Setting Up SharePoint To Use MSSQL Server

This post gives you information on how to install Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services on your Windows 2003 web servers.

According to Microsoft, Windows SharePoint Services technology "is an integrated portfolio of collaboration and communication services designed to connect people, information, processes, and systems both within and beyond the organizational firewall. SharePoint sites provide a central repository for documents, information, and ideas, and enable users to work interactively with these items."

Currently we support Windows SharePoint Services v2 with Service Pack 2. Support for later versions is coming soon.

Pre-Installation Requirements
SharePoint Installation and Configuration
Install MSSQL Server
Select Authentication Mode for SQL Server
Install SharePoint
Configure H-Sphere to use SharePointB

Pre-Installation Requirements
Before you install Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services on your Web server, make sure that you have installed the required hardware and software.

Required Details
Important: SharedPoint and MSSQL should be installed on one and same physical server.
Server Hardware Intel Pentium III (and later) compatible processor
CPU/550 MHZ 1 CPU (2 recommended)
512 MB RAM

Operation System Microsoft Windows Server 2003:
Standard Edition
Enterprise Edition
Datacenter Edition

Server Software
(Web application server) NTFS file system
Microsoft ASP.NET
Internet Information Services in IIS 6.0 worker process isolation mode with the SMTP service

Server Databases* Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 3 or later**
Microsoft SQL Server 2005

Browser Client Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.01 or later
Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or later
Netscape Navigator version 6.2 or later
Mozilla 1.4 or later


* Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (WMSDE) is not supported by H-Sphere


SharePoint Installation and Configuration
To install and configure SharePoint Services, follow the procedure:

Step 1: Install MSSQL Server
Prior to installing SharePoint, you need to install MSSQL Server. You can chose between:

MSSQL Server 2000
MSSQL Server 2005
Step 2: Select Authentication Mode for SQL Server
In order to allow Windows SharePoint Services to connect to your SQL Server database, it is recommended that you configure the SQL Server database to use Windows authentication.

For SQL Server 2000:

On your server computer, go to Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft SQL Server -> Enterprise Manager.
In Enterprise Manager, click the plus sign (+) next to Microsoft SQL Servers.
Click the plus sign (+) next to the SQL ServerGroup.
Right-click the SQL Server name, and go to Properties.
In the Properties dialog box, click the Security tab.
In the Authentication section:
If you want use the MSSQL Server only for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, select only Windows Authentication mode.
If you want use the MSSQL Server both for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and hosting, select SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode.
Click OK.
Note: If you have used a domain account that does not already have database creation rights in SQL Server, you can give the account this access using Enterprise Manager in SQL Server 2000, as a temporary solution.

For SQL Server 2005

On your server computer, go to Start -> All Programs -> Microsoft SQL Server 2005 -> SQL Server Management Studio.
On the Connect to Server screen, select the name of the local server from the Server name drop-down list.
On the Server Properties - Server name screen, click Security in the Select a page section.
In the Server Authentication section:
If you want use the MSSQL Server only for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services, select only Windows Authentication mode.
If you want use the MSSQL Server both for Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services and hosting, select SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode.
Click OK.
Note: If you have used a domain account that does not already have database creation rights in SQL Server, you can give the account this access using SQL Server Management Studio, as a temporary solution.

Step 3: Install SharePoint
By default, when you install Windows SharePoint Services, the Setup program installs WMSDE (Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services SQL Server Desktop Engine).
H-Sphere doesn't support WMSDE. To use SharePoint with SQL Server, run Setup with the Server Farm option. Server Farm option allows supporting a larger set of Web sites.

Download and install SharePoint

WARNING:
During SharePoint setup, you may get the error when connecting to http://localhost:SharePointPort/. To solve it, you should remove the string from
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\60\template\admin\1033\web.config.

Also please check the Authentication Methods for SharePoint Central Administration WebSite in IIS. And if Basic authentication is disabled, enable it.

Go to SharePoint Central Administration:
Start/Settings/Control Panel/Administrative Tools/SharePoint Central Administration
Configure Administrative Virtual Server in the Server Configuration tab:
Select Use an existing application pool and chose StsAdminAppPool
Go to Security Configuration and select NTLM
Click OK
Configure Database Server in the Server Configuration tab:
Select Database Server and enter your MSSQL Server IP or MSSQL instance
In SQL Server database name enter your SharePoint Main DB NAME
Set Windows authentication
In Active Directory Account Creation chose Users already have domain accounts. Do not create active directory accounts.
Click OK
Step 4: Configure H-Sphere to use SharePoint
If you installed Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services after H-Sphere is updated, run the H-Sphere updater again.
Open HSphere.config file usually located in the {disk}\Hsphere.Net\bin\ directory and make sure the correct name of your MSSQL server was set in the SharePoint resource setting during H-Sphere update.
Restart H-Sphere service
net stop hsphere
net start hsphere

Links for more resource

Category Online Location Windows SharePoint Services 3.0 Overview
http://office.microsoft.com/sharepointtechnology

Windows SharePoint Services TechCenter
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsserver/sharepoint/default.mspx

Office SharePoint Server 2007
http://office.microsoft.com/sharepointserver

Office SharePoint Designer 2007
http://office.microsoft.com/sharepointdesigner