Completing Post-Installation Configuration

After a successful installation, there are several things to configure at the central administration level for both MOSS and WSS installations. Shared services need to be configured for MOSS installations.

Central administration configuration

The SharePoint installation creates a central administration console that opens when you complete the installation. Central administration is located on the first SharePoint server that you install in your farm and can be accessed via browser by http://<servername>:port, where <servername> is the physical server name of your first server and port is the port number that was either randomly generated during installation or that you specified.

Operations configuration

The operations tasks necessary to manage healthy server operations are found on the Operations tab of Central Administration. Follow these steps to configure your SharePoint server for initial use.

Configuring incoming/outgoing e-mail settings

Outgoing e-mail settings enable SharePoint to send alerts and site notifications via Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select the Operations tab.
2.	Click Outgoing e-mail settings in the Topology and Services section.
3.	Enter the name or IP address of your e-mail server in the Outbound SMTP server field.
4.	Enter the e-mail address that you want to use as the from address in the From address field. This is the address that the mail sent by the server will appear to be from.
5.	Enter the reply-to address in the reply-to address field. This is the address used when a user replies to e-mail sent by the server. It is recommended to use a distribution list as the reply-to address so that e-mails get sent to the appropriate user(s), and you can maintain that distribution list to reflect changes in your server administrator organization.
6.	Click OK.

By configuring incoming e-mail settings, you enable SharePoint sites to accept and archive incoming e-mail to support features like archiving e-mail discussion, saving e-mailed documents, and presenting calendar invites on site calendars. To configure incoming e-mail settings, follow these steps:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select the Operations tab.
2.	Click Incoming E-Mail Settings in the Topology and Services section.
3.	Select Yes under Enable sites on this server to receive e-mail.
4.	Click OK.

Alternating access mapping

Alternate access mapping allows you to set different names for your default, intranet, and extranet portals. The default portal name is returned for most users (although SharePoint maintains the namespace by which the user accessed the portal). Your default name is configured when you install SharePoint and is set to the physical name of your server. To set the name to be a host name all front-end servers will respond to, you need to change the alternate access mapping by following these steps:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select the Operations tab.
2.	Click Alternate access mappings in the Global Configuration section.
3.	Select the incoming URL that you want to edit and type in the URL that you want to use.
4.	Click OK.
5.	Click Edit Public URLs and enter the URL that you want to be used to access your site in the default zone field and click Save.

Configuring diagnostics logging

Diagnostics logging is important for troubleshooting and includes trace logs, event messages, user-mode error messages, and Customer Experience Improvement Program events.

SharePoint allows you to configure how many log files and what type of events to capture so that you modulate the size and depth of your logged information. The default settings are good for normal mode operations, but you may want to tune them if you have server or application issues. To modify the diagnostic logging settings, follow these steps:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select the Operations tab.
2.	Click Diagnostic logging in the Logging and Reporting section.
3.	Modify the Least critical event to report to the event log drop-down to capture more or less granular event data.
4.	Modify the Least critical event to report to the trace log drop-down to capture more or less granular event data.
5.	Change the path if you would like to store the log files in a different location.
6.	Change the Number of log files field if you want to save more or less log data.
7.	Change the Number of minutes to use a log file if you want to increase or decrease the size of each log file.
8.	Click OK.

Enabling Windows SharePoint Services Search

WSS Search must be enabled on at least one server for WSS installations and must be started before creating your first WSS site. Follow these steps to start the WSS Search service:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select the Operations tab.
2.	Click Servers in farm in the Topology and Services section.
3.	Click the server on which the Search service will run.
4.	Click Start for the “Windows SharePoint Services Help Search” on the Services on Server page.
5.	Select the Take over all non-indexed content databases check box on the SharePoint Services Search Settings page.
6.	Select the Configurable check box in the service account section and type the username and password for the Search service account in domainusername format. For more information on the requirements for the Search service account, see the “Preparing administrative accounts” section in this chapter.
7.	Select the Configurable check box in the content access account section and type the username and password for the content access account in domainusername format. For more information on the requirements for the content access account, see the “Preparing administrative accounts” section in this chapter.
8.	Leave the default settings for the search database and indexing schedule sections and click Start.

If you want to start the search service on more than one server in your farm, you must specify which server will be indexing the content because this can only be done on one server. To specify which server is the index server, follow these steps:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select the Application Management tab.
2.	Select Content databases in the SharePoint Web Application Management section.

Configuring an index server

For MOSS installations, you need to configure an index server for your farm. This step must be done before creating a Shared Services Provider. To configure an index server:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select the Operations tab.
2.	Click Servers in farm in the Topology and Services section.
3.	Click the server on which the Index service will run.
4.	Click Start for the Office SharePoint Server Search on the Services on Server page.
5.	Confirm that the Use this server for indexing content box is selected.
6.	Select the Use this server for serving search queries if you would like Search to run on this server. Search can run on multiple servers if you would like to share the search load and availability.
7.	Enter the file location where you would like the index files stored in the local path for the index file location field.
8.	Enter an e-mail address for the search service in the E-mail address field. This address is used to provide administrators of other servers that you may be crawling a method for contacting you if your indexing is causing them any issues.
9.	Select Configurable in the server account section and enter the Search service account username and password credentials in the appropriate fields.
10.	Select the appropriate option for the Web front end and crawling from these two choices: No dedicated web front end computer for crawling: This option is appropriate if you have a topology that does not have a dedicated index server (single server or small farm) or if you are running shared services or Excel calculation service on this server. Use a dedicated Web front-end computer for crawling: Use this option if you have a stand-alone index server and select the appropriate server name.
11.	Click OK.

Backing up a SharePoint farm

Backups are a vital component to protecting your SharePoint data and providing a method for recovering from server failure. To back up your SharePoint farm, do the following:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select the Operations tab.
2.	Click Perform a backup in the Backup and restore section.
3.	Select the check box next to the Farm option at the top of the page.
4.	Click Start Backup Process on the top navigation bar.
5.	Select Full or Differential in the Type of backup section. Full creates a backup of all the SharePoint farm settings. Differential creates a backup of all SharePoint data that has changed since your last successful full backup. It is recommended to do a full backup at least once a week.
6.	Enter the file location for the backup files. This path can either be a UNC path or a local file path.
7.	Select OK.

Application configuration

The Application Management tab provides links to the activities necessary to manage your sites and applications.

Add administrator group to manage Web applications

During the installation, the account used to install SharePoint is by default given broad administrator access for the farm. During the post-installation configuration, you should grant an administrator group the same level of access that your install account was given so that all administrative tasks are possible for the right group of administrators. To grant this access, follow these steps:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select the Application Management tab.
2.	Click Policy for Web application in the Application Security section.
3.	Select Add Users from the top navigation bar.
4.	Select the Web application for which you want to grant administrator privileges.
5.	Click Add Users and add the group or user. Select the Full Control check box.
6.	Click Finish.

Turn on self-service site creation

Enabling self-service site creation allows end users with the appropriate permissions to create their own site. By turning on this option, an announcement is added to the top-level Web site advertising the ability for users to create sites. To turn on self-service site creation, follow these steps:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select the Application Management tab.
2.	Click Self-service site management in the Application Security section.
3.	Select the Web application that you want to enable self-service site creation from the Web Application pull-down menu.
4.	Select On.
5.	Check the Require secondary contact box if you want to force users to enter at least two contacts when creating a site. Having a secondary contact often prevents sites from becoming orphaned when the primary contact leaves the organization or changes roles.
6.	Click OK.

Creating a shared services provider

If you have identified that your installation will support shared services for your Web applications and possibly others, you need to create a shared services provider (SSP) and associate this SSP with the Web applications that it will support. This step is not applicable to WSS installations.

To create a new SSP:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select the Application management tab.
2.	Click Create or configure this farm’s shared services in the Office SharePoint Server Shared Services section.
3.	Click New SSP on the Manage this Farm’s Shared Services Page.
4.	Specify a name for the SSP.
5.	Specify the Web application that will support My Sites in the My Site Location section.
6.	Enter the SSP Service Account credentials in the SSP Service Credentials section in domainusername format. For more information, see the “Preparing administrative accounts” section in this chapter.
7.	Specify the database server and database name for storing session data. It is recommended to use the default database server and database name unless there is a specific organizational requirement not to do so.
8.	In the Index Server section, select the Index server that will crawl the content for Web applications associated with this SSP.
9.	In the SSL for Web Services section, select whether or not SSL will be used to secure Web services communications.
10.	Click OK.

Associating Web applications and SSPs

After you have configured an SSP, you need to associate your Web applications with that SSP so that they can consume those services. An SSP can support multiple Web applications. To associate your Web applications with an SSP, follow these steps:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration and select your Shared Services Administration heading from the Quick Launch taskbar in the left navigation.
2.	Click Change Associations on the top navigation bar of the Manage this Farm’s Shared Services page.
3.	Select the SSP you want to configure on the Change Association between Web Applications and SSPs page.
4.	Select the Web applications that you want to associate with the SSP.
5.	Click OK.

Configuring Excel Services

Excel Services extends the business intelligence capabilities provided with MOSS and enables dynamic, easy publishing with Office 2007 Excel spreadsheets. This service is available if you have installed the Enterprise version of MOSS. To install and configure Excel Calculation Services, follow the steps below:

1.	Open SharePoint Central Administration.
2.	Click Administrator Tasks.
3.	Click Add Excel Services Trusted Locations.
4.	Click Add Excel Services Trusted Locations under the Action menu.
5.	Click Add Trusted File Location.
6.	Type the address of the trusted file location in the Address field. This address can be a SharePoint 2007 site (recommended) or any http Web site or universal naming convention (UNC) path.
7.	Click Windows SharePoint Services in the location type if your location is a SharePoint 2007 site, or click http or UNC as appropriate for your source.
8.	Select the trust level for external data sources in Allow External Data. Levels are as follows: None: This setting prevents Excel Calculation Services from processing links to any external data connection. Trusted data connection libraries only: This setting allows Excel Calculation Services to process links to trusted data connection libraries but not links to external data sources. Trusted data connection libraries and embedded: This setting allows Excel Calculation Services to process links to trusted data connection libraries and to process links to external data sources.