Within PowerShell their are two different types of comments: Inline comments and Block comments.
Inline comments are denoted by a # symbol at the start of the line. This comment only affects a single line.
Block comments are opened using <# and closed using #> these comments can span multiple lines.
“This post details the steps for backing up the content database of a SharePoint site through PowerShell. Click here to view the steps for backing up a content database through Central Administration.”
PowerShell provides a means to backup data within SharePoint through the following command:
Further information on each of the parameters in this command are outlined bellow.
The Directory parameters specifies the path where the backup will be generated. This can either be a UNC path or a location on the server. “You don’t need to enter the spbr* folder name as this will be auto generated”
BackupMethod
The backup method parameter details the type of backup that will be performed. This can either be Full or Differential:
In order to get the path to the item you can use the following command:
This will list the tree structure of items within the farm. In my experience the path to a content database within the farm is in the following format:
“Farm\Microsoft SharePoint Foundation Web Application\[Site Name]\[Content Database Name]”
This parameter is optional. The verbose parameter provides more information about the operation being run.
This parameter is optional. The percentage parameter can be used to report progress about the operation at defined percentage intervals.
“This post details the steps for backing up the content database of a SharePoint site through Central Administration. Click here to view the steps for backing up a content database through PowerShell.”
Within Central Administration within the Backup and Restore section click on Perform a backup
Next you need to select the component that you wish to backup.
Select the component you want to backup and click Next
The next step in the backup process allows you to choose the type of the backup and its location.
A backup can be either Full or Differential
The backup file location can either be a UNC path or location on the server, however, the process running the backup will need to access to write to this location.
Once the details of the backup have been entered click Start Backup
When the backup is running the following screen will be displayed indicating that backup is currently in progress.
When the backup has finished running the following screen will be displayed indication the status of the backup components.
When deploying a change to an existing timer job you need to restart the SharePoint Timer Job (owstimer.exe) service before the changes will be applied.
This can be achieved through:
In my experience you need to restart the time job service on each web front end.
I recently came across a tool that makes authoring PowerShell scripts easier PowerGUI.
PowerGUI and its in-built intellisense allows you to browse through the different PowerShell commands and unlock the power of PowerShell to automate administrative tasks and quickly change objects within the SharePoint API.
You can download it from here
Once you have downloaded and installed the program you need to load in the Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell library snapin.
Within PowerGUI Click on File then PowerShell Libraries
In the Snapins/Modules window Select the Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell library and Click OK
You are now ready to start using the SharePoint PowerShell library. Click New File
Within the PowerGUI code editor when you type you should know have IntelliSense on the different SharePoint - PowerShell commands.
Once you have created your new script you can run it by clicking on the Start icon
The output from your script will know be output in the console window.
Within an anonymous access SharePoint site you may wish to prevent users from navigating to the underlying lists e.g:
This can be achieved by activating the ViewFormPagesLockdown feature. This is a hidden feature, however, you can access it through PowerShell.
Get-SPFeature | where { $_.DisplayName -eq "ViewFormPagesLockdown"}
Enable-SPFeature -url http://sharepoint -identity 7c637b23-06c4-4724-9a9a-7c175762c5c4 -confirm:$falseAnonymous users will now need to authenticate in order to view the underlying SharePoint lists and libraries.
Note
“As this feature is activated across a site collection this can lead to issues with anonymous users posting comments on blogs etc.. However the following blog details a method for overcoming this.”
When creating an external facing SharePoint site you are probably going to have to configure anonymous access to allow users to view your site.
You can achieve this by following these steps:
Within central administration Click on Application Management then Manage web applications.
Select the web application that you want to configure anonymous access for and Click on Authentication Providers.
Within the Authentication Providers window Click Default
Within the Edit Authentication window scroll down and Select the Enable anonymous access checkbox. Then Click Save.
After editing the authentication Select the desired web application and Click Anonymous Policy
Within the Anonymous Access Restrictions window select None – no policy then Click Save
Within the web site you have configured anonymous authentication on navigate to Site Permissions
You can achieve this through Site Actions – Site Permissions
Within Site Permissions Click Anonymous Access.
Within the Anonymous Access window you can specify what items have anonymous access. Select Entire Web site then click OK.
Anonymous access should now be configured and your site permissions should display something similar to the following:
Note
“After enabling anonymous access you may wish to prevent anonymous users from accessing the underlying SharePoint lists and libraries e.g:
The can be achieved through the ViewFormPagesLockdown feature. Click here for details on how to configure this.”
By default the SharePoint Logs are located within the hive at:
“C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\14\LOGS”
In order to mitigate the risk of running out of disk space on the C drive you may wish to change to location of the log files.
This can be achieved through either Central Administration or PowerShell.
Within Central Administration click Monitoring then Configure diagnostic logging
Within the diagnostic logging page, scroll down to the Trace Log section and change the log file Path
You can check the current location of the log files using:
You can set the location of the log files using:
Visual Studio needs to be run with Administrator privileges in order to interact with SharePoint. i.e to deploy features.
If you aren’t running with administrator privileges you get the following error message:
With the following message in the output console:
“To interact with SharePoint projects in Visual Studio, your system user account must have administrator privileges.”
In order to avoid this you can get Visual Studio to open up by default with administrator privileges:
Right click on the Visual Studio shortcut icon and choose properties
Click on Advanced
Select Run as administrator then click OK
“This blog details the steps for using the user profile service. Click here for details on how to create a connection to retrieve information”
The following steps outline how to pull through the logged in users “preferred name” from the User Profile Service web service.
Right click a field within the fields data source and chose properties
Within the text box properties window click the formulas button
Within the insert formulas window click Insert Field or Group
Within the Select a field or group window choose the GetUserProfileByName data source. Expand the data fields and select Value then click Filter Data
Within Filter data click Add
With specify filter connection window click Select Field or group
Within Select a field or group window select Name and click OK
Within the specify filter conditions window enter a text filter: e.g “PreferredName”
Then click OK
The filter window should now show the following:
Name = “PreferredName”
Within the filter data window click OK
Within the Select a field or group window click OK
The insert formula window should now show:
Value[Name="PreferredName"]
Click OK
The text box properties window should now show formula. Then click OK
As well as the preferred name other information you can get from the user profile service are include in the table bellow:
| AccountName |
| FirstName |
| LastName |
| WorkPhone |
| Manager |
| UserName |
| WorkEmail |
“This blog details the steps for setting up a connection to this service. See here for details on how to use the connection to retrieve information”
The user profile service web service provides a means by which to read user profiles.
Within applications like InfoPath it can be used to provide a codeless method for accessing information about the user filling in the form.
The User Profile Service web service can be accessed through the following URL:
http://<server>/_vti_bin/UserProfileService.asmx
The following steps can be used to add the link to the web service within InfoPath 2010
Within the Ribbon click on the Data tab then Data Connections
A list of all the current data connection available within InfoPath will be displayed. Click on Add
The data connection wizard will now launch providing a means to create connections to submit and retrieve data. Select Retrieve Data and click Next
The next window within the wizard allows you to specify which type of data source you wish to retrieve data from. As the User Profile Service is a web service the select SOAP Web Service and click Next
After selecting the data source type the next step is its location. For the User Profile Service this is:
http://<server>/_vti_bin/UserProfileService.asmx?WSDL
Enter the location and click Next
After providing the link to the User Profile Service web service the wizard next displays all the operations that are available within it. To retrieve information about the current logged user select GetUserProfileByName the click Next
As we want information about the current user the next screen within the wizard can be left with the default value. Click Next
The next screen within the wizard can be left with the default values. Click Next
Within the final screen of the wizard provide a name for the new data connection.
Check the box to Automatically retrieve data when form is opened
Then click Finish
A data connection for retrieving information from the User Profile Service should now have been created.
When trying to delete a content type within SharePoint you can receive the following error:
Obviously it is telling you that you can’t delete the content type as it is being used somewhere within your site. The question is where is the content type being used.
When I have been faced with this I have used a couple of different methods to find out.
SharePoint Manager
SharePoint Manager is a tool that you can download here from CodePlex. It allows you to explore various objects within your SharePoint farm, including content types and their usages.
SharePoint Manager is a useful tool, however, in some instances it will indicate that the content type has no current usages but you will still receive the above error message.2.
SQL
The following SQL can be used in instances where SharePoint Manager indicates that the content type is not being used.
SELECT WebId, AW.FullUrl, ListId, AL.tp_Title
FROM ContentTypeUsage As CTU
INNER JOIN AllWebs As AW On CTU.WebId = AW.ID
INNER JOIN AllLists As AL ON AL.tp_ID = CTU.ListId
WHERE (sys.fn_varbintohexstr(ContentTypeId) LIKE '[ContentTypeID]%')
You can replace [ContentTypeID] with the content type id within the URL when click on content type within SharePoint:
