Moving sharepoint 3.0 from one server to another

[jamesbowtell]

I'm sure you have been asked this question many times before, but here goes.

I have been tasked to move a sharepoint server from one server to another.

What i want to do is move everything as it is:

Design

Layout

Content...(Documents/files..ect)

EVERYTHING from one server to another.

I have backed up the FARM using the built in tools in Central Administration.

Do i need to make a backup of the site using Sharepoint Desiger to get the design back?

Any help/tutorials would help

Cheers

James

[michael412]

I have done this in the past and I've only just done it again, but the task is not yet perfected and I'm about to post a question that has arisen from it. The problem that I am still facing is that when I try to go into any administrative type pages I get an Access Denied. This is probably related to the fact that I have migrated from a domain server to a workspace server.

Another thing that you will probably have to do is copy over any assemblies that are used by any features that you have added to your source system.

Nevertheless I will reproduce the steps below that I went through. I hope this is of some help.

On the destination server:

Installed SQL2008ExpressAdvSvcs. Couldn't install Reporting Services for SharePoint as not supported in SQL Express.

Installed WSS front end with a DBAdmin user account "SharePointDBUser".
Data location: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\Data

Ran C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\psconfigui.exe (SP DB configuration utility).

Restored database from full (disaster recovery) backup using command:

stsadm -o restore -directory d:\backups\wss -item "Farm\Windows SharePoint Services Web Application\SBS SharePoint\ShareWebDb" -restoremethod new -newdatabaseserver "DESTSVR1\SQL2008ExpressSP"

This did a DB restore to "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.SQL2008EXPRESSSP\MSSQL\DATA" but failed to connect into WSS.

Using Central Admin defined a new web application on port 8080 with a database named "WSS_Content". Had to use localhost in web browser for this to be seen as local intranet and to respond to the OK button (alternatiev would be top set the server as a trusted site). Also set NETWORK_SERVICE as the application pool account (me being lazy). The directory for the web application is C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\wss\VirtualDirectories\8080.

Using Central Administration removed the WSS_Content database from the web application.

Set up SharePointDBUser as db_owner of ShareWebDb (which is the name of the database that I restored from my disaster recovery backup). Also had to give roles. Tried to connect to Web App via Central Admin but it complained that the web application that created the DB was a newer version than what is installed on DESTSVR1 even after applying SP1 to SQL Server. This might be because the source WSS is 64bit edition with KB2345304 applied, whereas this cannot be applied to a 32bit version.
Had to delete the content of the Versions table and copy over the Versions table from the recently created SharePoint_Config database. Then when I tried adding in the database via Central Administration I was told to use stsadm -o addcontentdb because an upgrade is needed which could cause the browser to time out.

stsadm -o addcontentdb -url http://destsvr1:8080 -assignnewdatabaseid -clearchangelog -databasename ShareWebDb -databaseserver DESTSVR1\SQL2008ExpressSP

That appeared to work. I was then faced with issues accessing the System.Web assembly of V2 of the framework. Tried reinitialising ASP.Net via

aspnet_regiis -i

That seemed to fix it. I had to use web application policy to allow destsvr1\Administrator access. I had to open port 8080 on the firewall to allow access from my own machine. That still had an authentication problem but that's not surprising given that destsvr1 isn't on the domain.
Had to change browser to see site as local intranet for pages to work right - otherwise the browser rarely seemed to finish loading the page and mostly wouldn't support the scripted controls.