Restoring a Portal Site

You can restore a portal site to an empty virtual server on a different server farm. For example, if you want to move a portal site from Server A on one server farm to Server B on a second server farm, you would do the following:

1. Create a virtual server on Server B.
2. On Server B, go to the Create Portal Site for Server Server B page and select the option to restore a portal site.
3. Specify the name of the server that stores the content database.
4. Specify the name of the content database. If the name of the portal site you are restoring is MyPortalSite, the name of the content database is MyPort1_SITEDB.
5. Specify the name of the server that stores the user profile database.
6. Specify the name of the user profile database.
7. Specify the name of the server that stores the services database.
8. Specify the name of the services database.
9. Select the virtual server you created on Server B.

The following limits apply to the number of portal sites supported on a server farm:

• If the server farm is not part of a shared services environment, the server farm supports up to 15 portal sites.
• If the server farm provides or uses shared services, the server farm supports up to 100 portal sites. Internet Information Services (IIS) limits the number of Web sites running on one server to 64. To create more than 64 Web sites on a front-end Web server in a server farm that provides or uses shared services, you must modify a registry setting. For more information, see Creating a Portal Site.

You can restore a portal site from the Create Portal Site for Server server_name page. You can access the Create Portal Site for Server server_name page from multiple locations:

• On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for Server server_name page, in the Portal Site and Virtual Server Configuration section, click Create a portal site.
• On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for Server server_name page, in the Portal Site and Virtual Server Configuration section, click List and manage portal sites. On the Manage Portal Sites page, click Create Portal Site.

  Note  You can also click Restore Portal Site to get to that task directly.

This option restores the portal site without restoring the search configuration and content indexes. The information in the databases in restored, but the default search configuration for new portal sites is used. To fully restore a portal, you will have to follow the procedure described in the later section "Restore a Portal Site from the SharePoint Portal Server Data Backup and Restore Program."

Regardless of how you restore the portal site, alternate access settings are not backed up but are stored by the configuration database. If you restore to the same deployment, these settings will be intact. If not, you must reconfigure alternate access settings.

Restore a Portal Site from SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration

1. On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for Server server_name page, in the Portal Site and Virtual Server Configuration section, click Create a portal site.
2. On the Create Portal Site page, in the Portal Creation Options section, click Restore a portal.
3. In the Restore Portal From Database section, do the following:
   1. In the Site database server list, select the content database server.
   2. In the Site database name box, type the name of the content database from which you want to restore the portal site.

      The name of the database ends in _SITEDB.

   3. In the User profile database server list, select the database server that hosts the user profile database.
   4. In the User profile database name box, type the name of the user profile database from which you will restore user profile information for the portal.
   5. In the Services database server list, select the database server that hosts the services database.
   6. In the Services database name box, type the name of the services database from which you will restore services for the portal.
4. In the Site URL section, do the following:
   1. In the Virtual Server list, click the existing virtual server on this server that hosts the portal site.
   2. In the URL box, type the URL that users use to connect to the portal site.

      By default, this URL is http://server_name/.

5. Click OK.
6. On the SharePoint Portal Server Central Administration for Server server_name page, in the Portal Site and Virtual Server Configuration section, click Create a portal site.
7. In the Portal Creation Options section, click Create a portal.
8. In the Site URL section, do the following:
   1. In the Virtual Server list, click the existing virtual server on this server that will host the portal site.
   2. In the URL box, type the URL that users use to connect to the portal site.

      By default, this URL is http://server_name/.

9. Click OK.
10. On the Create Portal Confirmation for Server server_name page, click OK to begin creating the portal site.

    Caution  Any custom information that you added to the virtual server since its creation is unavailable once you start creating the portal site.

    The Operation Status page appears.

At the end of successful portal site creation, the Operation Successful page appears. You can then further configure the portal site.

Restore a Portal Site from the SharePoint Portal Server Data Backup and Restore Program

Note  Some information for the portal site is not restored, and must be configured after restore has completed. This includes proxy settings, the configuration database, e-mail settings, and various registry settings described in the documentation.

1. Create a virtual server on Server B.
2. On Server B, on the taskbar, click Start, point to All Programs, point to SharePoint Portal Server, and then click SharePoint Portal Server Data Backup and Restore.
3. In the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Backup and Restore window, click the Restore tab.

   The Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Backup and Restore dialog box opens.

4. In the Manifest file box, specify the location of the manifest file. You can also click Browse to find the location of the manifest file.

   The manifest file is the XML file that is in the directory that you specified for the backup files when you backed up the server. The file name is the prefix you specified for the backup file names. For example, if the file name you specified as the prefix for the backup file names was Adventure, the name of the manifest file would be Adventure.XML.

5. In the tree view, expand Available components by clicking the plus sign, and then click All server farm components.
6. Select the SITEDBS component, and click Edit.
7. Specify the virtual server created in the first step, the URL for the portal site, and the database server name and database names for the site database, the user profile database, and the services database. Click OK.
8. For each TEAMDBS component:
   1. Select the component, and click Edit.
   2. Specify the database server name and database name for the TEAMDBS component, and then click OK.
   3. Make sure the check box next to the component is selected.
9. For each INDEX component:
   1. Select a component, and click Edit.
   2. Specify the content index server to use for this component.

      Note  The backup image corresponding to the job server must be restored to the current job server in the server farm. The server for that component is selected for you and cannot be changed.

   3. Make sure the check box next to the component is selected.
10. After every component is selected, click Restore.

    All databases are restored, the portal site is created, the team databases are added to the virtual server, and all content indexes on the appropriate servers are restored.