I ve installed sharepoint in server farm environment.Now the URL of central Administration is http://servername : PortNumber.The client wish the URL to be changed to http://abd.def.com : PortNumber.How can we do that,can anyone help me !

Depending on your farm configuration you can do this by creating a DNS enry and host header for abd.def.com: port. If you have central administration running on a single server the dns entry should point to the box. If you have CA running on multiple computers than it is a bit more challenging as you have to use load balancing. Matthew

Hi, Also remember to set alternate adress mappings for central administration to http://abd.def.com: portnumber If you don't do that sharepoint won't respond to the URL.

As in your previous post you were talking about Load Balancing, can you please brief the term in the context of MOSS.

Are you trying to load balance Central Administration? (or do you want to know how to set up load balancing?)

Mainly I wanted to know the concept of Load Balancing in Sharepoint Context, prior to that how to setup load balancing, in sharepoint serverand even to central Administration.

Setting up MOSS is the easy part in NBL (Network Load Balancing). All you have to do is making sure that Default in Alternate Access Mappings has been set to the NBL address. Next you have to configure NBL on all Front-end servers. But that is standard NBL and doesnt really have anything to do with MOSS configuration. See Create and Manage Network Load Balancing Clusters: http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/en/library/119b6ff3-7ed1-4ddf-ab14-4984e76b143d1033.mspx

I have a simalr setup where CA exists on 2 servers, the plan is to remove the original one later on. When using the central admin on the 2nd box it automatically redirects to the first one when changing the SSP for example. How can I ensure this will work when I remove the first server. btw I will HAVE to remove the original one since it is 32 bit and we are moving to 64-bit which the 2nd server is.

The guidance from Microsoft is that it is not a good idea to remove the original server, though they do not indicate what will happen if you do. If you have a small(ish) farm you could disconnect all servers from the farm and then start again from your new 64 bit server. You can script the reconnection and rebuild of the web applications so that you don't lose any of your content databases. Matthew

Can you provide a link to this? What would happen if the FEW with Central Admin Crashes? Would you have to use stsadmin for everything? btw Is loadbalancing the CA any different from "normal" load balancing?

If you use central administration to create a new instance of central administration on another server you will find that the new instance has some problems, most notably that if you open the http://[Host]:[Central Administration Port] address, you get an error, but if you open http://[Host]:[Central Administration Port]/default.aspx central administration opens correctly. Another symptom is that the server registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS\CentralAdministrationURL will point to the wrong server (just changing this manually wont help you though). Instead, use SharePoint Products and Technologies Configuration Wizard to delete the Central Administration site. Use this on ALL servers where you have established a central administration site - Yes, that means ending up with a farm without any central administration sites. Then run the wizard again on the server where you wish to host central administration and recreate the site. This procedure causes the new central administration site to respond on http://[Host]:[Central Administration Port] and SharePoint will automatically update the registry key on all remaining servers in the farm.

We've been looking at this in the context of providing a resilient central administration service, and I'd be interested to know what the feelings are about best practice.I wasn't sure whether or not it was a good idea (or a supported configuration) to run CA on multiple servers - like a lot of people ours is currently running on *one* of the WFEs in the farm. Presumably if you do decide that it's ok to run multiple instances you just run the config wizard on each server individually. I don't see a huge issue with trying to load-balance teh two CA services - if we lose a FEW then the operations team won't have a problem with having to manually connect to a different URL to manage the recovery.We have found that as long as you can get to CA to run the Wizard, moving the service around is not too hard (accepting the standard guidance about not wanting to move it from the initial server unless you have to). The problem comes when you are running CA on only one server and you lose that one. At that point you can run the wizard on another server, but it complains that the CA service is already running elsewhere.We were considering whether it would be enough to remove that application from the farm using stsadm at which point you should be able to run the wizard on a new server, but this seems to conflict with the guidance about not trying to move the default instance.Do other people have a view on the best way of providing a resilient Central Admin service in a farm ?Andy

Yes, you can run a second Central Administration (CA) website on a second server. I don't care what other people are saying, I have done it, and am doing it now. Here are the steps I followed: Use the psconfig.exe command to install the first server (so you can name the database yourself. I hate the default name the wizard uses (Sharepoint Admin Content guid guid guid guid guid guid guid guid guid guid, etc). It's too long. If you need the syntax, do a search on psconfig.exe -cmd -create and you should get the help you need. The basic syntax is: PSCONFIG.EXE -cmd configdb [-create] [-disconnect] [-connect] [-server <SqlServerName>] [-database <SqlDatabaseName>] [-dbuser <value>] [-dbpassword <value>] [-user <Domain\User>] [-password <Password>] [-addomain <value>] [-adorgunit <value>] [-admincontentdatabase <SqlAdminContentDatabaseName>] Now: Run the Sharepoint Products andTechnologies Configuration Wizard on THE FIRST SERVER to finish the installation. Use the psconfig.exe command to connect to the Configuration Database you just created (you don't specify the AdminContentDatabase, you do that later). Again, run the Sharepoint Products andTechnologies Configuration Wizard on THE FIRST SERVER to finish the installation, but on the last step, you will notice an "Advanced" option. Click the "Advanced" Button, and then choose the option for the server to host the Central Administration Website. Let the wizard finish. Once you have finished the installation on both servers, you will notice two things: When you launch CA from either server, it will only connect to the first server. IIS on both servers shows the Sharepoint Central Administration v3 Site. Now, here is the easy part. Go to Central Administration, Operations Tab, and click on Alternate Access mappings. Click on "Edit Public URLs", then choose the drop-down list for "Alternate Access Mapping Collection:". In the list, select "Change Alternate Access Mapping Collection", and in the resulting window, select Central Administration. Now, the Default should already be set to the first server: port combination. Just add in the "Custom" box the address for your SECOND server: port (by the way, the port will always be the same). Now return to the second server, and open regedit.HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\ Web Server Extensions\12.0\WSS. When you highlight the WSS Key, you will see "CentralAdministraionURL" REG_DWORD with the First Server's URL. Change this value to your second server's URL. I also went back to the First Server to check the regedit location to be sure it was the first server. That's it. Now you can get to CA from either Server. Bryant

I have been running two Central Administration Sites in my farm for over a year now. One per web front end server. That worked out well, up to the point where I wanted to install SP1! Now: If you have more than one Central Admin Site in a farm the update to SP1 will fail! We had to find this out the hard way. We're now back to one CA site.

I am sorry that you had problems with the SP1 install, but that wasn't my experience. I am running SP1 in both my lab and production environments, and I followed the steps above to get it to work. I did, however, run into a problem provisioning the Central Administration Virtual Server right after the SP1 install. All I did, was make sure all servers had the binary files (the install before the OK button), then re-installed SP1 again. The "Advanced" option at the end of SP1 allowed me to "Provision" the CA at the end. It did take a little while for the CA Service to come up (which I guess has something to do with the timer service), but after I let the Farm set for a while, it came up just fine. Hopefully you can get your second CA up and working again soon. If I can do it in two (2) separte installations, then I know anyone can do it. Bryant

In all my MOSS 2007 farms I had two CA sites (one on each web server): -Dev (2 Web, 1 SQL) - Test (2 Web, 1 Index, SQL clustered) -Production (2 Web, 1 Index, SQL clustered) When upgrading the dev farm to SP1 the wizard would fail at step two already! The error was "An update conflict has occurred, and you must re-try this action. The object SPWebServiceInstance Name=WSS_Administration Parent=SPServer Name=<servername> is being updated by <domain\account>, in the OWSTIMER process, on machine <servername>. View the tracing log for more information about the conflict." Of course at that time I had no access to CA. So there was no way to simply stop the CA service on one web server. I had tried everything to fake the wizard into believing there was only one CA (stopping all services on the second web server, even turning the second web server off). But of course, to no avail. Even unprovisioning CA using the psconfig tool would fail with the same error. So I had to roll back to the state before the SP1 installation. After rolling back I unprovisioned CA from the second web server using psconfig, and with a few tweaks here and there, I made sure the "Services on Server" page would show only one instance of CA. Then I repeated the SP1 installation and everything ran through perfectly well. Maybe the update to SP1 run through without any problems in my other MOSS farms, but I don't want to risk going through the same procedure again. So for the test and production environments I followed MS' advice and moved CA to the application servers. Bruno

Hi Srikrushna , I have gone through your all the posting over here (MSDN). Can you please help me out that what is the future of Sharepoint , as i am currently doing QA on sharepoint. Waiting for your reply !!!!!! Regards, Sanjit Dikshit

What is psconfig.exe and how do you get to it, or where do you enter it?

You will find it here on your SharePoint server: <system drive>/program files/common files/microsoft shared/web server extensions/12/bin M

Hello Bryant, I followed your instructions on setting up the Central Administration website on the second server and it worked great. I am now trying to start the Windows SharePoint Services Seach service on both. I have done this on the first server with no problem. On the second server though I am specifying the same database as on the first and it won't let me do that. It comes back and says that it already contains user data. Do you have to use two different databases? Lisa

I hope you have already figured this out, but if not, I will try and help. Yes, you need two (2) separate SQL Databases to run two (2) search servers, and with a different SQL Database name. First of all, you have to be sure you only check the "Use this server for indexing content" on ONE of the servers (you can only have one index server). Then, you can leave the "Use this server for serving search queries" checked on both servers if you want (this is assuming you want two search servers). Follow these steps, as if starting after the duel CA Instal instructions have been completed (from my earlier post): On the HOME Tab, click the name of the first server while connected to the first server (i.e. if you are on http://SERVER1:16161 , then click on SERVER1. Then click on "Custom", and then click on "Windows Sharepoint Services Help Search" Fill in the appropriate usernames and passwords for the Service Account and Content Access Account (Microsoft recommends using different accounts) Fill in the Database Server and Database Name (I recommend changing the default name and adding the server name) Change the Indexing schedule if you would like (not required), then click OK Click the "Start" option to the right of the "Windows Sharepoint Services Help Search" - if prompted, re-fill in any security. Click on "Office Sharepoint Server Search". This is where you leave both options checked (Index and Search) -(you can change the options if necessary). Choose OK, then start the service. Now, go to the SECOND SERVER at http://SERVER2:16161 , on the HOME Tab, click SERVER2 Then click on "Custom", and then click on "Windows Sharepoint Services Help Search" Fill in the appropriate usernames and passwords for the Service Account and Content Access Account (Microsoft recommends using different accounts - but they can be the same as SERVER1 Fill in the Database Server and Database Name (I recommend changing the default name and adding the server name - make sure it is different than in step 4) Change the Indexing schedule if you would like (not required), then click OK Click the "Start" option to the right of the "Windows Sharepoint Services Help Search" - if prompted, re-fill in any security. Click on "Office Sharepoint Server Search". This is where you ONLY CHECK the Search queries box. you need onlyspecify the username and password, and if you want, you can even let the program create the Share for you by leaving the default option of "Configure share automatically". Choose OK, then start the service. That's It. Remember, when you setup the one (1) index server the local server (not the SQL server) needs around 25% space available on the Share it creates (if you have a 10 GIG Portal, then you need 2.5 gig of space on the local server. The Search server also takes up quite a bit of space on the local server in the same share location. I think it is as much as 50%. Check MS literature to verify my percentages, I may have them backwards. Good Luck Bryant

After all of that my CA site was only responding to http://IPADDRESS:Port Changing the host header didn't fix it. I had to remove an alternate access mapping, add it again, and then change the host header and we're back. After than I added a certificate and added an SSL port and it is working as before.