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FAQ: III.05.3 - How can I change a site name?  
 
    

Section III - Administration 
 
Question: III.05.3 - How can I change a site name? 
 
A: (This answer is specifically for SPS 2.0 but should also apply for a WSS installation with different addresses - i.e. http://server and http://server/subsite)
Site collections like http://server/sites/teamsite cannot be renamed.
Subsites like http://server/sites/teamsite/subsite can be renamed by opening the site in FrontPage by going to Tools, 
Site Settings and changing the Web Name:.
Where the site is a site collection, you have a couple of options
1. Create a new site with a new name but do not apply a template and use smigrate.exe to migrate the original site to the new site. This option does not preserve security.
2. Use stsadm.exe -o backup/restore to backup the site and restore it to a new name. After restoring you can delete the original site. This option is full fidelity and does preserve security.
 
Cornelius J. van Dyck had this detail
 
The best way I've found to achieve your server rename, for which you will require another SQL server, is as follows:
 
1.  Shut down your WSS installation by terminating all connection to it and 
shutting down IIS.  This will prevent any unexpected connections during the 
process.
2.  In SQL Server, detach from the WSS databases.
3.  Copy the database files to the "spare" SQL server.
4.  Attach the database files on the "spare" SQL server.
5.  Ensure your SharePoint user account has propper access rights to the 
newly attached database.
6.  Start "SharePoint Central Admin" from "Administrative Tools".
7.  Click "Set configuration database server" in the "Server Configuration" 
section.
8.  Change the "Database server" field to that of the "spare" SQL server.
9.  Click the "OK" button.
10.  Click "Set default content database server" in the "Server 
Configuration" section.
11.  Change the "Database server" field to that of the "spare" SQL server.
12.  Click the "OK" button.  Your server is not running off the remote 
database.
13.  Rename your server.
14.  Start "SharePoint Central Admin" from "Administrative Tools".
15.  Click "Set configuration database server" in the "Server Configuration" 
section.
16.  Change the "Database server" field to that of the new server name.
17.  Click the "OK" button.
18.  Click "Set default content database server" in the "Server 
Configuration" section.
19.  Change the "Database server" field to that of the new server name.
20.  Click the "OK" button.
 
Thanks Cornelius!
 
Sebastian Seidel had a possible other way.
 
I use the stsadm-Tool. 
 
"stsadm.exe -renameweb -url http://myserver/mysite -newname mynewsite" 
 
Thanks, Sebastien!
 
Mike Fairley added the following alternative
 
As we discovered after much searching you can also save the site as a template (including content).  Then delete the original site and make a new one based on the template. 
 
Thanks, Mike!


 
 
Attachments:    
  
 
 
Created at 5/5/2003 11:45 PM by Mike Walsh - Helsinki, Finland 
Last modified at 4/14/2005 10:16 PM by Mike Walsh - Helsinki, Finland 
 
 
 
  III.05.3 - How can I change a site name?2003-05-05T23:45:41 
(This answer is specifically for SPS 2.0 but should also apply for a WSS installation with different addresses - i.e. http://server and http://server/subsite)
Site collections like http://server/sites/teamsite cannot be renamed.
Subsites like http://server/sites/teamsite/subsite can be renamed by opening the site in FrontPage by going to Tools, 
Site Settings and changing the Web Name:.
Where the site is a site collection, you have a couple of options
1. Create a new site with a new name but do not apply a template and use smigrate.exe to migrate the original site to the new site. This option does not preserve security.
2. Use stsadm.exe -o backup/restore to backup the site and restore it to a new name. After restoring you can delete the original site. This option is full fidelity and does preserve security.
 
Cornelius J. van Dyck had this detail
 
The best way I've found to achieve your server rename, for which you will require another SQL server, is as follows:
 
1.  Shut down your WSS installation by terminating all connection to it and 
shutting down IIS.  This will prevent any unexpected connections during the 
process.
2.  In SQL Server, detach from the WSS databases.
3.  Copy the database files to the "spare" SQL server.
4.  Attach the database files on the "spare" SQL server.
5.  Ensure your SharePoint user account has propper access rights to the 
newly attached database.
6.  Start "SharePoint Central Admin" from "Administrative Tools".
7.  Click "Set configuration database server" in the "Server Configuration" 
section.
8.  Change the "Database server" field to that of the "spare" SQL server.
9.  Click the "OK" button.
10.  Click "Set default content database server" in the "Server 
Configuration" section.
11.  Change the "Database server" field to that of the "spare" SQL server.
12.  Click the "OK" button.  Your server is not running off the remote 
database.
13.  Rename your server.
14.  Start "SharePoint Central Admin" from "Administrative Tools".
15.  Click "Set configuration database server" in the "Server Configuration" 
section.
16.  Change the "Database server" field to that of the new server name.
17.  Click the "OK" button.
18.  Click "Set default content database server" in the "Server 
Configuration" section.
19.  Change the "Database server" field to that of the new server name.
20.  Click the "OK" button.
 
Thanks Cornelius!
 
Sebastian Seidel had a possible other way.
 
I use the stsadm-Tool. 
 
"stsadm.exe -renameweb -url http://myserver/mysite -newname mynewsite" 
 
Thanks, Sebastien!
 
Mike Fairley added the following alternative
 
As we discovered after much searching you can also save the site as a template (including content).  Then delete the original site and make a new one based on the template. 
 
Thanks, Mike!


 
 
 
 
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Section III - Administration 
 
Question: III.06.3 - Site Migration from WSS to WSS 
 
A: The following is quoted directly from Jerry Orman's response to a question from me.
 
For details of the smigrate program itself, please refer to the item III.6.1 (Site Migration from STS to WSS)
 
"You can use smigrate to move a v2 site to another v2 site.  
 
The limitation is that you have to use the same build of WSS on both of the servers.  So you can't smigrate a Beta 2 .fwp file to a Beta 2 Technical Refresh server. 
 
Note (from Ed.)  that this also applies to a WSS Security Fix - you have to have used (for instance the WSS Security fix from early February 2005) the WSS security fix on both servers.
 
Here are the respective version numbers to help you with this:
 
- 6.0.2.5530 - WSS
 
- 6.0.2.6361 - WSS + SP1
 
- 6.0.2.6411 - WSS+SP1+Security Fix (KB887981 / 8thFeb 2005)              


In order to migrate the site you would need to:
 
1.  Install the build of WSS that you guys used to smigrate the site originally on a server.  So if you guys were running Beta 2, install Beta 2 of WSS on a different server.

2.  Use smigrate on this server (the beta 2 server) to restore the site (.fwp file) to this server.

3.  Upgrade WSS on the server to the Beta 2 Tech Refresh build.
 
4.  Smigrate the site to a .fwp file from the upgraded server

5.  Then use smigrate to move the site.
 
Thanks as always to Jerry.
 
Note that the question he was answering concerned using smigrate to upgrade from Beta-2 to Beta-2 Tech Refresh.
 
The key parts of the general answer are the first two paragraphs of his reply (in the web site version in red).
 
-------------------
 
This has never really been enough information so here is the code that I have used successfully to transfer WSS sites.
 
Thanks to Jim Duncan for taking time out to post it to me when I needed it.
 
You can run it from your local WSS server but
specify the remote url for the source site.
 
smigrate.exe -w German_Web_site_URL -f backup_filename -e -y -u user_name
-pw password
 
Create a new site on local server, don't apply site template then:

 
smigrate.exe -r -w Local_Web_site_URL -f backup_filename -u user_name -pw
password

Note that as always, smigrate does not transfer authorization information - for that use stsadm (see the Admin Guide for more on that).
 
Saurabh Nikumbha adds the following comment on smigrate
 
The smigrate utility creates a new backup set (.fwp file) everytime the size increases beyond 25MB. So if the size of your site is 40 MB then be prepared for one backup set of 24.99MB and the other of 15.01 MB. 

Also the restore using 2 backup sets means delay and potential data loss.   
 





C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\BIN


Backup
------
smigrate.exe -w http://sash01/ -f H:\mrcintranetbackup -e -y -u mrcadmin -pw mrcarpetltd

Restore
-------
smigrate.exe -r -w http://mrcu3201 -f C:\mrcintranetbackup -u mrcadmin -pw mrcarpetltd