Category: Uncategorized

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SharePoint 2010 install accounts

This has been throwing everyone for a crazy loop and its time to clear up what's going on.  So far most of my environments have been setup with accounts called SP_Admin, SP_Farm and SP_Service.  the SP_Admin is the install account, SP_Farm is the Database access account (weird naming right?), and the service applications get SP_Service.

I encourage you to do this and see what happens on the other side of the install and Farm configuration wizard.  You'll find out real quick what type of things you need to do to get SharePoint 2010 working using this best practice approach of service accounts.  But, rather than just leave you hanging, one big help for you in your quest for least privileged SharePoint Installs is:

SP_Admin and SP_Farm must be Local Administrators on the SharePoint server. 

It ends up that that "Database access account" really turns out to be the main Farm account.  When you get to user profile synchronization, if this account is not a local admin, the setup of the ForeFront Identity Manager will fail miserably and you will need to kill off the User Profile Synch services (using powershell) and start all over after adding in the local admin rights.  I'm not sure if that particular screen will get updated in RTM or not, but it would make a hell of a lot more sense if it had "Farm Account" rather than "Database Access Account" on the setup screen:

 

Another note, when you go to add a new server to the farm (unless you do some SQL permission setting), you will have to be logged in as SP_Farm, not SP_admin.

Chris

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Becoming the Fastest SharePoint Developer in the World!

Who is it?  I'm not sure, but I'm somewhere up there in the top 1% and that lets me charge $200/hr for my time.  So why do I say I'm in the top 1%?  Because I have this:

 

What is it you ask?  It's MY code gen tool.  It is the culmination of 10 years of development projects combined into a massive code generation platform.  Some of you know I am one of the architects behind the Quiznos, Boston Market, Panda Express…etc, etc, etc gift and loyalty platform.  It processes millions of transactions every day and has some very cool architectural components very similar to Visa and Discover networks (but a lot better).  Some of you might also know that I worked at Avanade when they FULLY owned Enterprise Library (no MS patterns and practices didn't exist before Avanade created it) and had built the first TRUE SOA framework for .NET called ACA.NET. Through large projects like these, I have evolved the tool to generate the many different layers that one would ever want to have in a data-driven platform.

So back to SharePoint, what have I done with the tool and SharePoint?  Being a top selling author of SharePoint courseware, I kinda know what people are doing day in and day out.  Taking that information, I have automated those tasks in my code gen tool.  Let me demonstrate!

Many of you have seen my previous blog post on BCS/BDC Report Card.  The problem with BCS/BDC is that tables that have relationships don't work very well when WRITING data.  So what are our options?

  • Custom Web Application in layouts directory
  • Custom Web Parts 

The first option isn't very flexible and you end up having to implement you own security, so option #2 becomes a more preferred method when taking advantage of SharePoint's simple web part page setup and security standpoint.

Let's take the table example from my last post:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Contact](
    [ContactId] [int] NOT NULL,
    [FirstName] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [LastName] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [StatusId] [int] NOT NULL,
    [ModifyDate] [datetime] NOT NULL,
    [CreateDate] [datetime] NOT NULL
)

and the related table:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Status](
    [StatusId] [int] NOT NULL,
    [ShortName] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [LongName] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [ModifyDate] [datetime] NOT NULL,
    [CreateDate] [datetime] NOT NULL
)

For now, I'm not going to implement the relationship in the database and mimic where BCS functionality maxes out at.  First step is to point the tool at the database.  Note that I can support the following data sources:

 For now, I'm simply using SQL Server.  But using any of the above I could generate the same set of code base.  Other things I need to do is set the output path for my generated code and the namespace of the code that will come out the other side.  I will discuss some of the other things that happen automatically when a new configuration is created (which are important for SharePoint steps later on).

The next step is to generate the table and relationship configurations.  It's a super advanced topic (likely the discussion of a Computer Science thesis paper in massively scalable system generation techniques) to go into what really is happening and all the possible overrides, just know that I have solved many of the typical code generation problems that typical tools can't overcome.

Notice that I too, like BDCMetaman, generate my own BDC app def files. For the lasts step I simply had to generate these (it did it automatically) so the actual core knows what type of code to generate.  It would give me an error if it finds a table that doesn't have a configuration during runtime.

As with any good codegen tool, it has to generate your data access layer.  So, let's do that, note all the options I can choose from:

 

Enterprise library is the MOST flexible (RUNTIME switching of the back end data source), so we'll use that.  We have all the basic entered. Time to generate some code!  First step is to generate the Base classes and class managers.  With a single of a button, I will generate several millions of lines of code.  And after the 5 year of building this tool, I realized that all the things I have built take a LONG time to generate.  So I built a nice configuration selector:

So, selecting "Classes Only", I can generate the class manager and base classes.  But also note that this step sets up the massive directory structure of possibilites for code that could have been generated:

 

Now simply generating the .cs files really doesn't help me much, so I needed the codegen tool to generate the Visual Studio project files too.  So clicking the "All (Solution)" configuration option, I am able to generate these wrapper projects (only 2005 and 2008, haven't updated for 2010 until it RTMs), after clicking the upgrade in 2010, I have a non-compiling project will all files included in the project:

 

Why doesn't it compile?  I didn't generate the Data Access layer.  I have to generate the Stored procedures for the tables to support the class manager.  Going back into the tool I change the config to Stored procedures, push a button and get a full set of SPs for multipe different platforms:

Executing the SP script I get a set of CRUD+4 SPs generated that is supported by my class manager (and every other architectural layer that I generate).  Clicking the Database Interface button I'm able to generate the Database interface class that allows me to do all kinds of fancy things around transactional support.  Now my project will compile.

Amazingly enough, all that is pretty basic for a codegen tool and I have kept this as simple as possible for the reader base.  There are several other things that I didn't go into and won't go into (to keep my competitive advantage over my competition) that you'll never find in other tools. 

At this point, your asking, "So, what about SharePoint?".  Ok, let's do it.  Now that I have the basics in place.  Let's look at what gets generated for SharePoint.  I don't have a configuration menu item for SharePoint so it's a manual setup in the configuration utility to enable all the codegen points, but luckily its only a couple of properties. Regenerating, I will get the following created in the SharePoint directory:

 

These are exactly what you think.  Autogenerated eventreceivers for lists and web parts.  By why two web parts?  Webparts and webparts secure?  WebParts are designed to be admin based web parts, no security around what you can do to the base data, whereas the secure ones, care about who YOU are and limit you to what you can see in the database.

In the SharePoint2007 folder, I get this:

 

< p>What is all the stuff?  This is the yummy SharePoint part of the tool, these are all Features and do the following:

  • Content Types = a content type that matches exactly the attribute in the  "data source"
  • GlobalList/GlobalListSecure = a list with a page that maps to each web part (eliminates the manual adding to lists, which sucks when you have 100's of tables)
  • Lists = a list that uses the content type to create a new instance of an exact copy of the data source.  This is used to migrating back end data to SharePoint
  • WebParts/WebPartsSecure = a set of DWP files of all web parts generated to allow you to add to any pages
  • bdc.xml = a similar file you would get from BDCMetaman or the SharePoint SDK tool

So let's put it all together shall we?  I compile all the necessary projects, add the assemblies to the GAC, add the safe controls and install and activate the the Global List feature.  This is what I will get in SharePoint:

 

Clicking on the contact_Add.aspx page gives us the following:

Clicking Add gives us this:

 

What does that mean?  It means by default the web part saved the data to the database.  If I had so chosen, I could also have told it to save to SharePoint (using the list feature generated previously) or to XML.  On success I could even have it redirect to some page:

 Now, the web part itself has two ways to be generated.  With everything in childcontrols or using a UserControl.  Since most customers don't really like my ugly basic table (with no CSS elements for customization), they choose the user controls feature.  So, with a couple of changes, I can tell it to skip any table building and load up a user control from the controltemplates directory.  This then allows the customer to change the way the web parts looks however they want!

So, to quote a couple of movies, "whoop de do Basal, what does it all mean?".  Back to the problem at hand, relational tables inside a database.  The thing BCS can't handle currently.  Let's check it out.

First thing to do is add the reference in the database.  From there I then have to refresh a Relationship Property table in the tool.  This basically say how I want things to be generated from a relationship standpoint (both incoming and outgoing).  I simply set some configuration settings (one to start using the user control rather than internal child control magic) regenerate the code with a couple clicks of a button, redeploy my web parts and I now have this:

 

Notice that I have a drop down for my relationship.  If I had set the contactid to an identity key, it would not be in this web part and therefore the user wouldn't have to type it in.  Clicking "Add contact" will again add a contact to the database.  Of course, being that the items in the database are set to "not null", if I had not filled in anything, I would get this:

 

To keep this short, all the web parts work.  If security was needed, I would use the Secure version of the web parts and then make calls using the current user's identity. All generated from pretty much any data source you could imagine.

Even though it took a lot longer to build (and read) this blog, if I had skipped the blog, this all took about 10 minutes to setup and deploy (no matter how many entities was in the data source). Which by the way, Microsoft Entity Framework == Boring…there is so much missing from that framework and hence why I built mine years before MS did.

If I get lots of questions and request to see more, I might do another more in depth blog on some of the rules around the generation.

Chris

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BCS/BDC Report Card

First and foremost, I LOVE SHAREPOINT.  It's awesome, it pays my bills and IT ROCKS.  I give credit where credit is due, but I'm also fair in that I will point out flaws too.  As some of you surely remember, I tweeted a little rant about BCS and how annoyed I was that customer after customer keeps asking me to make BCS do something it just can't do (point proven by the tweet I got from Paul Andrew "BCS is not a silver bullet", of which I replied, "It's a marketing problem", driven by conference presenters saying its the save all solution of the century).  A lot of people feel that because it can now both READ and WRITE data that you can DO ANYTHING with it.  WRONG.  So very wrong.  In an effort to prove that point, very simply here's my BCS Report Card (2007 scores in parenthesis):

Read Data     A+  (B)
Search Data  B-  (B-)
Write Data     D (I)

Why you say?  Why not A's across the board?  Let me explain it too you.  Let's start with a very simple table:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Contact](
    [FirstName] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [LastName] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [ModifyDate] [datetime] NOT NULL,
    [CreateDate] [datetime] NOT NULL
)

Using BCS, I can point to this data, read it, NOT search it and write it.  Why can't I search it?  I didn't give it a identifier/primary key.  That means I can't point BCS at repeated non-unique data for searching and indexing, and hence why it gets a B-.  Adding the following will make it searchable (and now usable in SharePoint Designer 2010):

ContactId int primary key 

NOTE* it doesn't have to be a primary key, just need a column to be an identifier

Perfect.  A few more clicks in Designer and I have an external content type with a list using it.  Another couple of clicks in the Ribbon and I can even have the data syncing with my outlook (of which Fabian Williams first blogged an example of this). A few more clicks in my Search Service Application and its indexed. AWESOME!  Let me repeat that…AWESOME!  The problem comes into play when I add another table with a relationship:

–NEW TABLE–
StatusId int primary key
ShortName varchar(50)
LongName varchar(50)
ModifyDate datetime
CreateDate datetime

–ADD REF COLUMN TO CONTACT TABLE–
StatusId int

Regenerating my BCS/BDC application (which is not very friendly in Designer, but that's for another time) generates the same basic view of the contact data. However, notice that THE USER IS RESPONSIBLE for determining what the value of the StatusId column is…REALLY?  REALLY?  Of course if they type in something bad they get this:

 

Wait, what was that checkbox on the List generation?  Generate InfoPath form? 

 

That sounds promising, but:

 

The point is that BCS/BDC really only works with a single non-relational entity when it comes to WRITING of data.  Even given the fact that with SharePoint Designer (or manually if you are apt too because you get finally get so frustrated that you want to throw your laptop when doing it with Designer) you can create "Associations" to build relationships between similar or disparate data sources (another awesome feature), it really only helps with the BDC web parts for sending of filtering values.  What does this mean?

BDC ONLY WORKS WITH DE-NORMALIZED MEANINGFUL TABLES WHEN YOU WANT FULL* FUNCTIONALITY

The asterisk on "Full" simply means, the functionality offered by BCS (ref scorecard above), not what you would REALLY want. 

What do I think would be ideal?  The best options is to allow us to edit the InfoPath Form!!!  Then we can map the control to a drop down populated from a data source!  One would think that we should be able to edit the list column and point to corresponding column in the target association table to generate a selectable drop down (or even select the column in the BCS wizard or schema), but those are locked:

 

OR even better, when *generating* the BCS/BDC application definition, make it possible to create Metadata "Pointers" in the metadata service to these "distinct" items and have the column use the metadata service. 

 

But even if they (SP Product Team) go to the extreme to implement all this later (which seems inevitable as soon as they see this), "distinct" items brings in a whole different set of problems like caching and large list like issues (being they have already addressed this pattern of problem in large lists, seems trivial for them).

Why did I asterisk out "generating". BCS is a code gen tool.  It generates the BDC application definition file (and some other medium difficulty plumbing) for you with a fancy wizard.  Let me add, its a very BASIC codegen tool.  In the post that will follow this one, I will demonstrate for the first time my CodeGen tool (with its SharePoint extensions).  Watch for that post!

Some of the comments I received when I tweeted my original rant where:

  • Fabian & Chakkaradeep – use a .NET type : this is why I give an A+ to READ, but still doesn't resolve the WRITE issues
  • Some said use BDCMetaman, sorry it doesn't solve these issues either, its just another codegen tool like BCS

In summary, to quote a really great movie "Choose, but choose wisely" your integration points with SharePoint.  In the end you may fall over dead and old before you get it working (or realize it just won't work) with BCS (at least in this version #2).

Chris

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MCT Virtual Summit 2010

I'm proud to announce I'll be presenting FOUR sessions at the MCT Virtual Summit this year!  If your an MCT, you can become a Fan and find registration links on the MSL Facebook page:  http://bit.ly/cxtXxt

Here's a summary of my sessions:

  1. Train the Trainer(s) – 10174A: Administering and Managing SharePoint 2010 (TS) – together with my co-author and SharePoint MVP, Dan Holme, we will be outlining the modules of this course and how we envisioned it to be delivered.  We'll answer questions about the course and possibly (time permitting) do some demos from some of the labs.
  2. Courseware library success story – Join me as I share with you my latest chapters in my courseware library adventures and where it has led me!
  3. SharePoint 2010 MOC and CWLibrary course overview – I'll review all the upcoming MSL SharePoint 2010 MOC courses, certifications and the currently available SharePoint 2010 courses in the CWLibrary.
  4. SharePoint 2010 BI – I'll review and demo many of the new features of SharePoint 2010 Business Intelligence!

Look forward to seeing all of you wonderful MCTs there!
Chris

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SharePoint 2010 Claims based Forms Authentication

Forms based authentication in SharePoint 2010 has changed.  It is now Claims based Forms Authentication, which means all the forms configuration stuff you see all over the web doesn't quite work in the same way.  Even if you set the membership and role providers in your web
applications and central administration you forms auth still won't work!

In SharePoint 2010, several new WCF services will be handleing the mapping of the claims to the backend forms auth identities.  Out of the box, claims based forms auth doesn't work!  You gotta remove the <clear/> element from the Membership and Role provider sections in the web.config of the {SharePoint Root}WebServicesRoot.

Chris

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WCF Timeouts on small memory’d SharePoint 2010 machine

In writing labs for an upcoming Microsoft Course, I found that the limitations on my environment was less than satisfactory to run all of the services of SharePoint 2010 at the same time.  Even though all Web Application and app pools were running, I was getting WCF timeouts mainly for the User Profile Service.  The default timeout value in SharePoint for the services is pretty much set to 20 sec.  If you have a machine that doesn't have the full 8GB of memory needed, then you may find your services are taking a while to spin up.  This can be devistating to some of the setup/install things you may be doing (because there are still many things that are NOT transnational). 

I found that by increasing the WCF timeout, I could avoid a lot of setup/install problems (mainly around service applications like User Profile).  To change the WCF timeout, open the C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft SharedWeb Server Extensions14WebClientsProfileclient.config file, update the Bindings to double the timeout from "00:00:20" to "00:00:40".  Bam!  Your user profile won't timeout all the time and the service management page will display!

Chris

 

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Updating List Item Metadata Column Value

Not easy, no way…but just like some of my fellow SharePoint experts, we persist and conquor! Metadata Service is awesome, just basic SOA pattern in yet another different implementation.  Nothing special, but working with a specific implementation brings interesting challenges…as always.  So how do you update a list item's column value when its a metadata column?  Some assumptions first:

  1. You have setup a Metadata Service Application and Proxy 
  2. You have setup a TermStore with a Group called "All Sites"
  3. You have two termsets defined with values ("Department" and "ITRequestType")
  4. You have a site associated to the metadata service
  5. You have a list called "UserRequest" with two meta data columns pointing to your termsets

NOTE:  A precaution, in order for a metadata term to have a WSSID, it must have been used and a listitem added to the "TaxonomyHiddenList" list.  It is hidden, so you can't see, and you can't update it to be "unhidden" as it seems there is an eventhandler on it to keep you from doing so!  I dumped the list fields out, but it might be tricky to figure out how to add a listitem to the list.  Something to be done later 🙂

Here's the code:

$site = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.SPSite("http://intranet.contoso.com/sites/it")
$web = $site.rootweb
$list = $web.Lists["UserRequests"]
$department_field = $list.fields["Department"]
$itrequesttype_field = $list.fields["RequestType"]

$session = new-object Microsoft.SharePoint.Taxonomy.TaxonomySession($site);
$termstore = $session.TermStores[0]
$group = $termstore.groups["all sites"]
$departmenttermset = $group.termsets["department"]
$requesttypetermset = $group.termsets["itrequesttype"]

$term = $departmenttermset.terms["it"]
$t_it = new-object Microsoft.sharepoint.taxonomy.taxonomyfieldvalue($department_field)
$t_it.wssid = [Microsoft.sharepoint.taxonomy.taxonomyfield]::getwssidsofterm($site,$termstore.id,$departmenttermset.id, $term.id,$false,1)[0]
$t_it.TermGuid = $term.id
$t_it.label = $term.name

$newitem = $list.items.Add()
$newitem["Title"] = "A new item";
$newitem.update()
$newitem = $list.items.getitembyid($newitem.id)

$newitem["Department"] = $t_it
$newitem.update()

Refresh the list on the site, you should see the label show up for the metadata column!  Sweet!

Enjoy this one, I'm proud of it!
Chris

Posted on

SharePoint 2010 Generic Solution Validator

Sandboxed Solutions are not a very practical way of  testing solutions in production.  It opens up a world of bad things to happen.  That being said, there are still some good things that can come from them. 

The blocking solution provided in Central Administration is a complete joke, it won't help you for governing sandboxed solution deployment AT ALL.  However, I have built a tool that will solve many of the deployment issues with Sandboxed Solutions.  I call it the Generic Solution Validator.  It is scoped to a Site Collection level and allows you to ALLOW or BLOCK solutions based on various properties.  Properties much more valuable than the SCA provides.

I have posted the Generic Solution Validator to codeplex. 

http://bit.ly/4V8Yv7

Enjoy,
Chris

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SharePoint Timer Jobs

Have I mentioned how much I don't like Timer Jobs?  Let me rephrase that, timer jobs that other people write that aren't designed correctly?  Yeah, irks me.  So we can't say that all the Timer Jobs in the Beta are perfect, some have some issues, but its beta and we should come to expect not everything is going to work right now. 

For those that really cause us trouble though, how do we debug them?  We can attach to the owstimer.exe service I suppose, but then you are causing more problems with the other jobs waiting to get some of the precious CPU cycles while your debugging.

So how about we try a different approach?  I like using SQL Profiler, it is one of my favorite tools. It comes in really handy to figure out what really is going on on a SharePoint page (the Developer Dashboard is nice, but don't let it fool you, there is more going on than what it tells you) and…Timer Jobs.  problem is, sql profiler requires you to get really specific about what you want to see.  Not much you can do when everything coming in is tagged as a ".NET Application"…except for…turn everything OFF!

Turn off all the services, turn off all the timer jobs you don't want to look at or care about.  Turning off services is easy enough to do…timer jobs…ugg…little more difficult.  What about searching for a timer job?  Yeah, good luck with that one with just Out of the Box.

So I built a neat little tool and posted it to codeplex.  It lets you turn all the timer jobs off, now two of them cannot be turned off, but they don't end up causing much traffic, so no worries there.  With this tool you can search for timer jobs by Name, Title, ID, Schedule and Lock Type.  You can update, updateable properties and click "Update".  You can disable, enable and "Run Now" with just a click of a button!

Sweet!  Download the source code here:  http://bit.ly/4ydtNr

I plan on doing some heavy reverse engineering on some of these bad boys…I encourage you to do the same!

Chris

Posted on

SharePoint Remote Blog Storage (RBS) – Step by Step Install

I just setup RBS/RBS Filestream on my 2010 farm.  Not so sure about the functionality being pushed to the SQL Server team for this.  I really liked the COM based approach of EBS in 2007 (which is now marked as obsolete, but supposedly still supported – and when I say 'supported' I simply mean it still works – going forward in 2010), but hey, when you don't have budget/time, send it off to someone else that does right?  These steps will get your RBS FILESTREAM sql provider working sorry no screen shots, you only get those in the courses.

So why RBS? What is it you ask?  It stands for Remote Blog Storage.  We'll, lets start with the fact that when you add a document to SharePoint goes into the content database (the binary is serialized into a stream and put into the database, but not really put into the database, but a pointer in sql server row to a set of 8k pages somewhere on disk that represents those files).  All documents go into the content database with out discrimination.  Should there be discrimination?  Yep.  Some people would migrate file shares to sharepoint which would include install isos, some being in the gigabyte size.  These days we can safely say that SQL Server it is a high volume transactional store and yes, it has the ability to store blobs, just not as efficiently as some applications would like.  Because of this, IT depts would say "No" don't put that large file in sharepoint. 

Well of course that leads to confusion as to what goes in and out of SharePoint (the fileshare lived another day in 2007).  In 2007, the SharePoint team introduced EBS which was a COM component based implementation of passing off the BLOB to something else to manage.  RBS is the continuing evolution of this with SQL Server becoming the management point.  Now IT Depts can say, sure throw that into SharePoint!  No confustion, SharePoint is now the hub of everything!  IT Depts can set the size at which RBS kicks in and sends the file somewhere else.  If the RBS becomes obsolete there are ways to migrate back into SharePoint or change the RbsID to migrate to a new store (you will see the new RbsId column in the content database).  Writing an EBS or RBS implementation is NOT easy.  I did an EBS for 2007, and I'll be the first and not last to tell you, the COM interactions, memory management, and file manager components require some thought and patience.  That being said, you will be at the mercy of Microsoft and 3rd parties to create scalable robust EBS/RBS implementations for your sharepoint system.

After publishing this, we had a nice twitter conversation about StoragePoint. It has some awesome RBS connectors!  You should check them out!

The detailed TechNet version of RBS install process is here.  Mine is a more condensed version of the basic steps.

If you like this, be sure to follow me on twitter! More to come!

Exercise 1 – Setup RBS FILESTREAM

Purpose:
        Setting
up RBS FILESTREAM is fairly simple.  In this lab we
will configure RBS in SQL Server and then RBS Client for Sharepoint 2010

Result:            A content database that uses RBS FILESTREAM

Task 1 – Enable
FILESTREAM on SQL Server

  1. Open SQL Server Configuration
    Manager
  2. Click “Sql Server Services”
  3. Right click “SQL Server
    (MSSQLServer)”, select “Properties”
  4. Click the “FILESTREAM” tab
  5. Check all the checkboxes

  1. Click “Apply”
  2. Open SQL Server Management
    Studio
  3. Connect to the localhost
    server
  4. Right click the instance,
    select “Properties”
  5. Click the “Advanced” tab
  6. For the “Filestream Access
    Level, select “Full access enabled”
  7. Click “OK”
  8. Restart the SQL Server
    service

Task 2 – Prep the
databases

  1. Open a query window, run the
    following sql command:


use [WSS_Content_100]

if not exists (select * from sys.symmetric_keys where
name = N'##MS_DatabaseMasterKey##')create master key encryption by password =
N'Pa$$w0rd'

 
  1. Run the following:


if not exists (select groupname from sysfilegroups where
groupname=N'RBSFilestreamProvider')alter database [WSS_Content_100]

 add filegroup
RBSFilestreamProvider contains filestream

 
  1. Run the following:


alter database [WSS_Content_100] add file (name = RBSFilestreamFile, filename
= 'c:Blobstore') to filegroup RBSFilestreamProvider

 
  1. Expand “Databases”
  2. Right click “Databases”,
    select “New Database”
  3. For the name type,
    “RemoteBlobStorage”
  4. Click “Ok”

Task 3 – Install the
RBS Client

  1. Run d:lab workRBS_x64.msi
    • NOTE: This task is to walk you through the GUI of the install
      program to see the various items that you COULD configure, later you will
      see that this is not necessary as we will re-run in a silent mode for
      SharePoint – product team has also suggested that you NOT run this step as it may add extra settings that could cause problems later!)

  1. Click “Next”

  1. Click “I accept the terms…”
  2. Click “Next”
  3. Click “Next”

  1. Click “Next”

  1. Click “Test Connection”
  2. Click “Next”

  1. Click “Next”
  2. Check the “Show the advanced
    configuration options” checkbox

  1. Click “Next”
  2. Review the settings:

  1. Click “Next”
  2. Review the properties of the
    “Maintainer Task”, this is used to clean up orphaned records that may not
    exist in SharePoint anymore (a user deleted the file in the document
    library).  Check all the checkboxes:

  1. Click “Next”
  2. For this lab, set all the
    logging setting to “Verbose”:

  1. Click “Next”
  2. Click “Install” – AGAIN NOTE – this is for FYI only, you should click "Cancel" if doing this for real
  3. Click “OK” in the task window

Task 3 – Configure
SharePoint 2010

  1. Open a SharePoint Management
    Console
  2. Run the following commands
    from the location of the RBS_X64.msi file (this would need to be run
    against each content database that you want to support RBS):


msiexec /qn /lvx* rbs_install_log.txt /i RBS_x64.msi
TRUSTSERVERCERTIFICATE=true FILEGROUP=PRIMARY DBNAME="WSS_Content_100"
DBINSTANCE="servername" FILESTREAMFILEGROUP=RBSFilestreamProvider
FILESTREAMSTORENAME=FilestreamProvider_1

 

msiexec /qn /lvx* rbs_install_log.txt /i RBS_x64.msi
DBNAME="WSS_Content_100" DBINSTANCE="servername"
ADDLOCAL="Client,Docs,Maintainer,ServerScript,FilestreamClient,FilestreamServer"

 
  1. Open the rbs_install_Log.txt
    file, at the end of the file, look for:
    • Product: SQL Remote
      Blob Storage — Configuration completed successfully.
  2. You can also check the content database and look for some new tables "mssql*"
  3. Run the following (note this
    only works if the web app has one content database):


$cdb = Get-SPContentDatabase –WebApplication 
http://servername:100

$rbss = $cdb.RemoteBlobStorageSettings

$rbss.Installed()

$rbss.Enable()

$rbss.SetActiveProviderName($rbss.GetProviderNames()[0])

$rbss

 


Task 4 – Test your RBS Provider

  1. On the SQL Server, open the “c:BlobStore”
    folder, this is where your blobs will go by default
  2. Open the team site (http://servername:100)
  3. Add a new document called
    “MyRBSFile” to your document library (make sure it is above 100K as you can set the file size boundary in RBS to move between content db and RBS connectors)
  4. Refresh the c:BlobStore folder,
    you should see a new file in one of the directories
  5. Run the following query
    against your Content database (NOTE: run this against your dev enviornment ONLY so as to not cause any locks on your prod databases):


select ad.SiteId, ad.id, leafname, rbsid

  from alldocs
ad, alldocstreams ads

  where ad.id =
ads.id

  and rbsid is
not null

 

 

 

  1. You should get a query back with information on all
    files that have been submitted to the RBS.     

Enjoy!
Chris