Renaming a MOSS Server

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Renaming a MOSS Server

Renaming a MOSS server is meticulous job. If anything goes wrong along the way chances are that you need to reconfigure your whole MOSS environment.

Here are the steps to take, and the order in which to take them if you want to rename a server that has MOSS already installed and configured on it:

*** NOTE: Use only letters, digits and minus for the machine name (so no underscores), max 15 characters.

Change each alternate access mapping for your MOSS/WSS deployment in Central Administration:

Open Central Administration, "Operations" Tab, "Alternate access mappings" link
Modify each mapping item to reflect your newly chosen server name

Use stsadm.exe to invoke the "renameserver" command option:

Open a command prompt window
cd "C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN"
stsadm -o renameserver -newservername <newname> -oldservername <oldname>

Rename your Server via Change Name Operation in Windows Server 2003:

Start Menu | Control Panel | System, "Computer Name" tab, "Change" button.
Input your new server name

Reboot the server NOW.
After reboot, open command prompt

cd C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN
stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin <domainuser> -password <password>
iisreset /noforce

Check all application pool identities in IIS, update where the old machine name is still there.
If you already have a search index drop this, and rebuild it

Your server is now renamed.

Print | posted @ Monday, August 06, 2007 10:53 AM

Comments on this entry:

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Mirjam at 8/24/2007 6:21 AM

Hi Chris,

The steps described above are also sufficient for renaming a server with both SharePoint 2007 and SQL 2005 on it.

Regards,
Mirjam

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Mirjam at 8/24/2007 1:27 PM

That's correct Chris, you don't need to perform any additional actions on the MSSQL 2005 server for renaming your MOSS environment.

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Markus at 9/4/2007 2:15 PM

Didn't believe it - but it worked :-)
Thanks

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Mirjam at 9/28/2007 10:54 AM

Hi bspead,

In MOSS 2007 there is only one index.
Unfortunately this means that if you drop it you drop everything including the external content sources that were crawled.

The only way to create more than one index is by using more than one Shared Service Provider. If this would be the case I don't think you would need to drop the index with the external content in it.

From TechNet:

Office SharePoint Server 2007 supports one content index per SSP. Given that we recommend a maximum of 20 SSPs per farm, a maximum of 20 content indexes is supported.

Note that an SSP can be associated with only one index server and one content index. However, an index server can be associated with multiple SSPs and have a content index for each SSP.

More info can be found here:

technet2.microsoft.com/.../...70a8e5c34fe1033.mspx

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Mirjam at 9/28/2007 2:37 PM

Hi Ben,

Yep, you need to actually drop the index. Doing a full crawl isn't sufficient in this case. I'm sorry.. :-(
I must admit that I don't know exactly why, but I know it causes problems if you don't.

Mirjam

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Bryan van Rijn at 11/2/2007 9:29 AM

Thanks for your post,....

Note: if you have an MSSQL 2005 server running on the same machine aswell, execute the following query on your SQLServer:


sp_dropserver 'OldServerName\Instance'
go
sp_addserver 'NewServerName\Instance'', 'local'

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Mirjam at 11/6/2007 10:40 AM

Hi Tom,

Thanks for answering your question here as well!
I hadn't heard this one before..

Regards,
Mirjam

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Mirjam at 11/6/2007 10:43 AM

Hi Vijay,

Do I understand correctly that the "My Site" link on the top right corner of the portal is pointing to the wrong url?

I must say, I never tried renaming a server when My Sites were already created, although I would expect it to work normally.

Regards,
Mirjam

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Mirjam at 11/6/2007 10:43 AM

Thanks for the addition Bryan!

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Matthias Krehl at 11/22/2007 9:12 AM

Hi Vijay,

did you solve the problem with "My Site"? Same trouble here, no solution yet.

Regards,
Matthias

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Matthias Krehl at 11/22/2007 10:30 AM

Hi Mirjam, hi Vijay,

> did you solve the problem with "My Site"? Same
> trouble here, no solution yet.

having said that I stumbled across something called 'SharedServices1' comming from central administration. There we were able to configure MySite. Everything fine now.

Thanks for this blog!
Matthias

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Matthias Krehl at 11/23/2007 10:29 AM

Oops, last post didn't make it. Once again, thanks and: the answer to the 'MySite' trouble is to use the 'SharedServices' from central administration. There you can configure the 'MySite's.

Matthias

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Mirjam at 1/25/2008 2:59 PM

Hi Tom,

Go to the Central Administration to the Shared Service Provider.
Next go to Search Settings.
The last link in the Crawl Settings area is "Reset all crawled content. This will drop the index. Or in Microsoft's own words:
"Resetting the crawled content will erase the content index. "

Good luck!

Mirjam

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Ved at 3/19/2008 10:28 AM

Hi,

I changed the machine name (in fact domain name as well as machine name) before changing the server name. So i m gettiing the error: "Can not connect to Configuration Database".
I tried the method above...but to no avail.
Is there a way ...i can get my sites working now. As Central Administration is also not working now...i can not create new sites even.

Thanks

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Sameer Dhoot at 8/11/2008 7:00 PM

Mirjam,

Thanks for the post. This work like charm. We use this almost everyday.

Regards,
Sameer Dhoot
http://intellects.in

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Frank-Ove Kristiansen at 8/19/2008 7:56 AM

Thank you very much for this post, Mirjam.
Right on target! :-)

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Rahul Soni at 9/21/2008 6:18 AM

Awesome!!! Thank you so much.

Had the same problem. The only difference was that I renamed my machine and saw this problem. I followed the same steps, but that didn't help. So, I renamed my machine back to the original name and when my WSS came up, I followed the exact same steps as you mentioned and voila!!!!

Thanks agian.
Rahul

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by deeper voice at 7/22/2009 6:28 PM

Pingback from Hyper-V und Sharepoint | hilpers

# re: Renaming a MOSS Server

by Aashish Gupta at 8/3/2009 3:43 PM

I have done a similar writeup with more explaination and provided images for everything here:-
smallworkarounds.blogspot.com/.../...t-server.html

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