7/14/2009In this week's netcast I cover the SharePoint 2010 Sneak Peak that was released by Microsoft. I also cover automation techniques that SharePoint admins can use. It promises to be more entertaining that watching grass grow.
MP3 File
WMV File
iPod File
tk 7/9/2009
I got a tweet this morning from Laura Rogers about STSADM. She wanted to know if a site template had to be added with "stsadm –o addtemplate" before you could use it with "stsadm –o createweb." I have to admit, I didn't know the answer off the top of my head. I could convince myself either way. I ended up having to test it before I came to a conclusion. Before I get to whether it works or not, some background on why it's even a question…
If you've been to any of my SharePoint admin sessions or classes you're familiar with me preaching that Site Collections are the administrative and security boundary in SharePoint. This means that a user given permissions to one Site Collection cannot automatically get into another Site Collection without being given permission to it as well. Site Collections also are boundaries for resources kept in Site Collection galleries, like web parts, content types and site templates. Because of this boundary it's possible for administrators in one Site Collection to create resources that are only visible in their Site Collection. How does one do that? First, we have to be clear about the terminology we're using, because it gets confusing here. First we have the Site Collection. That's the boundary, the bag. Then we have the things that go into Site Collections. Here's where it gets confusing. Sometimes the SharePoint interface calls those things Sites, and other times it calls those things Webs. They're the same thing. This blog will be particularly confusing because it's one instance where the name changes frequently. Assume if something is not called out as a Site Collection, it's a web. Back to the question, how does a Site Collection administrator add new Site (really web) templates to their Site Collection? They take an existing Site (still really a web) and mock it up the way they want it. Maybe they add some pages, drop some web parts on some pages, maybe even upload a document or two. Once they get it juuuuust right, they save that Site (did I mention these are webs?) as a Site (web) Template. When they do that it's added to the Site Collection's Site (web) Template gallery. From that point on, anyone in the Site Collection that has permissions to create a Site (web) in that Site Collection can use that new Site (web) template to do so. The beauty of this is that no one outside of that Site Collection can see that Site (web) template. If you go to Site Actions > Site Settings > Galleries > Site Template Gallery you can see the Site (web) templates that have been created.
That's all fine and dandy, but what if that Site (web) Template is so awesome that someone else wants to use it? SharePoint's got your back, and provides a way to share Site (web) templates. If you have a Site (web) Template in your Site (web) Template Gallery, hover over it. You'll see it's a hyperlink. If you click it, your browser will try to download an STP file. That STP file is a Site (still typing web here) TemPlate file. You can give that STP file to an administrator for another Site Collection. If they upload it to their Site (you guessed it, web) Template Gallery now they can use it too. Pretty nifty, eh? So far this setup is working pretty well. But what happens if you have hundreds, nay, thousands of Site Collections? This approach doesn't scale very well at all. Once again, the fine folks at Microsoft were thinking ahead and they provided a way for you to take that STP file and make it available to the entire Farm in one step. How do you accomplish such a Herculean task? I'm glad you ask. First you download that STP file. Then you give it to one of your Farm Administrators. They log into one of the SharePoint boxes and use the STSADM operation "addtemplate" to add your template to the farm. Now everyone will see it when they create a Site (stick with me here, web) in the interface. The bottom line is that SharePoint allows you to keep Site (web) Templates private to a Site Collection or make them available to the entire Farm, whichever suites your needs best.
Back to Laura's question. She wanted to know if she could specify a custom Site (thanks for sticking with me, web) Template if she was creating the web not through the UI, but with "stsadm –o createweb" (see, they call it 'web' here. I told you!). I know that when the Site (do I need to keep typing 'web' here) Template is created it's added to the Site Collection, so it's in the Content DB. In theory STSADM could look for the Site (yup, web) Templates the target Site Collection had when creating the web. On the other hand I knew that the "addtemplate" operation put them someplace else, and maybe that's the only place STSADM looked when executing "createweb." To solve this I tested it myself. I created a custom Site (almost finished here, web) Template and then tried to use it when creating another web in that Site Collection with "stsadm –o createweb." It failed. It said that was an invalid template named. Executing "stsadm –o enumtemplates" showed me what template names were valid. Of course mine was not in that list. Once I added my Site (last time, I promise, web) Template to the farm with "stsadm –o addtemplate" I could use it with the "createweb" operation.
I hope that all made sense. The fact that Microsoft chose to refer to these objects as "sites" in the UI most places and "webs" in other places makes this very difficult to explain. I hope it all made sense.
tk 7/3/2009Last year I did a blog post on how I use Log Parser to peruse the IIS logs from this site to see how many people come here, what they look at, where they come from, etc. Those of you that have seen me at conferences or talked to me in person have no doubt heard the hilarious byproduct of that. Seems a few images on my web site are very popular with the kids at MySpace. They really like that yellow bird image as their background. While I'm flattered by the attention, honest I am, they seem unable to copy it down, so they're all hotlinking off of my site. That's right, these hoodlums are stealing bandwidth right out of the hands of you hardworking SharePoint enthusiasts. Every time you go to download one of my blog posts or a netcast recording those guys are slowing you down. I decided I wouldn't stand for it anymore; I was going to do something about it to defend your honor. In the past I've gone through my IIS logs to see which MySpace pages are stealing my images, then I swap something hysterical out in its place. Hilarity ensues. Unfortunately I only remember to do it every few months and it results in a bunch of renamed images and trash on my site. I needed to be proactive, not reactive. I needed to find a way to handle traffic from MySpace automatically, not by hand like I had been. Our Apache using friends have been using mod_rewrite for years for this functionality. (we get SharePoint, they get mod_rewrite, seems a fair trade to me) In the past there has never been a good mod_rewrite module for IIS. Until now, that is. A few months ago I moved all of my SharePoint servers to 64 bit Windows Server 2008. This means my servers are running on IIS7, which has a modular design that IIS6 didn't have. In cruising around on IIS.net I found an IIS URL Rewrite Module. That's perfect!
I downloaded the module, and like a good SharePoint admin, I tested it in a VM to see if it did what I wanted. The first time I installed it, it killed the VM. L To avoid that, pay close attention to the "Important" instructions on the download page. Make sure and stop the services they suggest. To be safe the second time I stopped all IIS and SharePoint related services and it worked. Fortunately my test VM and my production server are VMs in Hyper-V, so I made snapshots before I installed it. If you've got that opportunity, I recommend taking it.
After I got it installed configuring it was pretty easy. It shows up as a module called "URL Rewrite" in IIS Manager. Double-click it to open up the rules page. It should look like this:
From the screenshot you can see that I've got one rule defined right now. Let's walk through creating another one. For now, I just want to block any requests that have a referrer from the Myspace.com domain. To create it we'll start by clicking "Add Rules…" on the right. You'll get a dialog box like this:
We want "Request blocking" so click that and hit OK. We want to block requests based on the referrer, so select that from the dropdown. Leave "Matches the pattern" for the requests that are blocked. For referrer pattern put in http://*.myspace.com/* and leave the Using as "Wildcards" and set "How to block" to "Abort Request." The finished dialog should look like this:
That's all there is to it. You have a lot of options when editing the rule. Feel free to poke around and see what you can do. You can do some pretty amazing things. If you want to test the referrer rules you can use Quick Spoof to spoof referrers on URL requests. The details of the rule will show up in the web.config file for your web app. If you're curious how they're defined, pop it up and take a look.
You may be wondering how well this works with SharePoint. I can saw that it's worked great for the last 24 hours. J The module has support for rewriting and redirecting URLs, but I didn't have much luck with them. I would have loved to have the image requested from the MySpace users be replaced with something more…racy, but in the time I spent playing with this I couldn't get it to work. If you have better luck, let me know.
I hope this helped some of you fight off those evil bandwidth stealers.
tk 7/1/2009
While I was out at SPTechCon Laura Rogers and Mark Miller of EndUserSharePoint did a quick interview of me. They were really bored that day. It's a pretty short watch, about 6:30.
MP3 version
WMV version
iPod version
I also got the word today that I was reawarded the MVP award from Microsoft. It's been a great ride and I'm very grateful to have been given the opportunities I've been given. Congratulations to all the other MVPs that have gotten the nod today.
tk 6/29/2009
In this episode I talk about the topics that came up at SPTechCon and announce some sessions at the SharePoint conference. I also discuss the physics behind why a watched pot never boils. The video is jerky, it's not just you. (Unless you're listening to the MP3 version, then the video is great and I might be more handsome than ever)
MP3 version
WMV version
iPod version
tk 6/15/2009
Get it while you can, Netcast #13 is up. Get it while you can, who knows when this server is going to tank next. J
In this week's netcast I talk about recent changes to my website that have resulted in downtown. I cover the STSADM operation mergecontentdbs and I cover some community activities. I also explain where that lost sock goes.
MP3 File
WMV File
iPod File
You may have noticed I jumped from #11 right to #13. Many places skip 13, not me, I skip 12. Seriously with the site outages 12 was going to go up late, and then when I listened to it I realized the audio was horrible. Just terrible. And I'm not just referring to Shane's voice. I put them up anyway, but it won't hurt my feelings if you don't listen to them.
MP3 File
WMV File
Sorry about 12.
tk 6/12/2009Once again I left my house and took my web site down. This time it was my old nemesis, the maxAllowedContentLength setting. After last week's meltdown I had to rebuild my farm. That means new web.config files all around. Before I tried to upload Netcast #12 (it really does exist, honest) I changed that setting so I could upload the file. I was in a hurry because I needed to get on the road for SharePoint Saturday Chicago so I didn't get around to uploading the file. Apperently I did have time to break my site. Those of you that suffered through my first few webcasts remember the hijinks from when I had to enter it the first time. Well, everything old is new again. I put it in the wrong place and screwed up my web.config. Since you're reading this now, you know I got it working. I just removed it, so there's still a chance for me to screw it up again when I add it. Fun, fun.
The good news is that I made it to Chicago and I'm stoked about SPS tomorrow. I hope to see a few of you there. Please stop by and say Hi if you see me.
tk |
|
|
|
|