I want to automate some stsadm tasks - some manually initiated, some I might put on a schedule.I'm hoping someone can help me out here.Here's what I want toaccomplish:1) Retrieve a list of web apps from a farm2) enum site collections in each web app3) Run stsadm operations on each site collection in the resulting listI am willing to manually update a file (not sure what file type or format) with the web apps list.I know I can dump the results of an enumsites to an xml file, but don't know how to retrieve that info and insert it into a stsadm command.I would prefer suggestions using eitherVBScript orPowerShell as I don't have great skill at C# or VB.Net and want to be able to expand on these ideas in the future. Anyone want to take a crack at this one for me?Thanks.Kevin HughesSharePoint Database AdministratorHNTB Companies

To me... this is sounding more like a windows service than a script. The code to do this is actually quite simple if you have even a little C# or VB.NET skills.You can probably find great examples on the following objects to help along the way: SPSite, SPWeb, SPListThese objects are pretty simple to use. If you decide to go this route and need a couple of resources, let me know.Shannon Bray - MCT, MCPD, MCTS, MCITP

It really just depends on what your goals are (what is that you are wanting to do with each site collection?). PowerShell may be the way to go as it's a lot easier to build and customize and deploy than a windows service (not that a windows service is difficult but if you already have powershell experience that will get you going quicker). Another option would be to build your own stsadm command (would require some c# experience) - there's a codeplex project that I've got that will help get you started if you go this route: http://www.codeplex.com/customstsadmtemplate or you can download my extensions from here: http://stsadm.blogspot.com- it's possible I may already have something that does what you need.

Hi, Here are some useful PowerShell articles and a command pack for your reference: 1. Managing SharePoint with PowerShell, Part 1 (http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/zach/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=7) 2. Managing SharePoint with PowerShell: Part 2 (http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/zach/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=21) 3. PowerShell Pack for SharePoint (http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/psp4sp) However, this is not the best place to discuss programming issues, so If the information cannot satisfy you, I can help you move to the SharePoint - Development and Programming. Hope the information can be helpful. -lambertPosting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

Kevin, Please refer to this blog post http://spadmin.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!F030C52B8E5517C3!347.entry This shows you how to make use of BAT file which takes input from text files and then does some processing using stsadm for each line of input from text file. This is very poweful and i have used it for lot of automation tasks. Sameer Dhoot | http://sharemypoint.in

Hi Kevin,I posted a script a few weeks ago that might be useful:You can download it from here:http://james.milne.com/scripts/SiteWalker.zipInside you will find a script called WalkSites.vbs. In a nutshell it does a STSAdm command to dump the site collections to a sites.xml file then it loops through each one and then executes a STSAdm Export command on each site collection. You can tweak the vbs to get it to run pretty much any command against each site.Hope this helps,Regards,James.

Gary,I use the STSADM extensions you built very often. Thank you so much for all the work put into them. I didn't see anything in your selection, though, that would do what I needed.I am a poor coder when it comes to C# and VB.Net, but do quite well with VBScript and PowerShell (long-time sysadmin who liked to automate). I also need to be able to pass this on to other members of our SharePoint Ops team that are even less savy with coding than I am. I understand the code you wrote, but could not duplicate it.

Lambert,Thank you for the PowerShell links. I love PowerShell, so will probably use as much of what you've refereced as I can.The only issue with it is that my manager doesn't know PowerShell, so not sure how he'll receive it if I work in it. Oh well....will make life easier for a bit.

Kevin, Just being curious, how do u retrieve a list of web apps from a farm? Use the following example to read from an XML. Thanks, Ruben Option Explicit Const SITE_URL = "http://myurl/" Const STSADM = "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\stsadm" dim objShell dim objExec dim strResult dim objXml dim objSc dim objUrl dim strCmd Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Set objExec = objShell.Exec(STSADM & " -o enumsites -url " & SITE_URL) strResult = objExec.StdOut.ReadAll Set objXml = CreateObject("MSXML2.DOMDocument") objXml.LoadXML(strResult) For Each objSc in objXml.DocumentElement.ChildNodes strUrl = objSc.Attributes.GetNamedItem("Url").Text ‘now u have the value from the node “Url” into strUrl ;) Next

I really like this script / solution above all others that I have found I added some code to get some logging, and enumerate alternate domains (web apps) The only thing that needs to be specified is a backup location, and maybe the retention (set for 28 days); On Error Resume Next Dim boolLoggingEnabled strBackupLocation = "F:\backup\Sharepoint" Dim strLogFileName : strLogFileName = strBackupLocation & "\Backup.log" boolLoggingEnabled = True 'Get Date str1 = FormatDateTime(Date, 2) strdate = Replace(str1, "/", Chr(46)) 'Dim BackupFileName Dim strFileName Dim strBackupFileName Dim strBackupLocation Dim sites, site Dim siteCount Dim stsPath Dim strdate Dim strWebApp stsPath = "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN" WScript.Echo "Enumerating Web Apps..." Log "write", strLogFileName, "Enumerating Web Apps..." WScript.Echo " " Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Set oWshScriptExec = oShell.Exec(stsPath & "\stsadm.exe -o enumalternatedomains") Set oStdOut = oWshScriptExec.StdOut sOutput = oStdOut.ReadAll Set xmlDoc = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM") xmlDoc.loadXML(sOutput) CreateFile XMLFileName(SiteURL), xmlDoc.xml WScript.Echo sOutput Set domain = xmlDoc.documentElement.selectSingleNode("//IncomingUrl") domain = Int(siteCount.attributes.getNamedItem("IncomingUrl").text) 'WScript.Echo "SiteCount: " & siteCount Set domains = xmlDoc.documentElement.selectNodes("//IncomingUrl") For Each domain In domains url = domain.text WScript.Echo "Domain: " & url 'Get BackupFileName BackupFileName(url) 'Perform Site (Web Application) Backup Backupsite (url) 'Fetch Site Collections WScript.Echo "Fetching Site Collections for " & url Log "write", strLogFileName, "Fetching Site Collections for " & url Set xmlDoc = CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM") xmlDoc.async = "false" Set stylePI = xmlDoc.createProcessingInstruction("xml-stylesheet", "type=""text/xsl"" href=""sites.xsl""") 'xmlDoc.appendChild(stylePI) xmlDoc.loadXML(GetSitesXML()) xmlDoc.insertBefore stylePI, xmlDoc.firstChild 'xmlDoc.(GetSitesXML()) CreateFile "Default.xml", xmlDoc.xml WScript.Echo xmlDoc.xml Set siteCount = xmlDoc.documentElement.selectSingleNode("//Sites") siteCount = Int(siteCount.attributes.getNamedItem("Count").text) Set sites = xmlDoc.documentElement.selectNodes("//Sites/Site") If (sites.length = siteCount) Then WScript.Echo "Found [" & siteCount & "] Site Collections." Log "write", strLogFileName, "Found [" & siteCount & "] Site Collections." Else WScript.Echo "Fatal Error: Unable to determine the number of site collections; " & sites.length & " does not equal " & siteCount & "." WScript.Quit End If For Each site In sites Dim SubSiteName SubSiteName = site.attributes.getNamedItem("Url").text ProcessSubSite(SubSiteName) Next Next CleanUp Log "write", strLogFileName, "EOF..." 'End ' -------------------- ' - Helper Functions - ' ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ' GetSitesXML() ' This function calls STSAdm to find the Sites Collections listed on http://localhost Function GetSitesXML() Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Set oWshScriptExec = oShell.Exec(stsPath & "\stsadm.exe -o enumsites -url "& url) Set oStdOut = oWshScriptExec.StdOut GetSitesXML = oStdOut.ReadAll End Function ' Backup() ' This function calls STSAdm to find the Sites Collections listed on http://localhost Function ProcessSubSite(SiteURL) 'WScript.Echo "Processing Site: " & Chr(34) & SiteURL & Chr(34) 'Log "write", strLogFileName, "Processing Site: " & Chr(34) & SiteURL & Chr(34) WScript.Echo " " Set oShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell") Set oWshScriptExec = oShell.Exec(stsPath & "\stsadm.exe -o enumsubwebs -url " & Chr(34) & SiteURL & Chr(34)) Set oStdOut = oWshScriptExec.StdOut sOutput = oStdOut.ReadAll Set xmlDoc=CreateObject("Microsoft.XMLDOM") xmlDoc.loadXML(sOutput) CreateFile XMLFileName(SiteURL),xmlDoc.xml WScript.Echo sOutput Set siteCount=xmlDoc.documentElement.selectSingleNode("//Subwebs") siteCount=Int( siteCount.attributes.getNamedItem("Count").text) WScript.Echo "SiteCount: " & siteCount If (siteCount > 0) Then Set SubWebs = xmlDoc.documentElement.selectNodes("//Subwebs/Subweb") For Each SubWeb In SubWebs WScript.Echo "Subweb: " & SubWeb.text If InStr(SubWeb.text, "http://") Then BackupFileName (Subweb.text) Log "write", strLogFileName, "Processing: " & SubWeb.text Log "write", strLogFileName, "Exporting subweb: " & SubWeb.text & " to: " & strBackupLocation & Chr(92) & strBackupFileName Exportsite Subweb.text End If ProcessSubSite( SubWeb.text ) Next End If ProcessSubSite = oWshScriptExec.Status End Function Function Backupsite(strURL) 'Shell "cmd /c stsadm.exe -o setsitelock -url " & strURL & " -lock readonly" Shell "cmd /c stsadm.exe -o backup -url " & strURL & " -filename " & strBackupLocation & Chr(92) & strBackupFileName 'Shell "cmd /c stsadm.exe -o setsitelock -url " & strURL & " -lock none" End Function Function Exportsite(strURL) Shell "cmd /c stsadm.exe -o export -url " & strURL & " -includeusersecurity -filename " & strBackupLocation & Chr(92) & strBackupFileName End Function ' FileName ( strURL ) ' Used to create a _nice_ filename for the backup file. ' Take the strURL and remove bad characters from the string. Function XMLFileName(strURL) XMLFileName= Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace( _ strURL,_ "http://", ""),_ ":", ""),_ " ", "_"),_ "/", "_") &_ ".xml" End Function Function BackupFileName(strURL) strBackupFileName = Replace(Replace(Replace(Replace( _ strURL, _ "http://", ""), _ ":", "_"), _ " ", "_"), _ "/", "_") & _ Chr(95) & strdate & ".cab" End Function Function CleanUp() WScript.Echo " " WScript.Echo "Cleaning Up: " & strBackupLocation & ".." Dim Fso Dim Directory Dim Modified Dim Files Set Fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") Set Directory = Fso.GetFolder(strBackupLocation) Set Files = Directory.Files For Each Modified In Files If DateDiff("D", Modified.DateLastModified, Now) > 28 Then Delete Modified Next 'CreateObject("WScript.Shell").Run("forfiles /P "&strBackupLocation&" /D -"&PurgeDays&" /C "&Chr(3)4&"cmd /c del @Path" & Chr(34)) End Function Sub CreateFile( file, myContent ) Set oFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") path = Mid( file, 1, InStrRev( file, "\" ) ) Set write_file = oFSO.CreateTextFile( file, True) write_file.Write myContent Set write_file = Nothing End Sub Function Shell(command) On Error Resume Next Log "write", strLogFileName, "Running command: " & command Err.Clear Set wshShell = CreateObject("Wscript.Shell") wshShell.Run command, 0, 1 If err.number <> 0 Then Log "write", strLogFileName, "Shell error: " & err.Description End If Set wshShell = Nothing End Function Function Delete(targetfile) On Error Resume Next Log "write", strLogFileName, "Deleting file " & targetfile Dim objFSO Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") objFSO.DeleteFile(targetfile), 1 If err.number <> 0 Then Log "write", strLogFileName, "Could not delete file " & targetfile & ", Error: " & Err.Description End If Set objFSO = Nothing End Function Function Log(operation, filename, message) On Error Resume Next Dim objFSO Dim File Dim TextStream Const ForReading = 1, ForWriting = 2, ForAppending = 8 Const TristateUseDefault = -2, TristateTrue = -1, TristateFalse = 0 Set objFSO = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject") If operation = "delete" Then If objFSO.FileExists(filename) Then objFSO.DeleteFile(filename) End If End If If operation = "write" Then If boolLoggingEnabled Then If Not objFSO.FileExists(filename) Then objFSO.CreateTextFile(filename), 1 End If Set File = objFSO.GetFile(filename) Set TextStream = File.OpenAsTextStream(ForAppending, TristateUseDefault) TextStream.WriteLine Date & " " & Time & ": " & message Set File = Nothing Set TextStream = Nothing Set objFSO = Nothing End If End If End Function