SharePoint SP2 Bug

It's a BUgApparently there is a bug in Service Pack 2 of SharePoint 2007. 
During the installation of SP2, a product expiration date is improperly activated. This means SharePoint will expire as though it was a trial installation 180 days after SP2 is deployed. The activation of the expiration date will not affect the normal function of SharePoint up until the expiration date passes. Furthermore, product expiration 180 days after SP2 installation will not affect customer’s data, configuration or application code but will render SharePoint inaccessible for end-users.

See this page for more details and how to fix it.

Tunnelpoint SharePoint Services

With the help of Peter de Haas I found a few SharePoint specialists who have been able to design a very easy but powerful system to connect SharePoint to external services/data without the need to install anything.

With the help of the services they provide, you can do some nice things, for example:

  • post updates to a sharepoint list which then get posted to your twitter account (you could use this for a team all twittering in just one account).
  • Fill in an adres and a city in a sharepoint list, and they will provide you with the driving directions (google maps), from your location stored in your tunnelpoint account.
  • Import a RSS feed into an Sharepoint List.

I did some testing with our BPOS account, and this really works easy. Just a simple few steps you have to do to get it up and running. I tried to import my RSS feed into our BPOS account, it’s just a matter of minutes:

image

and the result:

image

You can try it out yourself @: http://tunnelpoint.com/

*edit
I did have some problems with the mobypicture services. After publishing this blogpost, I received a Direct Twitter message from one of the specialists of Tunnelpoint. He connected me to another person here in Holland, and within no time I got an email from him, asking me what the problem was. The problem is solved now (my fault) Applause.

Review BPOS Training

Yesterday I followed a 1 day crash course on BPOS at QWISE.

It was just what i needed to get me to look into the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite of Microsoft. I already signed up for an account, but did not have the time to really look into it.

My first impression is that it is a great product, especially for small company’s which do not have a IT department and are considering to buy a server. If your company’s only needs mail, then this product is surely the way to go. You will also get document management (SharePoint) and Communications (OCS).

The exchange part of BPOS is really great. No on-premises servers needed. And it works like a charm.

SharePoint is less then you’re used to if you run it on-premises. Especially when you’re used to the enterprise version. No Excel Services, no enterprise data search, no My Sites. But this will be solved in a future release for sure. The D-version (dedicated) of BPOS can do more, but prices are still unknown (and you’re company must have +5000 users)

Office Communicator is also great. The only problem we had is that after changing our default domain, we could not authenticate with our new domain. Which is rather important off course :-)
edit: i just installed ocs and the login tool on a VM @ home, and the login with the new domain is working now.

Some things I wrote down:

  • only €12,78 (thx Peter) for an account, with a minimum of 5 account.
  • You can sync your AD and BPOS with the AD Sync tool.
  • To migrate your current exchange, you can use the Migration Tool. You don’t have to migrate with a big bang, but can do this gradually.
  • Keep note of the admin login credentials, it’s really difficult the get them again so write them down.
  • When you register the “Ship To” address is used to determine in which datacenter your data will be stored. For some company’s this can be important (legal issue’s)
  • There is only a sync between your AD and BPOS when you use the AD sync tool (which cannot run on a Domain Controller, Server 2008 or x64). Because no passwords are synced, this can cause mismatching between AD and BPOS.
  • you’ll get 5gb mailbox storage per user license and 250mb sharpoint storage per user license. Which you can divide the way you like.
  • The sign in application does not work on Home SKU’s (i.e vista home)
  • Bij exchange co-existance (on and off premises), you don’t have shared calendar’s
  • Mailbox migration (especialy from exchange 2003): watch your language settings. You could end up with 2 inboxes (inbox and inkomende email = dutch)

Great Product :-)

Sharepoint 2007 & WSS ServicePack 2 release date

According to this site, servicepack 2 for Sharepoint 2007 and WSS 3 should be available on april 28th.

Some changes / improvements:

  • An STSADM command line that scans your server farm to establish whether it is ready for upgrade to the next version of SharePoint and provides feedback and best practice recommendations on your current environment.
  • SP2 offers support for a broader range of Web browsers.

  • Substantial improvements to Forms-based authentication.

  • Windows Server 2008 SP2 and Windows Server R2 will be supported on their release.

  • Excel Services

    • SP2 makes it easier to configure Excel Web Access Web Parts on new sites.

    • Several rendering, calculation, and security issues have been resolved.

    • Some display issues have been addressed.

    • Improved compatibility with Mozilla Firefox browsers

    Document explaining Kerberos & Double Hop

    A nice document explaining Kerberos, the double hop issue and what to do about it. It is also using an example with Reporting Server, Analysis Server and Sharepoint.

    Check it out @ http://www.ssas-info.com/analysis-services-articles/51-security/1492-enhanced-security-and-integration-of-microsoft-bi-solutions-with-kerberos

    written by Mark Dasco and Boyan Penev

    Sharepoint and SSRS integration

    Integrating reports in dashboards is hot. If you’re organization isn’t analyzing all the data it is gathering to answer questions about your business, you’re going to fall behind. If you have SharePoint , you can integrate Reporting Server and Analysis Server with it (I am not going to tell how to work with SSRS, there is someone who is much better at that).

    This is my Server environment:

     image

    AD_SRV     : Active Directory Server
    SP_SRV      : Sharepoint Server
    SQL_SRV   : SQL Server (Sharepoint Configuration Database)
    REP_SRV  : Reporting Server (SSRS)

    As you can see we will run into the double hop problem. In short: the credentials which are passed into IIS (Sharepoint) cannot be passed to another machine (SSRS) for authentication. You can solve this by using the Kerberos Protocol. This is what I am gonna try to explain :-)

    What do you need:

    • Domain Service Account (the account of the Sharepoint Web App Application Pool). Let’s say: srvAccount
    • Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services add-in for Microsoft Sharepoint Technologies (download here, see to it that you take the correct version i.e. x86 or x64)

    First of all install the Sharepoint Object Model on the SSRS Server, if you don’t you will receive an error like:
    The configuration paramter SharePointIntegrated is set to true but Share Point Object Model cannot be loaded.
    Use the Service Account srvAccount
    Also install .Net version 3.5 and the Windows Installer update (the setup will do that)

    Then make sure that the srvAccount can create SPN’s dynamically, see step 3 in this article from Microsoft.

    I installed SSRS to run under the service account srvAccount.
    Then to configure the reporting server (start the Reporting Services Configuration Manager):

    • Create a new database (I installed it on srvAccount).
      1. Choose “Integrated Security”
      2. Choose “Sharepoint Integrated Mode”
      3. At credentiails, choose "Service Credentials”
    • Create your Web-Service URL and your Report Manager URL (write these down somewhere, you will need them again)

    Then install the Reporting Services Add-in on SP_SRV.

    Next step is to configure the add-in:

    • start Sharepoint Central Administration, and click [Application Management]. There should be a section called “Reporting Services”, if it is not available, you have to enable it (Site Actions > Site Settings > Site Collection Features. Search for Report Server Integration Feature and click [Activate]). It’s possible that the feature isn’t there, then perform a installation in Files-Only Mode (see: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa905871.aspx).
    • Below section “Reporting Services”, click on [Manage Integration Settings]
    • Fill in the Web Service URL, you wrote down earlier in the field besides “Report Server Web Service URL”
    • Choose “Windows Authentication”
    • Click [OK]
    • Next click [Grant Database Access] (back at the section Reporting Services)
    • In the field “Server Name” fill in the name of the database server (i.e. REP_SRV) on which your reporting database runs
    • Click OK and  and fill in the username and password of your service account (srvAccount)

    So.. now the Service Principal Names. Restart your SQL Server Service on SQL_SRV, so that it will register it’s SPN’s dynamically.
    The following SPN’s we’re registered manually by me:

    • setspn –a HTTP/<FQDN of REP_SRV> <domain>\srvAccount
    • setspn –a HTTP/<NETBIOS Name of REP_SRV> <domain>\srvAccount

    As you’ve done the SPN’s, you’re able to trust the srvAccount for delegation. In Active Directory, enable your service account to be trusted for delegation. Do the same for all your servers.

    image

    Now enable you’re SharePoint web application for Kerberos:

    • Open Central Administration
    • Navigation to Application Management > Authentication Providers
    • Choose the web application you wish to configure from the drop-down in the top right corner (this includes the Central Administration web application)
    • Click on ‘Default’
    • Set the authentication to Negotiate (Kerberos)
    • IISRESET

    Last step: on your reporting server open rsreportserver.config (located in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSRS10.MSSQLSERVER\Reporting Services\ReportServer”
    Find the tag:

    <AuthenticationTypes>
                <RSWindowsNTLM/>
    </AuthenticationTypes?

    Change RSWindowsNTLM to RSWindowsNegotiate.

    So, I hope I forgot nothing, happy reporting :-)

    Note: You can secure your kerberos environment some more, I showed you how to trust a user for delegation. I went for the option “Trust this user for delegation to any service (Kerberos only)”, you can also choose to go for “Trust this user for delegation to specified services only”. With this option you will dedicate some services allowed for the user (like http, cifs, etc….).

    Some Websites which could be useful:
    Tool for helping to troubleshoot Kerberos
    Reza Alirezaei’s blog
    Steve Caravaial’s blog
    Winsmarts.com

    Sharepoint hidden webparts maintenance page

    On our sharepoint intranet site we had a problem with a webpart. This webpart displayed some top sites. Whenever we wanted to remove it we received a javascript error.

    Someone suggested us to add ?contents=1 behind the url (resulting in something like: http://<your domain here>/Pages/Default.aspx ?contents=1)

    you will now see the hidden webparts page, and can delete the irritating Web Part

    Use with caution!

    SETSPN calculator sheet for SharePoint

    I’ve been struggling with kerberos authentication and SharePoint (in combination with SSAS and SSRS Server) for quite some days now. I found something useful in creating the SPN’s needed for kerberos. It’s an Excel sheet, in which you enter some values of your environment and he will return you the SETSPN’s you need to do.

    You can download it here: Excel Sheet SPN Calculator.

    Special thanks goes out to user SPRobot of the site www.sharepointblogs.com, who posted the sheet.

    Change Application Pool Identity in Sharepoint

    How to change your application pool identity in sharepoint?

    1. Go to Sharepoint Central Administration.
    2. Click the Operations Tab.
    3. Click on Service Accounts (in the section Security Configuration)
    4. Select Web Application Pool
    5. Under Web Service, select the Application and then select the Application Pool which you want to change.
    6. Then change your Identity in the section “Select an account for this component”