14.2. Backup with STSADM

The same tool as you have seen described several times in this book when discussing site templates and Web Parts can also be used for backup and restore procedures. It is a fast and "full-fidelity" procedure; that is, it will exactly restore the sites you backed up, including security settings and personal site views. This tool has some limitations and behaviors you must be aware of, such as:

• It can back up and restore a complete farm, a single site collection, or a single site.

• The result will be stored as a file. STSADM cannot write to other backup media.

• It must be executed on the SharePoint server.

• You must be a SharePoint server administrator to run STSADM.

• This is a command-line tool. There is no graphical user interface included for this tool.

  NOTE

  There is a free graphical interface for STSADM 2007; see the section "Tools for STSADM" later in this chapter.

This is the premier tool for all backup scenarios in SharePoint 2007, for both WSS 3.0 and MOSS 2007 installations. You should invest some time learning how to use this tool and make sure that you understand how to both back up and restore data. Since it has more than 170 operations (or commands), it is almost impossible to remember all the arguments each operation requires, but the tool referred to above will make it much easier.

14.2.1. Preparing for STSADM

STSADM.EXE is stored away deep down in the file system, or to be exact in this folder:

C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft Sharedweb server extensions12BIN

As described in Chapter 2, you should add the file path to this folder to the system path variable to avoid having to type the long path above every time you need to run STSADM. This is how to add the path to STSADM to the PATH system variable:

14.2.2. Running the STSADM Backup

Remember that this tool can back up complete farms, single site collections, or single sites. Let us start with an example of how to back up the site collection for the IT department with the following URL to the top-level site: http://srv1/sites/it. You then follow the steps in the Try It Out.

14.2.3. Tools for STSADM

There is a great add-on for STSADM 2007 that gives a graphical user interface on top of STSADM, which will make it much easier to use it, especially for an inexperienced SharePoint administrator. The name of this tool is Stsadmwin.exe, and it is free. You can download a copy from this URL: http://blogs.msdn.com/ronalus/archive/2007/01/04/stsadmwin-has-an-2007-version.aspx. (Note that the download link is located at the end of the article.) Using the graphical Stsadmwin 2007 tool for doing the same type of backup as described above will look like the following figure. Just select the Backup operation and the list of command switches shows "URL," "Filename," and "Overwrite;" enter the values for the command switches, and click either Submit to execute this command or Compose to see the complete command string, as depicted in Figure 14-1.

Figure 14-1. Figure 14-1

This tool is also an excellent way of learning all the commands of STSADM; just select an Operation, and you will see its command switches. Play with this tool, and you will be surprised how much STSADM can do for you. In fact, all you can do with the SharePoint Administrative Tool can be done with STSADM; it even has some commands not available in SharePoint Central Administration, such as Backup and Restore, plus Export and Import! If you have been working with STSADM in SharePoint 2003, you will find that it now contains no less than 173 commands, as listed in the following table.

As you can see, STSADM is a very powerful tool that can assist you in most types of administrative tasks, not just backup and restore scenarios. To learn more about this tool, you can search www.microsoft.com for "stsadm 2007;" two good articles to start with are listed below:

• www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/01/CommandPrompt/default.aspx

• http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/ab9653b9-de50-4407-8025-1c415bc67c041033.mspx?mfr=true

And it does not stop here — you can actually create custom commands for STSADM 2007, since it is extensible! For example, you can add a custom command that enumerates all tasks in a Task list, or a command that lists all checked out documents in a document library. You must use Visual Studio .NET for developing these custom commands.