Changing SharePoint Service Accounts via stsadm

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838

We had a customer that needed to change the Service Accounts within their farm due to an employee leaving the company. This can be easily performed by using the STSADM command line tool. See Microsoft KB link above.

1) From the Command prompt on the Server that is hosting Central Administration on the farm, run the following command:
stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin DomainName\UserName -password NewPassword

2) Then on all other SharePoint servers in the farm run the following command:

stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin DomainName\UserName -password NewPassword -local

3) Run an IISRESET /noforce

Then you will need to run a series of commands for the other service accounts that your environment is using.


4.) Update the password for the application pool account that is used by Web applications on the server farm. To do this, type the following line at a command prompt on every server on the server farm, and then press ENTER:
stsadm -o updateaccountpassword -userlogin DomainName\UserName -password NewPassword -noadmin

5.)Update the password for the account that is used to run the Windows SharePoint Services Help Search service. To do this, type the following line at a command prompt on every server on the server farm, and then press ENTER:
stsadm.exe -o spsearch -farmserviceaccount DomainName\UserName -farmservicepassword NewPassword

6.)Update the password for the default content access account that is used by the Windows SharePoint Services Help Search service. To do this, type the following line at a command prompt on every server on the server farm, and then press ENTER:
stsadm.exe -o spsearch -farmcontentaccessaccount DomainName\UserName -farmcontentaccesspassword NewPassword


7.) If you are running SharePoint Server 2007, you must also follow these steps:
a.
Update the password for the account that is used by every Shared Services Provider (SSP) on the server farm. To do this, type the following line at a command prompt on every server on the server farm, and then press ENTER:
stsadm.exe -o editssp -title SharedServicesProviderName -ssplogin DomainName\UserName -ssppassword NewPassword
b.
Update the password for the account that is used to run the Office SharePoint Server Search service. To do this, type the following line at the command prompt, and then press ENTER:
stsadm.exe -o osearch -farmserviceaccount DomainName\UserName -farmservicepassword NewPassword
c.
If the server farm is configured to use single sign-on, update the password for the account that is used by the Microsoft Single Sign-On Service. To do this, follow these steps:
1.
Click Operations in SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration, and then click Service accounts under Security Configuration.
2.
Under Windows service, click Single Sign-On Service.
3.
Under Configurable, specify the password, and then click OK.
d.
Update the password for the default content access account that is used by the Office SharePoint Server Search service. To do this, follow these steps:
1.
Open SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration, and then click the link to the SSP Web application under Shared Services Administration.
2.
Under Search, click Search settings, and then click Default content access account.
3.
Specify the password to use for the content access account, and then click OK.

Hope this information helps, also the KB link has a script if anyone needs to script this as part of their security plan on a quarterly or such basis.

SharePoint Alerts- Users get confirmation email, but no Alerts

SharePoint Alerts not working properly, the users get confirmation email, but they do not receive any alerts.
There could be several reasons for this happening, in the case I worked on we had previously recreated the WFE servers for a medium farm and everything looked OK after testing, but once users tried to configure new alerts, this issue appeared.

First thing to do is check to see if there is a "Immediate Alerts" SharePoint timer job definition, if there isn't one use the following commands to create one.

stsadm.exe -o setproperty -url http://SERVERURL -pn alerts-enabled -pv true
stsadm.exe -o setproperty -url http://SERVERURL -pn job-immediate-alerts -pv "every 5 minutes"

Restart the SharePoint Timer Service after completing this.

Still not working? Determine which account is running the SharePoint Timer Service and make sure this account is added to the SharePoint Administrators Group (Central Administration\Operations\Security Configuratio\Update SharePoint Administration Group.)
Also check to see if that Timer Service account has access to the Content Database on the SQL server.

Feature 'GUID' for list template 'XXX' is not installed in this farm. The operation could not be completed

Feature 'GUID' for list template 'XXX' is not installed in this farm. The operation could not be completed.
We had a client receiving this message when accessing a site, and clicking Site Actions/Manage Content and Structure.
Thanks to Fadi Noja for the resolution:
Install the Application Template Core Solution into the farm.

Link to Application Template Core Solution from Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=C1039E13-94DA-4D7D-8CAE-3B96FA5A4045&displaylang=en

How to Install the Application Template Core solution (from Microsoft TechNet)
1. Download the Application Template Core solution to the server.
2. Double-click the .exe file to extract the files.
3. Open a Command Prompt window.
Note:

To open a Command Prompt window, click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click Command Prompt.
4. Type stsadm -o addsolution -filename \ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp, where is the location you extracted the Application Template Core files to, and then press ENTER.
5. Type stsadm -o deploysolution -name ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp -allowgacdeployment, and then press ENTER.
Note:

Additional attributes may be required based on your Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 configuration. For more information about available attributes, type stsadm -help deploysolution, and then press ENTER.
6. Type stsadm -o copyappbincontent, and then press ENTER.

SharePoint Admin Task list

Being a former SP admin, many clients have questions on what to do on a daily\weekly basis for SharePoint from a general function standpoint. I have come up with the following steps as a guide to help first time admins get an idea on how to handle their environment. This is just a rough guide I threw together, but if anyone has any comments, feel free to post.

SharePoint Administrators Task list

Daily:
• Using a browser, connect to the top level sites of all instances of SharePoint within your environment, to ensure they are reachable.
• Log on to all applicable SharePoint servers (Web Front End, Application, Database) to ensure they are running properly. This includes any Development or Staging environments as well. Although checking the overall server health and functionality might seem redundant or elementary, this procedure is critical to keeping the system environment and users working productively.
• Check the IIS functionality on the Web Servers, ensuring that the Web Apps and the Web sites are started. This can be accessed under the Start/Program Files/Administrative Tools/Internet Information Service(IIS) Manager, then highlighting the respective folders for Web Application Pools and Internet Sites. This will bring up a listing of the sites and Web Application Pools on the right side of the MMC console, showing their status as Running, Stopped or Disabled. Restart as necessary.

• If any problems have been reported or have been noticed, check the event logs for the various servers and research the error codes via Microsoft’s Web Site. If there is monitoring Software in place in the environment (such as MOM – Microsoft Operations Manager), set up alerts based on the problem generating alert ID’s so that you can proactively monitor your SharePoint environment.

Weekly:
• Monitor SharePoint Disk space usage through the built in SharePoint reports for each site collection. Depending on space usage and the speed at which the numbers change, use this activity as a chance to clean up duplicate or old data, working with the Site Owner or the individual document owner to free up additional space.
• Hold a Site Owner meeting either weekly or bi-weekly just to make sure all owners are aware of changes to the environment forecasted, or to get their feedback on how to make the SharePoint environment more user friendly.
• Check the backup jobs (can be done daily as well depending on criticality of your environment), make sure the backup files themselves are consistent in size and check the jobs for proper completion.
• Check for Microsoft Patches/Knowledge Base articles for SharePoint/MOSS (RSS Feed for MOSS KB Articles – http://support.microsoft.com/common/rss.aspx?rssid=11373&ln=en-us&msid=d65614f79e70034a979b7832fc125f25)
• Archive Event logs, if necessary.


Monthly/Quarterly
• Monthly - Check for Operating System and SQL Patches. Work with your hardware/virtualization group to ensure that BIOS and Service Packs are applied properly to the Hardware that is running your environment.
• Monthly – Validate backups. Restore a backup to a test environment to ensure that everything is getting backed up.
• Monthly – Update Documentation. Check the validity and accuracy of any documentation that is used by the end users, site owners and Administrators.
• Quarterly- Check long term storage needs based on weekly numbers.
• Quarterly-Change Admin Passwords (Microsoft recommendation)