SharePoint Page Provision

In SharePoint, there are 3 kinds of pages you can provision:

Application Page-- Pages in _layouts/ directory

Site Page-- ghosted site pages such as default.aspx

pages loaded in sharepoint document libraries


For pages in sharepoint document library, no server code is allowed by default, unless you change PageParserPaths in web.config. See this blog for details.

For both Application Page and Site Page, you can add server code in one of 3 ways:

• inline code (code render or declartion blocks)
• add user controls, for example: <%@ Register TagPrefix="XXX" TagName="lookup" Src="~/_controltemplates/LookupDefaultValue.ascx" % >
• inherits from code behind. Such as : <%@ Page inherits="CodeBehindDemo" % >. The trick is SharePoint dones't allow either CodeBehind or Src attributes. You have to use dll instead:

<%@ Assembly Name="NIAID.ListEventSetting, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=a1c61a650ab8c476"% > <%@ Page Language="C#" Inherits="NIAID.ListEventSetting.ListEventPage" MasterPageFile="~/_layouts/application.master" % >

controls or methods used in aspx page need to be defined in the code behind with either protected or public access.

for site page, the dll also need to be in the safe control list in web.config.

Another option, less desired, is to use  CodeFile attribute in Web Site Project. It requires putting .cs source files into the layouts directory. Some people even developed user controls with CodeFile in layouts or controltemplate and use SmartPart or self-developed webpart loader (loadControl) for web part development.

Configure and Test SharePoint Incoming Email in Window Server 2008

I have built a Win2k8 based sharepoint 2007 farm (1 WFE, 1 Index and 1 SQL), and have its incoming email configured as follows:

1.install SMTP in both WFE( for incoming email) and Application Server (for outgoing email);

2.check services in CA to make sure WFE is running "incoming email service" and Application Server is running "outgoing email service";

3. Create a DNS MX record such as:
(same as parent folder) MX [10] spweb.sp.local or
moss MX [10]spweb.sp.local
this essentially tells spweb.sp.local is the mail server for the domain of sp.local or subdomain moss.sp.local. read here for more details.

4. Configure mail server's SMTP domain list to include an alias of sp.local (for normal user email address, used to test SMTP extension/pop3) and an alias of moss.sp.local for sharepoint email enabled lists:
5. Configure "incoming setting" in CA

• allow farm to receive email
• specify email address such as moss.sp.local

6. Configure list setting to allow list get emails

• specify email address for a sharepoint list, such as sharedDoc@moss.sp.local
• check "yes" on "Save original e-mail"

7. Configure an email client (outlook).

• install SMTP extension (pop3). This is a necessary (and hard) part since Win2k8 doesn't have POP3 built in.
• open window firewall at port 110 (for pop3)
• create an outlook account for testing:
  * Email address ends with one of SMTP domain alias list such as admin@sp.local
  * setting smtp server (not confused with sp outgoing eamil server) and pop3 server (iP address, not Netbios)
  * user password to logon to pop3 server (defined in smtp extension's configure.xml located in "c:\ProgramData\ppedv\visendosmtpextender")

8) Test first if sending and receiving email work okay in outlook by sending some email to itself, and then test sending email to a sharepoint list such as shareddoc@moss.sp.local.

Overall, the very simiplied picuture is: mail client asks its local SMTP to send an eamil to shareddoc@moss.sp.local)-> outlook's local SMTP server ask DNS,who is mail server for remote domain sp.local ? -> find MX record from DNS ->logon to remote mail server SMTP-> check for mail domain moss.sp.local: if it doesn't exisit, mail sending fails there. If it does exist, mail goes to SMTP's drop folder and stay there waiting for SharePoint Timer Job to pick up and put into the assocaited list. For regular user email, mail client using POP3 will do the pickup job, and the only difference is regular user email has its individual subfolder under the drop folder root.

Moss 2007 and Server 2008 window firewall

I have installed MOSS 2007 on a farm of 3 window 2008 servers:

• WFE: running web application,search query,and incoming email service
  
• Application: running Central Admin, Indexing (no query), outgoing email service and all other services
  
• SQL: sql 2008

There are serveral problems all related with window firewall:

• can't browse Central Admin from anywhere other than Application server
  

Window Firewall only open Http at port 80. open an exception at CA port in App server to fix this problem.

• Office Search Service or SSP can't be configured

Sharepoint SSP use web service call at port 56737. open exceptions on both WEF and App servers to fix this problem. If no query server is specified, configuration "looks like" it can go through, but "check service enabled in farm" disclose problems. Be sure to check it.

• Index Propagation fails

Sharepoint use SMB (File Shareing) protocol to push index from Index to Query server (WFE in this case). Open "File and Printer SharePoint" exception to fix this problem.

reference: http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/02/13/protocols-ports-and-firewall-rules.aspx

http://blogs.msdn.com/uksharepoint/archive/2009/01/05/sharepoint-ports-proxies-and-protocols-an-overview-of-farm-communications.aspx

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/962928/en-us

Window Server 2008, Hyper-V and Wireless Connection

In preparation for SharePoint 2010, I need to convert a 64-bit Vista Workstation into a server runing window 2008 and then run Hyper-V to create a farm of 3 servers: a Domain Controller, a SQL server, and one Web server. My another goal is to setup all wireless network connection for all VMs and my physical server. Here are the outlines on some major steps:

1) Convert Vista to Win2k8.
Booting with Win2k8 CD. There are choices of either formating disk or replacing Vista. I chose the latter since I don't need to install drivers again.


2) Setup wireless connection
First need to enable wireless feature for win2k8:
Secondly need to update wireless driver: no Window 2k8 wireless driver availabe, but I can use Vista's driver: the win2k8 installation process save all vista drivers in Windows.old folder. I use "Update Driver" option in Device Manager:
3) enable RDP.
Since I build this as my work platform, I need to access anywher via RDP:

• need to Change "Remote" Option: Computer->Properties->Remote Setting->Remote

3) setup Hyper-V

• enable Hyper-V role of Win2k8. This adds some dependent feature as well.
• turn on Hardware Assisted Virtualization: On Intel platforms, Turn VT on in the BIOS (on AMD platforms, AMD-V is on all the time) http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtual-pc/support/configure-bios.aspx  http://www.sysprobs.com/disable-enable-virtualization-technology-bios

4) Create VMs
First time when I created VMs, they don't have any network connection even if I have wireless connection for my phsical server. It turns out Hyper-V doesn't support wireless adapters. The workaround is:

• create a virtaul network in Hyper-V's Virtual Network Manager and then bridge it with wireless connection (details).
• Then run Hyper-V to create VMs with the virtual network connection created above.

For DC vm I chose mini requirement: 512MB memory and 32G disk.
Since I also want to RDP from my phsical server to VMs ( I can certainly connect to them, but if I RDP to my server first and then connect to VMs, window key combination can't go through to VMs) , I enabled RDP as I did to my physical server. But to my surprise that only allows me to use IP address! When i use VM BIOS, it said it can't find the server! I looked at my router's DNS, the VM BIOS name is not there. and I can't add it (get "entry already exist" error) for some reasons. As a workaround I open Window FireWall for PING (see here on how to ping), and I can then RDP its BIOS name.
5) promote Domain Controller

• run dcpromo.exe (detail)
• disable IP6 for DC vm's connection and configure IP4:
since my server is From DHCP, DC vm need a static IP address and its DNS server should point to itself details

6) join other VMs to Domain
I have create other 2 VMs also runing Win2k8, and need to join them to the Domain I just created. To do so, the only trick is to set each VM's DNS server to DC/DNS VM IP(otherwise it will go to my home router's DNS instead), and then change WorkGroup to Domain just like changing computer's BIOS name. DC will add VM server into AD once it is joined, and DNS server will dynamically add VM's name into dns table once VM is connected.

by now I have a farm of 3 virtual servers running on a sub domain (or virtual sub net). It was a long weekend, but I am so happy about Hyper-V. It really rocks!

SharePoint Managed Path and IIS ISAPI

In SharePoint 3.0 there is no more extra ISAPI extension such as the one in WSS 2.0. All requests are routed to aspnet_isapi.dll instead.

The aspnet_isapi.dll will serve a request if a physical IIS path is found as a match. For example, in IIS you can create a subfolder out of root directory of sharepoint site, and you can browse files inside the subfolder. Doing this actually blocks this subfolder name as sharepoint managed path, since IIS handle requests first.

If no physical IIS path found, Http handlers and Http Modules which are defined in the web.config will start to knick off to handle http requests. At this point, the managed path info will be used to resolve URL.

Update 04/05/2010: IIS will do authentication,and after that the request is yielded to the SharePoint14Module, which will contact file system first and then content database for appropriate page. See this blog for details.

There is an exception: if you put files (other than folders) under iis root directory of sharpoint site, those files can not be served unless they are defined as Explicit Inclusion type of managed path. This seems to be the wss 2.0 "excluded" concept.

Update: this exception only applies to MOSS and WSS 3.0, it is fixed in SharePoint 2010. great fix, no more confusing.

SharePoint and WebDav

Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, or WebDav is to allow clients to access web-based documents as if they are in client's local driver (accessible via window explorer: yoursite/DavWWWRoot ). SharePoint features such as Explorer View is an example, saving office files into sharepoint server is another example. IIS has WebDav service, however SharePoint doesn't use it, instead, SharePoint has its own built in. So there is no need to enable IIS WebDav service in a sharepoint server.
On the client side, there are some requirements:

• need Office 2007 installed;
• Windows XP: Web Client is installed and enabled (by default).
• Windows Vista: The Web Folder service needs to be started.
• Windows 2008 (and R2): The Desktop Experience feature needs to be installed.

In case of FBA SharePoint sites, clients also need to

• enable "client integration"
• enable Cookies by checking "Auto sign me"
• window XP need to install hot fix Webfldrs-KB907306-ENU.exe

SharePoint Users also need the following permission (this is a part of "contribute" level permission, be default assigned to "member" shaerpoint group) to utilize any WebDav related feature:

SharePoint Authentication and IIS

We know SharePoint relies on IIS to do authentication (unless FBA), and provides contents based on AAM configuration. When a request such as http://sp.company.com/ hits a WFE, the IIS select a site to authenticate the request. The selection process works as follows:

1. first it looks for the site listening to port 80 with header as sp.company.com. If it is found, it is selected;
2. Otherwise, it looks for the site without any header and listening to any unsigned ip address at port 80. If there is one, it will be selected for authentication;
3. If neither is found, IIS error out

Notice the URL doesn't have to point to the WFE. for example, in the case of Load Balancer, URL points to LB, not WFE.

After authentication succeed, It is up to SharePoint to serve the http request. SharePoint provides content solely based on its AAM configuration, i.e, it must have that specfic FQDN configured (in the prvious example, it is sharepoint.company.com), otherwise, it errors out.

Notice in some scenario, IIS site which does authentication can have a different FQDN than that in SharePoint AAM.

AAM reference: http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/03/06/what-every-sharepoint-administrator-needs-to-know-about-alternate-access-mappings-part-1.aspx