Thursday, September 24, 2009

Can not enable anonymous access for internet zone

Just to clarify the relationship between alternate access mappings host headers and SharePoint Zones…

While configuring multiple frontend servers and different zones, including Internet. I discovered that I could not set the anonymous access to my site in the Internet Zone.

What puzzled me was the fact that I could not set the anonymous access rights on the site after enabling anonymous in the Zone. The choices were all disabled. (_layouts/setanon.aspx)

Not_Anon

Not having my mind correctly set I missed the fact that I was configuring the site collection using a url that was NOT configured for the Internet zone. I was only configuring using the default zone (or the server name as host to be specific)

The host header and the alternate access mappings is the only link that SharePoint has to discover that the site actually is in a zone. It all makes sense, but when you are configuring your site before the DNS entries are set you may stumble on this little problem…

By using the correct hostname, that is referring to the internet zone in my browser it all worked out.

OK_Anon

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

ASP.NET error after installing a SharePoint WFE

After installing a new SharePoint Web Frontend you  receive a “normal” ASP.NET error message the address in the browser will point to the _Layouts “directory”, so SharePoint is in play.

When studying the event log the message contains “Could not load file or assembly RSSharePointSoapProxy…

This is a Assembly that is used by the SQL Server Reporting Services Integration for SharePoint.

The problem: Reporting Services is installed on the SharePoint Farm and the binaries does not exist on the new frontend server.

Solution:

Start by downloading the Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services Add-in for Microsoft SharePoint Technologies for SQL 2005 or SQL 2008 (May 2009 release) (SharePointRS.msi or RSSharePoint.msi)

Note: The description below is based on the 2008 version of the Add-in

Do not run the MSI as a ordinary setup process, this will result in a error message in the event log and a rollback of the package. The error indicates that the SERVERNAME$ can not logon to the database.

Start the MSI with the parameter SKIPCA=1 this will extract the file rsCustomAction.exe to the TEMP folder of the current user.

To install the binaries and configure the Reporting Services run rsCustomAction.exe /i

Be sure to run as a user that has rights to the SharePoint Site Collection.

After the executable finishes your new SharePoint Front End should display the SharePoint sites normally.

By running this application the Solution will be redeployed on the existing servers as well, even upgraded if possible.

For more information see the readme bundled with the Add-in

Access denied when configuring SharePoint WFE

When adding a new Web Front End Server to a SharePoint Farm you may get a access denied error in step 2 when connection to the configuration database. This error will occur regardless of the configuration entered before the configuration begins. (The search for configuration database is successful.)

Configuring_SharePoint

Before starting SQL Management Studio or another tool to check permissions on your database server. Check the version of the existing SharePoint environment.

You will get this error if the new SharePoint server binaries is another version than the existing system. Remember to update the SharePoint installation (Both WSS and MOSS) before running the SharePoint Products and Technology Configuration Wizard.

Refer to the SharePoint AdminWiki to get your SharePoint Version.