Performing SharePoint 2010 Installations (part 4)

Click Close on the Run Configuration Wizard page of the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard or run Psconfigui.exe, and you are presented with the Configuration Wizard Welcome page shown in Figure 16.

Click Next on the Installation Configuration Welcome page to see the dialog box shown in Figure 17, which indicates that three services may have to be started or reset during the configuration.

Note:

The notification that some services may need to be started or reset does not present issues if you are working with a new, dedicated Web server. However, if your server is currently serving other websites, restarting the Web services will disrupt services, which may be unacceptable during certain times. If this is the case, you’ll need to perform this action during off hours. Also, it is highly recommended that you check network connectivity and DNS resolution from the server to the SQL server prior to running the wizard.

If you choose to continue with the installation by clicking Yes, you will see the next page in the wizard, which determines if you are building a new farm or performing an installation on a server that will be joining an existing farm. Your response here affects what you see on the following pages. Select the option Create A New Server Farm on the page shown in Figure 18.

When building a new farm during a complete installation, you will see additional prompts that provide you with more control over the build and configuration of your SharePoint farm. As you can see in Figure 19, you can specify the name of the database server and optionally, the SQL Server instance name, if you don’t want to use the default instance on that database server. This database server will host both the Central Administration database and the farm configuration database. You can modify the farm configuration database name, which by default is called SharePoint_Config.

To create the databases on this database server, you need to have the appropriate permissions in SQL Server and the appropriate firewall ports must be opened as discussed in the article located at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/968872. In the lower half of the page, you specify the account that has the required permissions to create the databases.

Next, you are asked for a passphrase, as shown in Figure 20. This passphrase is used to encrypt SharePoint configuration information and is also required when you add or remove servers from the farm.

Note:

This is a critical passphrase, and you should document and secure it for future farm configurations. This passphrase can be changed from within Central Administration, so as a reminder, you want to limit the number of users who have farm administration permissions and access to Central Administration.

The passphrase you specify must meet the Active Directory password requirements, which by default require that the passphrase contain a minimum of eight characters and at least three of the following four character groups.

• English uppercase characters (A through Z)

• English lowercase characters (a through z)

• Numerals (0 through 9)

• Nonalphabetic characters (such as $,%,#,!)

Unlike in the Standalone installation of SharePoint 2010, you can override the randomly generated Central Administration port number on the Configure SharePoint Central Administration Web Application page shown in Figure 21. The installation will still generate a port number for you, but in the Complete installation, you can select the Specify Port Number check box on the page and enter a port number of your choice.

Note:

BEST PRACTICES When choosing a port number, choose one that you will easily remember in case you have to reinstall Central Administration; that way, you will be able to use the same port number. You can choose a port number between 1 and 65,535; however, you should choose a port number greater than 2048 to avoid any conflicts with default port numbers that Microsoft uses for specific communication purposes.

You also can choose between NTLM and Kerberos as the authentication provider for user authentication when connecting to the farm. The recommended authentication provider is Kerberos, but be aware that there are some extra steps required to complete the configuration of Kerberos authentication. Choose NTLM during the installation—it is the default authentication provider—and if Kerberos is needed, you can configure it after the installation. This allows you to perform a simple installation of SharePoint 2010 and then configure the more advanced options after the installation has been completed successfully.

Make any modifications to the SharePoint Central Administration Web Application page and click Next to display the page shown in Figure 22, which is a summary of the responses you provided as you walked through the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard. Review it carefully. If it is correct, click Next and the SharePoint farm and Central Administration configuration will be created using this information.

If there is anything on this summary page that you want to revise, click the Back button the appropriate number of times to return you to the page that you want to modify and make the change. After doing so, click Next until you return to the summary page. Take one final look at the summary and click Next to complete the farm and Central Administration build.

While the farm is being built, you will see a progress page, shown in Figure 23, that provides information about what is taking place throughout the farm, so you can track the progress of the SharePoint farm and Central Administration build.

It is a good idea to monitor this progress page so that if an error does occur, you will know what step the build process was in when it failed, which will simplify the troubleshooting process. However, if the Configuration Wizard does fail, it will provide you information on why it failed as well as a link to a log file that will contain all the steps taken during the configuration process. More importantly, it will tell you what caused the Configuration Wizard to fail.

After the farm has been successfully built, you will see another summary page, shown in Figure 24. This page gives you the same information you saw in Figure 22, but in this case, it tells you that the information was used to successfully complete the farm build.

Note:

BEST PRACTICES Make a screen shot of the page shown in Figure 24 and print and file it so that if someone inherits the SharePoint farm later on, they will know how the farm was initially built.

After the farm configuration completes successfully, SharePoint will automatically connect you to Central Administration and present the page shown in Figure 25.

The Initial Farm Configuration Wizard start page that displays in Central Administration asks if you want to perform some additional tasks for your SharePoint farm. These include such tasks as creating, starting, and registering the most common SharePoint 2010 Service Applications and creating a top-level website. At this point, rather than running this configuration wizard, the recommendation is that you choose the option to configure everything yourself at a later time. You have more flexibility when creating and configuring the services individually rather than using the Farm Configuration Wizard. You can run the Farm Configuration Wizard from within Central Administration at a later time.

When you select the option to configure everything yourself later, the Help Make SharePoint Better page displays as shown in Figure 26. This page asks you to sign up for the customer experience improvement program that automatically uploads error reports to Microsoft. (If you do not want to participate in this program, you must choose the option No, I Don’t Wish To Participate.) After clicking the OK button, you will be returned to the Configure Your SharePoint Farm page.

If you choose not to run the SharePoint Farm Configuration Wizard but instead wait to configure everything individually as recommended, the installation of SharePoint and Central Administration is complete, and you will see the home page of Central Administration displayed as shown in Figure 27.

After installing a Complete edition of SharePoint 2010, if you use SQL Server Management Studio, you will see the two databases shown in Figure 28 that are automatically created for you during a Complete installation.