Using SharePoint 2010 Management Shell to Create Web Applications and Site Collections

Power Shell is one outstanding tool for managing and configuring SharePoint 2010 without using the web GUI. A good use of Power Shell is creating CMDLets to automate the process of provisioning sites and site collections. In today’s walkthrough we will create a new web application and a site collection using Power Shell without accessing SharePoint 2010 Central Administration site.

So let’s start by launching SharePoint 2010 Management Shell under Start –> All Programs –> SharePoint 2010 Products. Make sure to run the Management Shell as an Administrator.

To create a new web application we use the New-SPWebApplication command. The best thing about Power Shell commands is that you don’t need to specify the parameters when calling the command, it will ask you for each parameter . If you remember back in STSADM (MOSS), we did not have that luxury! Below we are creating a web application called SharePointStack.

As you can see from the screenshot above, I used the following parameters:

• Name: Application (Website) name in IIS
• ApplicationPool: Application pool used for the application
• ApplicationPoolAccount: Identity which the application pool will run under
• Url: Url of the web application
• Port

You can use Get-Help New-SPWebApplication command to get more information about the command parameters.

Now let’s go and create the site collection using the New-SPSite command. This time I am not going to specify the parameters. The command will ask me for the parameters.

As you can see from the screenshot above, I used the following parameters:

• Url: Url used to access the site collection
• OwnerAlias: Site collection administrator user account

If you don’t specify the Template parameter, the user will have the chance to set the site template on the first request.

I chose the Blank Site template.

If you want to set the template when creating the site, you can add the Template parameter. To get a list of the templates installed, you can use the Get-SPWebTemplate command. For example, the Blank Site template parameter is: STS#1.

You can use Get-Help New-SPSite command to get more information about the command parameters.

Well that’s about it

Comments

• Anonymous
  March 28, 2012
  +1
• Anonymous
  March 28, 2012
  Thanks :-) +1 for you too loool