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Configuring your Sharepoint farm using psconfig.exe

  • Article

There are some scenario requiring utilisation of psconfig.exe command line tool instead of the graphical psconfigui wizard. More information on psconfig.exe: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263093.aspx.

For example, if you want to use a SQL server installed on different domain than SharePoint, without using domains trust relationship, you have to connect to the SQL instance using SQL authentication. When creating, or connecting a server to a farm, the only way to use SQL authentication is to use psconfig.exe (located at 12\bin directory) tool.

 

Pre-requesties

SQL Server does not allow SQL authentication by default. To enable it, connect to your instance using SQL Server Management Studio, go to instance properties, click on connections and check "enable SQL authentication".

Add a SQL user, and select the following server permissions: dbcreator and securityadmin

 

Create your farm

After you installed MOSS or WSS, you must create your farm using psconfig.exe command line tool, it is located to . Do the following steps on the server on which you want to install your central administration website:

 

  • If you installed MOSS 2007:

1) psconfig -cmd configdb -create -server "SERVER\INSTANCE" -database "MOSS_FarmConfig" -dbuser SQLLOGIN -dbpassword SQLPASS -admincontentdatabase "MOSS_AdminWebSite_Content" -user DOMAIN\FARMACCOUNT -password PASSWORD

2) psconfig -cmd helpcollections -installall

// Secure resources in file system and registry entries
3) psconfig -cmd secureresources

// Install services on the server
4) psconfig -cmd services -install

// Configure Windows SharePoint Services Help Search service: mandatory to successfully provision services on this server. More information here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288507.aspx
5) stsadm -o spsearch -action start -farmserviceaccount DOMAIN\FARMACCOUNT -farmservicepassword PASSWORD -sqlauthlogin SQLLOGIN -sqlauthpassword SQLPASS databaseserver "SERVER\INSTANCE" -databasename "MOSS_WSS_SearchDB"

// Configure Office Sharepoint Server search service. More information here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262920.aspx
6) stsadm -o osearch -action start -role Index -farmcontactemail "EMAIL" -farmperformancelevel Reduced -farmserviceaccount DOMAIN\SEARCHSERVICE -farmservicepassword PASSWORD

// Actually enable services on the server
7) psconfig -cmd services -provision

8) psconfig -cmd installfeatures

// Create central administration website
9) psconfig -cmd adminvs -provision -port PORT -windowsauthprovider onlyusentlm

10) psconfig -cmd applicationcontent -install

 

  • If you installed WSS 3.0:

1) psconfig -cmd configdb -create -server "SERVER\INSTANCE" -database "MOSS_FarmConfig" -dbuser SQLLOGIN -dbpassword SQLPASS -admincontentdatabase "MOSS_AdminWebSite_Content" -user DOMAIN\FARMACCOUNT -password PASSWORD
2) psconfig -cmd helpcollections -installall

// Secure resources in file system and registry entries
3) psconfig -cmd secureresources

// Install services on the server
4) psconfig -cmd services -install

// Configure Windows SharePoint Services Help Search service: mandatory to successfully provision services on this server. More information here: https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc288507.aspx
// Contrary to MOSS, you cannot specify a database server and database instance
5) stsadm -o spsearch -action start -farmserviceaccount DOMAIN\FARMACCOUNT -farmservicepassword PASSWORD -sqlauthlogin SQLLOGIN -sqlauthpassword SQLPASS

// Actually enable services on the server
6) psconfig -cmd services -provision

7) psconfig -cmd installfeatures

// Create central administration website
8) psconfig -cmd adminvs -provision -port PORT -windowsauthprovider onlyusentlm

9) psconfig -cmd applicationcontent -install

 

Add servers to your farm

Once you finished to configure the first server, you can add additional servers to the farm. Procedure is the same whatever you installed MOSS or WSS:

1) psconfig -cmd configdb -connect -server "SERVER\INSTANCE" -database "MOSS_FarmConfig" -dbuser SQLLOGIN -dbpassword SQLPASS -user DOMAIN\FARMACCOUNT -password PASSWORD
2) psconfig -cmd helpcollections -installall
3) psconfig -cmd secureresources
4) psconfig -cmd services install
5) psconfig -cmd installfeatures
6) psconfig -cmd applicationcontent -install

 

If you are used to install Sharepoint farms frequently, you should script this in a batch file to automate installation procedure, it will be definitely faster than using psconfigui graphical wizard.