I've been asked before just how I went about putting this blog together. I've committed to doing a series on building a blog on WSS 3.0 and have finally been able to scrape the time together to get this done.
I'm filing this under my "How do I?" series so as usual there will be *LOTS* of screen prints and step by step guidance to ensure you can recreate the process on your own server. So that said, here are the steps to start the process of building a blog on Windows SharePoint Services 3.0:
- The first and most important component to this whole process is the server itself. You will need a Windows Server 2003 machine to start with. I was fortunate enough to win a copy of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition with 25 CALs at my local SharePoint user's group initial launch meeting. That set me up to be able to setup my server for production level usage. I have an MSDN subscription, but that only covers servers in a DEV environment so the new license was a very welcome addition.
After a fresh install of Windows Server 2003, your server won't have any specific roles assigned to it. When you login to your server as an administrator, you should be greeted by the "Manage Your Server" page.
The first thing we need to do is update our server to ensure we have all the latest security patches applied. Through the Start menu, click "All Programs/Windows Update".
Select and install all critical updates.
Once all updates have been applied, you will need to ensure that the .NET Framework 2.0 is installed on your server. It will be required by SQL Server 2005 Express. Through the Start menu, click "Control Panel/Add or Remove Programs".
You should find the Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 listed. In our example, the SP1 is also listed.
- If you do not have the .NET Framework 2.0 installed, you can download and install it from <<>>
Once you're sure the framework is installed, return to the "Manage Your Server" page.
Click the "Add or remove a role" link toward the top right of the page.
The "Configure Your Server Wizard" springs into action. Click the "Next" button.
Windows will go through the process of detecting your settings and roles. Once complete, a list of available roles will be presented. Select the "Application server (IIS, ASP.NET)" role and click the "Next" button.
The "Application Server Options" page will open. Ensure that:
- FrontPage Server Extensions is NOT selected.
- Enable ASP.NET option IS select.
Click the "Next" button to continue.
The "Summary of Selections" page will load and list your selected options. Click the "Next" button to proceed.
Windows will proceed with the application of your selected options.
Depending on your installation, you might be prompted for the location of the Windows Server 2003 installation media. Insert the disk into the CD/DVD drive and click "OK".
Upon successful configuration of your server, you should be presented with a summary page stating that your server is now configured as an application server. Click the "Finish" button to complete the process.
Windows will return to the "Manage Your Server" page, but this time, "Application Server" should be listed as one of the roles of the server.
- Close the "Manage Your Server" window.
- Download the SQL Server 2005 Express installation package, saving it to a local drive location. In our case, we had created a "Setup" folder on the root of the C:\ drive where we saved our installation files. You could just install WSS 3.0 and elect to have it install SQL Server 2005 Express for you, but the problem with that is that you may experience issues when trying to manage the databases. Additionally, any uninstall of WSS 3.0 could also remove the database component and its data. That may not be a desired effect so we're going to flip flop the process by installing the stand alone, FREE database components first and then simply point WSS to it during its install process thus separating the logical connection between WSS and the database component.
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the location of the "SQLEXPR_ADV.EXE" file.
Double click the "SQLEXPR_ADV.EXE" file. The self-extracting file will begin to unpack its contents.
- After unpacking its contents, the package will automatically launch Setup. You'll be presented with the EULA (End User License Agreement) screen.
- Read the contents of the EULA and ensure that you understand it and agree with it.
- Check the "I accept the license terms and conditions" check box.
Once checked, the "Next" button should become active. Click it to continue.
Setup will begin by checking your server for the prerequisites. Click the "Install" button to install the needed prerequisite files.
You'll be presented with some visual feedback related to installation status.
Once all prerequisites are installed, click the "Next" button to proceed to the next step.
At this point, Setup will load the SQL Server Installation Wizard. Click the "Next" button on the opening screen to continue.
Setup will conduct a System Configuration Check to ensure that your system is capable of running SQL Server. Click the "Next" button if no errors are identified. If you do encounter errors, you will need to abort the installation and address those errors first before continuing.
Next you'll be prompted for the customary Name and Company information. Supply your desired values and click the "Next" button to continue.
- On the Feature Selection screen, you will need to select which features are to be installed, and how. Personally, I prefer to install everything locally. It takes up more space in the short term, but in the long term, it saves me from having to dig around for installation media if I suddenly decide to leverage some functionality that wasn't used before. If you've ever had to dig for your installation media, you KNOW how annoying this can be. Besides, disk space is cheap right? J
- Select the installation location for your files through the use of the "Browse" button. Some administrators like to change these settings to further obscure their server. In our case, we're accepting the default settings.
After selecting your feature settings, click the "Next" button to continue.
On the Authentication Mode screen, you will need to select if you wish to allow SQL Server authentication. The best option to use it Windows Authentication, but if you have some burning desire to also use SQL Server accounts, change your selection accordingly and click the "Next" button to continue.
On the Report Server Installation Options screen, select if you wish the report server to be configured. We're just going to use the default configuration, but if you do not wish to configure the report server at this time, change your selection here. Click the "Next" button to continue.
On the Error and Usage Report Settings screen, select the level of contribution you wish to make. These settings cause privacy concerns which is why you have the option to turn them off here, but sending error and usage information to Microsoft automatically, helps make the product better for everyone so we just checked both and clicked the "Next" button to continue.
Finally, you'll reach the Ready to Install screen. Click the "Install" button to commence your installation.
Setup will provide you with visual progress information as the installation continues. You'll notice that components are not necessarily installed in the sequence they are listed, but it doesn't matter.
Once all components are installed, the "Cancel" button will be disabled and the "Next" button will become enabled. Click the "Next" button to continue.
On the completion screen, you'll be presented with a summary log file as well as some other residual information. Click the "Finish" button to complete the installation.
Your database server components are now installed and you are ready to install WSS, but that we will cover in Part II.
Later
C
|
dit
icio.us
Comments
englantilainen@NOSPAM.hotmail.com
there's no doubt a good reason that I'm missing ...
but why are you installing SQL Server 2005 Express with its 4GB limit rather than using the built-in "Windows Internal Database" with none ?
Or is this going to be a MOSS 2007 rather than a WSS 3.0 installation ?
Mike
http://www.cjvandyk.com/blog
Weighing all these factors, I had to decide which was more important in this case... I chose near term accessibility.
I will probably upgrade to SQL Standard at some point, but for the purpose of a blog, if someone is going to be putting together 4 GB worth of content, they probably don't need me to be telling them how to blog on SharePoint. :)
Thanks for pointing that out though. I appreciate the candid feedback.
Later
C
DC Install
Would there be issues on using a Domain Controller for this? Can the server be both a DC and App server?
Regards
Carlo
http://bobfox.net/spblog
Mike of course had a good point but overall this was a fantastic post. Good work bud
Bob
http://www.cjvandyk.com/blog
http://www.combined-knowledge.com/Downloads%202007.htm
Thanks
C
http://www.cjvandyk.com/blog
Thanks for staying tuned in. I always try to ensure that my content is good and relevant. :)
Later
C
http://rokn180.spaces.live.com/blog
Microsoft specifies, that you should configure surface area to:
- Select Local and Remote Connections, select Using both TCP/IP and named pipes.
and configure collation to:
- The SQL Server database collation must be configured for case-insensitive, accent-sensitive, Kana-sensitive, and width-sensitive. This is to ensure file name uniqueness consistent with the Windows operating system.
This is taken directly from:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/WSS/en/library/f7772626-cc01-4698-9dd8-958e60f7cb201033.mspx?mfr=true
In a demo environment this probably doesn't matter that much, but shouldn't that be done in production environment?
/Robert Knudsen
http://www.cjvandyk.com/blog
As you noted, there are some configuration options that can be set when installing SQL Server. In this case though, in Step 36, we simply installed the default settings which already takes care of all these for us so we didn't need to delve into these.
If you feel adventurous, feel free to play with these settings though...
Later
C