what you guys do to copy the production site to the development machine, is backup/restore or import/export site or some other better way. Cheers Ken --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com
Re: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
I have been using backup/restore for deployment between different environments and then I found this *Be aware that backup/restore of MOSS content databases between server farms are not fully supported! Official documentation of this support limitation is currently in the works. The supported way to transfer content between server farms is to use STSADM -o export/import or content deployment. Backup/restore is only supported for the same server farm* ** * http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2008/03/12/common-error-situation-with-when-using-backup-restore-to-transfer-a-database-to-a-new-farm-on-moss-2007.aspx * ** *Though I haven't had the error in the above post so far and have deployed about 15 web applications so far...* ** ** On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 9:09 PM, Michael Nemtsev [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is no issues if you restore you farm backup to single SharePoint instance. It will work fine. It's common scenario when you design you Disaster Recovery (DR) box, and you don't need farm there – only single instance. So you restore your backup there and set up SQL mirroring. There is no OOTB way to backup content selectively and omit some files. What you can try to do is to copy your content into new content DB and remove content of doc libraries there *Michael Nemtsev *|* *WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Paul Noone *Sent:* Tuesday, November 18, 2008 10:40 AM *To:* listserver@ozMOSS.com *Subject:* [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site Hi Michael, Sorry to pick up an old thread but I'm just getting ready to backup/restore our production environment to development in order to have a current version to work with. Is the GUI-based Farm backup in Central Administration smart enough to recognise different farm topology, configurations, paths, domains, ports etc., and update them? Having not gone down this road before I'm finding the unknown more than a little frightening. Also, does anyone know of a method to selectively backup content – i.e. _* without*_ the content in document libraries? Regards, Paul Online Developer, ICT CEO Sydney *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Michael Nemtsev *Sent:* Saturday, 11 October 2008 11:04 AM *To:* listserver@ozMOSS.com *Subject:* [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site What's the reason for this, why u need to copy the whole environment? Because usually you are doing it vice versa, from development to production Just make a whole farm backup on production box and restore on your box via OOTB backup/restore * * *Michael Nemtsev *|* *WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *From:* [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] *On Behalf Of *Ken Zheng *Sent:* Friday, October 10, 2008 3:26 PM *To:* listserver@ozMOSS.com *Subject:* [OzMOSS] create SharePoint development same as production site Hi All: Just want to find out what you guys do to copy the production site to the development machine, is backup/restore or import/export site or some other better way. Cheers Ken --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com
RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
I never had issues which Stefan described. I believe it will be fixed with the SP2 Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ajay Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 8:53 PM To: listserver@ozmoss.com Subject: Re: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site I have been using backup/restore for deployment between different environments and then I found this Be aware that backup/restore of MOSS content databases between server farms are not fully supported! Official documentation of this support limitation is currently in the works. The supported way to transfer content between server farms is to use STSADM -o export/import or content deployment. Backup/restore is only supported for the same server farm http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2008/03/12/common-error-situation-with-when-using-backup-restore-to-transfer-a-database-to-a-new-farm-on-moss-2007.aspx Though I haven't had the error in the above post so far and have deployed about 15 web applications so far... On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 9:09 PM, Michael Nemtsev [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is no issues if you restore you farm backup to single SharePoint instance. It will work fine. It's common scenario when you design you Disaster Recovery (DR) box, and you don't need farm there - only single instance. So you restore your backup there and set up SQL mirroring. There is no OOTB way to backup content selectively and omit some files. What you can try to do is to copy your content into new content DB and remove content of doc libraries there Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Paul Noone Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 10:40 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site Hi Michael, Sorry to pick up an old thread but I'm just getting ready to backup/restore our production environment to development in order to have a current version to work with. Is the GUI-based Farm backup in Central Administration smart enough to recognise different farm topology, configurations, paths, domains, ports etc., and update them? Having not gone down this road before I'm finding the unknown more than a little frightening. Also, does anyone know of a method to selectively backup content - i.e. _without_ the content in document libraries? Regards, Paul Online Developer, ICT CEO Sydney From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Michael Nemtsev Sent: Saturday, 11 October 2008 11:04 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site What's the reason for this, why u need to copy the whole environment? Because usually you are doing it vice versa, from development to production Just make a whole farm backup on production box and restore on your box via OOTB backup/restore Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Ken Zheng Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 3:26 PM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] create SharePoint development same as production site Hi All: Just want to find out what you guys do to copy the production site to the development machine, is backup/restore or import/export site or some other better way. Cheers Ken --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.comhttp://mailenable.com/ --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.comhttp://mailenable.com/ --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.comhttp://mailenable.com/ --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.comhttp://mailenable.com/ --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back
RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
My central administration backup feature was riddled with errors, with lots of incorrect content databases and paths. So I've done a clean install of SP2007 on a new server and selected which sites I wanted to transfer, as I was working on a dev environment anyway. I found that the tool used in SPDesigner 2007 was pretty handy for smaller sites which hardly had any customisation. I had a customer database which was being built but and the stsadm export tool worked like a charm. But now I have a working server and farm, I'll try out backing up and restoring a site using central administration and get back to you guys with what I have found My only grovel with this process is that any customised list, data forms or views created are not replicated exactly on the production/migration site. I'll need to go through each site to make sure that the look and feel is a-ok. From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:14:05 +1100Subject: RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site I never had issues which Stefan described. I believe it will be fixed with the SP2 Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVPReadify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of AjaySent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 8:53 PMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Re: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site I have been using backup/restore for deployment between different environments and then I found this Be aware that backup/restore of MOSS content databases between server farms are not fully supported! Official documentation of this support limitation is currently in the works. The supported way to transfer content between server farms is to use STSADM -o export/import or content deployment. Backup/restore is only supported for the same server farm http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2008/03/12/common-error-situation-with-when-using-backup-restore-to-transfer-a-database-to-a-new-farm-on-moss-2007.aspx Though I haven't had the error in the above post so far and have deployed about 15 web applications so far... On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 9:09 PM, Michael Nemtsev [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is no issues if you restore you farm backup to single SharePoint instance. It will work fine. It's common scenario when you design you Disaster Recovery (DR) box, and you don't need farm there – only single instance. So you restore your backup there and set up SQL mirroring. There is no OOTB way to backup content selectively and omit some files.What you can try to do is to copy your content into new content DB and remove content of doc libraries there Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVPReadify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul NooneSent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 10:40 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site Hi Michael, Sorry to pick up an old thread but I'm just getting ready to backup/restore our production environment to development in order to have a current version to work with. Is the GUI-based Farm backup in Central Administration smart enough to recognise different farm topology, configurations, paths, domains, ports etc., and update them? Having not gone down this road before I'm finding the unknown more than a little frightening. Also, does anyone know of a method to selectively backup content – i.e. _without_ the content in document libraries? Regards,Paul Online Developer, ICTCEO Sydney From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael NemtsevSent: Saturday, 11 October 2008 11:04 AMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site What's the reason for this, why u need to copy the whole environment? Because usually you are doing it vice versa, from development to production Just make a whole farm backup on production box and restore on your box via OOTB backup/restore Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVPReadify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ken ZhengSent: Friday, October 10, 2008 3:26 PMTo: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [OzMOSS] create SharePoint development same as production site Hi All: Just want to find out what you guys do to copy the production site to the development machine, is backup/restore or import/export site or some other better way. Cheers Ken --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject.Powered by mailenable.com
RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
You will find those errors during backup/restore. So, it will be clear if OOTB backup works or not. I would not recommend using STSADM -o export/import till you have no problems with UI tools There are no issues with export/import command, but it's very error-proned approach, and you should know how to do it correctly. Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ajay Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 5:45 AM To: listserver@ozmoss.com Subject: Re: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site My worry is that will deploying with backup/restore make it unsupported as Stefan post says. I will be finishing with the client soon, don't want him to get problems with MS Support later in case anything happens On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Michael Nemtsev [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I never had issues which Stefan described. I believe it will be fixed with the SP2 Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Ajay Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 8:53 PM To: listserver@ozmoss.commailto:listserver@ozmoss.com Subject: Re: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site I have been using backup/restore for deployment between different environments and then I found this Be aware that backup/restore of MOSS content databases between server farms are not fully supported! Official documentation of this support limitation is currently in the works. The supported way to transfer content between server farms is to use STSADM -o export/import or content deployment. Backup/restore is only supported for the same server farm http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2008/03/12/common-error-situation-with-when-using-backup-restore-to-transfer-a-database-to-a-new-farm-on-moss-2007.aspx Though I haven't had the error in the above post so far and have deployed about 15 web applications so far... On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 9:09 PM, Michael Nemtsev [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is no issues if you restore you farm backup to single SharePoint instance. It will work fine. It's common scenario when you design you Disaster Recovery (DR) box, and you don't need farm there - only single instance. So you restore your backup there and set up SQL mirroring. There is no OOTB way to backup content selectively and omit some files. What you can try to do is to copy your content into new content DB and remove content of doc libraries there Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Paul Noone Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 10:40 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site Hi Michael, Sorry to pick up an old thread but I'm just getting ready to backup/restore our production environment to development in order to have a current version to work with. Is the GUI-based Farm backup in Central Administration smart enough to recognise different farm topology, configurations, paths, domains, ports etc., and update them? Having not gone down this road before I'm finding the unknown more than a little frightening. Also, does anyone know of a method to selectively backup content - i.e. _without_ the content in document libraries? Regards, Paul Online Developer, ICT CEO Sydney From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Michael Nemtsev Sent: Saturday, 11 October 2008 11:04 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site What's the reason for this, why u need to copy the whole environment? Because usually you are doing it vice versa, from development to production Just make a whole farm backup on production box and restore on your box via OOTB backup/restore Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Ken Zheng Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 3:26 PM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] create SharePoint development same as production site Hi All: Just want to find out what you guys do to copy the production site to the development machine, is backup/restore or import/export
RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
Having now tried several tests through UI (and received only errors) and STSADM (and seen the hell that breaks loose afterwards) I've gone down Uzma's path of only backing up individual sites and restoring to dev as required for testing and development. Hardly ideal. With publishing sites (and quite possibly WSS w/ publishing enabled) this still requires running custom STSADM commands and other fixes to correct page layout paths (break page settings), CQWP queries, hundreds of hard-coded links within web part fields or pages (because MOSS wouldn't allow a relative URL!) and more. And let's not forget about the lack of support for tasks and workflows. I cannot get over the sheer amount of hard paths and absolute URLs that MOSS uses. That simple environment variables or tokens for {siteroot}, {site}, {_layout} etc., are not used simply amazes me. It's insulting enough to pay this much for a product and then be left with a command line tool for all these operations, but to the have this many problems with something as simple as a backup and restore operation... Why would it have be so hard to create a web-based GUI for theses (and other) essential daily tasks that allowed a bit more control over the various parameters and managed syntax while also providing a Test mode for the less brazen? Thank God for the generous and talented souls out there who have filled this black hole of omissions with their own tools and scripts. [Sorry, Ishai, if I beat you to today's rant. ;)] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Nemtsev Sent: Wednesday, 19 November 2008 8:06 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site You will find those errors during backup/restore. So, it will be clear if OOTB backup works or not. I would not recommend using STSADM -o export/import till you have no problems with UI tools There are no issues with export/import command, but it's very error-proned approach, and you should know how to do it correctly. Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ajay Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 5:45 AM To: listserver@ozmoss.com Subject: Re: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site My worry is that will deploying with backup/restore make it unsupported as Stefan post says. I will be finishing with the client soon, don't want him to get problems with MS Support later in case anything happens On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Michael Nemtsev [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I never had issues which Stefan described. I believe it will be fixed with the SP2 Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Ajay Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 8:53 PM To: listserver@ozmoss.commailto:listserver@ozmoss.com Subject: Re: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site I have been using backup/restore for deployment between different environments and then I found this Be aware that backup/restore of MOSS content databases between server farms are not fully supported! Official documentation of this support limitation is currently in the works. The supported way to transfer content between server farms is to use STSADM -o export/import or content deployment. Backup/restore is only supported for the same server farm http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2008/03/12/common-error-situation-with-when-using-backup-restore-to-transfer-a-database-to-a-new-farm-on-moss-2007.aspx Though I haven't had the error in the above post so far and have deployed about 15 web applications so far... On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 9:09 PM, Michael Nemtsev [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is no issues if you restore you farm backup to single SharePoint instance. It will work fine. It's common scenario when you design you Disaster Recovery (DR) box, and you don't need farm there - only single instance. So you restore your backup there and set up SQL mirroring. There is no OOTB way to backup content selectively and omit some files. What you can try to do is to copy your content into new content DB and remove content of doc libraries there Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Paul Noone Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 10:40 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint
RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
I didn't realize I had daily rants. Maybe my pills are finally making an impact! From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Noone Sent: Wednesday, 19 November 2008 10:11 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site Having now tried several tests through UI (and received only errors) and STSADM (and seen the hell that breaks loose afterwards) I've gone down Uzma's path of only backing up individual sites and restoring to dev as required for testing and development. Hardly ideal. With publishing sites (and quite possibly WSS w/ publishing enabled) this still requires running custom STSADM commands and other fixes to correct page layout paths (break page settings), CQWP queries, hundreds of hard-coded links within web part fields or pages (because MOSS wouldn't allow a relative URL!) and more. And let's not forget about the lack of support for tasks and workflows. I cannot get over the sheer amount of hard paths and absolute URLs that MOSS uses. That simple environment variables or tokens for {siteroot}, {site}, {_layout} etc., are not used simply amazes me. It's insulting enough to pay this much for a product and then be left with a command line tool for all these operations, but to the have this many problems with something as simple as a backup and restore operation... Why would it have be so hard to create a web-based GUI for theses (and other) essential daily tasks that allowed a bit more control over the various parameters and managed syntax while also providing a Test mode for the less brazen? Thank God for the generous and talented souls out there who have filled this black hole of omissions with their own tools and scripts. [Sorry, Ishai, if I beat you to today's rant. ;)] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Nemtsev Sent: Wednesday, 19 November 2008 8:06 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site You will find those errors during backup/restore. So, it will be clear if OOTB backup works or not. I would not recommend using STSADM -o export/import till you have no problems with UI tools There are no issues with export/import command, but it's very error-proned approach, and you should know how to do it correctly. Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ajay Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 5:45 AM To: listserver@ozmoss.com Subject: Re: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site My worry is that will deploying with backup/restore make it unsupported as Stefan post says. I will be finishing with the client soon, don't want him to get problems with MS Support later in case anything happens On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 11:14 PM, Michael Nemtsev [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I never had issues which Stefan described. I believe it will be fixed with the SP2 Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Ajay Sent: Tuesday, November 18, 2008 8:53 PM To: listserver@ozmoss.commailto:listserver@ozmoss.com Subject: Re: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site I have been using backup/restore for deployment between different environments and then I found this Be aware that backup/restore of MOSS content databases between server farms are not fully supported! Official documentation of this support limitation is currently in the works. The supported way to transfer content between server farms is to use STSADM -o export/import or content deployment. Backup/restore is only supported for the same server farm http://blogs.technet.com/stefan_gossner/archive/2008/03/12/common-error-situation-with-when-using-backup-restore-to-transfer-a-database-to-a-new-farm-on-moss-2007.aspx Though I haven't had the error in the above post so far and have deployed about 15 web applications so far... On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 9:09 PM, Michael Nemtsev [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There is no issues if you restore you farm backup to single SharePoint instance. It will work fine. It's common scenario when you design you Disaster Recovery (DR) box, and you don't need farm there - only single instance. So you restore your backup there and set up SQL mirroring. There is no OOTB way to backup content selectively and omit some files. What you can try to do is to copy your content into new content DB and remove content of doc libraries there Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour
RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
Ø Having now tried several tests through UI (and received only errors) and STSADM (and seen the hell that breaks loose afterwards) Ive gone down Uzmas path of only backing up individual sites and restoring to dev as required for testing and development. Hardly ideal What Errors? Did you deploy the existing features to the new environment, ensure all DLLs are in the right spot/place, etc? Ø With publishing sites (and quite possibly WSS w/ publishing enabled) this still requires running custom STSADM commands and other fixes to correct page layout paths (break page settings), CQWP queries, hundreds of hard-coded links within web part fields or pages (because MOSS wouldnt allow a relative URL!) and more. And lets not forget about the lack of support for tasks and workflows. Sounds more like a issue of someone has instead of using relative paths, used hard paths, Hardly a fault of MOSS. Could you give an example of where MOSS has a hardcoded URL? As I know that this is something they wish to address in upcoming versions. Ø I cannot get over the sheer amount of hard paths and absolute URLs that MOSS uses. That simple environment variables or tokens for {siteroot}, {site}, {_layout} etc., are not used simply amazes me. ~Site, ~SiteCollction, /_layouts (accessible from any path or folder in the URL, i.e. ~Site/_layouts/page.aspx) Ø Its insulting enough to pay this much for a product and then be left with a command line tool for all these operations, but to the have this many problems with something as simple as a backup and restore operation... Backup Restore is not as simple as just export and import, it relies on DLLs, features and solution dependencies. If a dependency is invalid or missing, it will not restore (imo it makes sense). Ø Why would it have be so hard to create a web-based GUI for theses (and other) essential daily tasks that allowed a bit more control over the various parameters and managed syntax while also providing a Test mode for the less brazen? Central Admin under Backup/Restore? Or Item level backup/restore level with DPM? Or even batch script with use of STSADM to run on a schedule. STSADM could of been made to support item level backup/.restore, but the amount of effort/overhead involved in this via a CLI is pretty large, Should the UI have supported it? Yes It should have. Happy to Help, DB From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Noone Sent: Wednesday, 19 November 2008 9:41 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site Having now tried several tests through UI (and received only errors) and STSADM (and seen the hell that breaks loose afterwards) Ive gone down Uzmas path of only backing up individual sites and restoring to dev as required for testing and development. Hardly ideal. With publishing sites (and quite possibly WSS w/ publishing enabled) this still requires running custom STSADM commands and other fixes to correct page layout paths (break page settings), CQWP queries, hundreds of hard-coded links within web part fields or pages (because MOSS wouldnt allow a relative URL!) and more. And lets not forget about the lack of support for tasks and workflows. I cannot get over the sheer amount of hard paths and absolute URLs that MOSS uses. That simple environment variables or tokens for {siteroot}, {site}, {_layout} etc., are not used simply amazes me. Its insulting enough to pay this much for a product and then be left with a command line tool for all these operations, but to the have this many problems with something as simple as a backup and restore operation... Why would it have be so hard to create a web-based GUI for theses (and other) essential daily tasks that allowed a bit more control over the various parameters and managed syntax while also providing a Test mode for the less brazen? Thank God for the generous and talented souls out there who have filled this black hole of omissions with their own tools and scripts. [Sorry, Ishai, if I beat you to todays rant. ;)] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Nemtsev Sent: Wednesday, 19 November 2008 8:06 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site You will find those errors during backup/restore. So, it will be clear if OOTB backup works or not. I would not recommend using STSADM o export/import till you have no problems with UI tools There are no issues with export/import command, but its very error-proned approach, and you should know how to do it correctly. Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ajay Sent: Wednesday, November 19, 2008 5:45 AM
RE: [SPAM] RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
Ages ago I read the blog of a former MS employee who was on the team that did STSADM backup and restore stuff and he stated that the reason site level backup/restore was not supported was that it was too buggy and the feature was removed (because I used to use site level methods with the previous version of SharePoint) The problem is I have not since found the blog, nor the post. Does my description sound familiar to anyone? Has anyone read the post I am referring to? (I read it easily a year ago) From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Daniel Brown Sent: Wednesday, 19 November 2008 8:48 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [SPAM] RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site Ø Why would it have be so hard to create a web-based GUI for theses (and other) essential daily tasks that allowed a bit more control over the various parameters and managed syntax while also providing a Test mode for the less brazen? Central Admin under Backup/Restore? Or Item level backup/restore level with DPM? Or even batch script with use of STSADM to run on a schedule. STSADM could of been made to support item level backup/.restore, but the amount of effort/overhead involved in this via a CLI is pretty large, Should the UI have supported it? Yes It should have. Happy to Help, DB --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com
RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
Hi Daniel, Thanks for taking the time to respond. I've responded inline but think I need to stress here that these are not just my problems. Neither are the problems limited to what's discussed here. This is, after all, just one small facet of administration. Everywhere you look on the web people are complaining about these and other issues, as is evidenced by the arrival of so many third party apps and tools to fill the void. Ø Having now tried several tests through UI (and received only errors) and STSADM (and seen the hell that breaks loose afterwards) I've gone down Uzma's path of only backing up individual sites and restoring to dev as required for testing and development. Hardly ideal What Errors? Did you deploy the existing features to the new environment, ensure all DLL's are in the right spot/place, etc? Trying to perform a simple backup on a single web app I get the following: The backup/restore job failed. In order to rerun the backup/restore the timer job must be deleted from the Timer Job Definitions page. Failure Message: The backup job failed. For more information, see the error log that is located in the backup directory. The essential log info follows. Just to confirm I am logged into the server and CA as the SharePoint Setup account and am only trying to backup our primary web app, not SSO or anything else. Looks like this account doesn't have sufficient access but do you think any of our sys admins can tell what account does? Unfortunately they're even more clueless as to the inner machinations of MOSS than I am. [11/19/2008 2:58:17 PM]: Error: Object SingleSignOn_DB failed in event OnPrepareBackup. For more information, see the error log located in the backup directory. SqlException: Cannot open database SingleSignOn_DB requested by the login. The login failed. Login failed for user 'SYD-CENET\sharepoint.setup'. [19/11/2008 2:58:18 PM]: Error: Object WSS_Content_intranet.ceosyd.catholic.edu.au failed in event OnBackup. For more information, see the error log located in the backup directory. SqlException: Cannot open backup device 'C:\ProdBackups\spbr\0015.bak'. Operating system error 3(error not found). BACKUP DATABASE is terminating abnormally. [11/19/2008 2:58:18 PM]: Completed with 2 errors. [11/19/2008 2:58:18 PM]: Error: Backup failed for Object WSS_Content_intranet.ceosyd.catholic.edu.au failed in event OnBackup. For more information, see the error log located in the backup directory. I'd do a sitecollection backup but it's too large for that as I can't exclude the doc library content. (My main gripe.) Being unable to change the regional settings in CA in a supported way is another. I mean did someone just forget to include the link to regionalsetng.aspx? :) Ø With publishing sites (and quite possibly WSS w/ publishing enabled) this still requires running custom STSADM commands and other fixes to correct page layout paths (break page settings), CQWP queries, hundreds of hard-coded links within web part fields or pages (because MOSS wouldn't allow a relative URL!) and more. And let's not forget about the lack of support for tasks and workflows. Sounds more like a issue of someone has instead of using relative paths, used hard paths, Hardly a fault of MOSS. Could you give an example of where MOSS has a hardcoded URL? As I know that this is something they wish to address in upcoming versions. For layout pages these paths are not set by an end-user. We're talking about internal paths to content in the master page gallery set by SharePoint. This will actually prevent editing Page Settings for any page in the collection. As for other paths, I'm referring to a number of fields (e.g. Send To...) which do not allow a relative path. Of all the fields in SharePoint to have validation applied, they go and stick it the ones that don't require it. I'm also referring to breakages within the Content Query Web Part (and others based on it) that require reconfiguring, especially if they've been in any way customised. There are also others that escape me now. Ø I cannot get over the sheer amount of hard paths and absolute URLs that MOSS uses. That simple environment variables or tokens for {siteroot}, {site}, {_layout} etc., are not used simply amazes me. ~Site, ~SiteCollction, /_layouts (accessible from any path or folder in the URL, i.e. ~Site/_layouts/page.aspx) As per a number of recent posts on this it's been established that none of these can be used, neither in any of the locations mentioned above, nor in any useful way within a layout page. A choice example follows: a href=~sitecollection/SiteDirectory/SitesList/NewForm.aspx?Source=~sitecollection%2FSiteDirectory%2FPages%2Fcategory%2EaspxAdd Site/a Ø It's insulting enough to pay this much for a product and then be left with a command line tool for all these operations, but to the have this many problems with something as simple as a backup and
[OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
Hi Michael, Sorry to pick up an old thread but I'm just getting ready to backup/restore our production environment to development in order to have a current version to work with. Is the GUI-based Farm backup in Central Administration smart enough to recognise different farm topology, configurations, paths, domains, ports etc., and update them? Having not gone down this road before I'm finding the unknown more than a little frightening. Also, does anyone know of a method to selectively backup content - i.e. _without_ the content in document libraries? Regards, Paul Online Developer, ICT CEO Sydney From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Nemtsev Sent: Saturday, 11 October 2008 11:04 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site What's the reason for this, why u need to copy the whole environment? Because usually you are doing it vice versa, from development to production Just make a whole farm backup on production box and restore on your box via OOTB backup/restore Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ken Zheng Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 3:26 PM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] create SharePoint development same as production site Hi All: Just want to find out what you guys do to copy the production site to the development machine, is backup/restore or import/export site or some other better way. Cheers Ken --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com
RE: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
Ø Is the GUI-based Farm backup in Central Administration smart enough to recognise different farm topology, configurations, paths, domains, ports etc., and update them? Having not gone down this road before Im finding the unknown more than a little frightening. No, As far as I know, its exactly the same process as stsadmn o backup/restore just with a GUI. I may be wrong on this... anyone able to clarify? (Sorry, I just use CLI) Ø Also, does anyone know of a method to selectively backup content i.e. _without_ the content in document libraries? I believe Microsoft Data Protection Manager is able to do this, although I have not tried or tested it. -DB From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Paul Noone Sent: Tuesday, 18 November 2008 10:10 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site Hi Michael, Sorry to pick up an old thread but Im just getting ready to backup/restore our production environment to development in order to have a current version to work with. Is the GUI-based Farm backup in Central Administration smart enough to recognise different farm topology, configurations, paths, domains, ports etc., and update them? Having not gone down this road before Im finding the unknown more than a little frightening. Also, does anyone know of a method to selectively backup content i.e. _without_ the content in document libraries? Regards, Paul Online Developer, ICT CEO Sydney From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Michael Nemtsev Sent: Saturday, 11 October 2008 11:04 AM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site Whats the reason for this, why u need to copy the whole environment? Because usually you are doing it vice versa, from development to production Just make a whole farm backup on production box and restore on your box via OOTB backup/restore Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ken Zheng Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 3:26 PM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] create SharePoint development same as production site Hi All: Just want to find out what you guys do to copy the production site to the development machine, is backup/restore or import/export site or some other better way. Cheers Ken --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com
[OzMOSS] RE: create SharePoint development same as production site
What's the reason for this, why u need to copy the whole environment? Because usually you are doing it vice versa, from development to production Just make a whole farm backup on production box and restore on your box via OOTB backup/restore Michael Nemtsev | WSS MCTS, MS MVP Readify B: http://msmvps.com/blogs/laflour/ T: +61 424 184 978 E: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ken Zheng Sent: Friday, October 10, 2008 3:26 PM To: listserver@ozMOSS.com Subject: [OzMOSS] create SharePoint development same as production site Hi All: Just want to find out what you guys do to copy the production site to the development machine, is backup/restore or import/export site or some other better way. Cheers Ken --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com --- OzMOSS.com - to unsubscribe from this list, send a message back to the list with 'unsubscribe' as the subject. Powered by mailenable.com