A
My Site environment contains a number of “moving parts,” and this
section reviews these from a high level. Although in most cases a My
Site environment will be “up and running,” it is important for the farm
administrator to understand the various components that need to be in
place for the My Site environment to function. This will be especially
useful if users report errors or issues with their personal sites.
The User Profile
service application is generally created when the farm is provisioned,
unless either something goes wrong in the process or the person
configuring the farm decides not to allow the wizard to configure the
User Profile service application automatically. It is certainly possible
to damage a User Profile service application so that, for example, the
synchronization connection simply won’t run, or other errors are
encountered when trying to create My Site sites.
An initial step to take is to
verify that My Site sites can be created and that all basic features are
working. Continue through this article to get a better sense of the
depth and breadth of these services; there are quite a few. Assuming
that My Site and the social networking features are in fact working, the
farm administrator should still review the components and their
configurations in Central Administration and then validate that they
meet the overall requirements of the organization. For example, is the
same web application hosting the production SharePoint 2010 intranet as
well as all My Site sites? And will all users be getting My Site sites?
Are all the fields being used in AD being mapped to SharePoint 2010 My
Site, or only a subset?
The following sections help a
farm administrator understand the steps involved in setting up a new web
application to house My Site sites, as well as to create a new User
Profile service application. Because of variables in the process, the
full complement of steps won’t be covered, but the high-level
requirements are summarized and references to the lengthy and detailed
Microsoft TechNet documents that provide the full steps are provided.
From a high level, the following need to be in place in the Central Administration site:
One or more My Site hosts is required.
One or more User Profile service applications needs to be in place and working.
The User Profile service application must be synchronizing properly with AD.
Caution
User Profile synchronization
cannot be used in a single-server SharePoint 2010 configuration that
uses the built-in database installation.
High-Level Review of Steps Required to Create a New My Site Host
A
key component for a functional My Site implementation is the My Site
host. As mentioned in the next section, “High-Level Steps Required to
Create a New User Profile Service Application,” one of the steps
involves specifying the My Site host. So, before starting that process, a
My Site host needs to be in place.
Note
Creating a new My Site host may
not be required. These steps are for administrators who know they need
to perform these steps because no My Site host was created by the
Installation Wizard, or My Site and the User Profile Service aren’t
operating properly, or for administrators who want the experience of
creating a new My Site host.
Step 1: Create a New Web Application
When testing, it is a
recommended best practice to create a new web application and then
create the My Site host location. Many organizations choose to do this
in their production environments as well as for My Site. This provides
separation between the My Site sites and the production site collection
that houses the SharePoint sites and resources that will be used every
day by the organization. In addition, every time a user creates a My
Site site, a site collection is created, so from a management
standpoint, having these organized in a separate web application has its
advantages.
The full process of creating a new web application is covered in the Microsoft document at http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc261875.aspx. This allows the administrator to determine the following:
The type of authentication to be used
Whether to use an existing or create a new IIS website
Set the port number to use
Set the path for the virtual directory in IIS
Set the URL that will be used to access the web application
Whether to use a new or existing application pool
Specify the database server, database name, and type of authentication
Specify the failover database server, if any
Step 2: Reviewing the Settings from the Manage Web Applications Page
Once the new web
application is created, by clicking Application Management from the
Quick Launch in Central Administration and then clicking Manage Web
Applications, the farm administrator can manage the new (and existing)
web applications. It is a best practice to review these setting
thoroughly to better understand the settings and what is permitted
within the new web application.
An example is shown in Figure 1
of the Manage Web Applications page, where a sample web application was
created to house the My Site site collection (SharePoint – 8080), along
with the other existing web applications (Central Administration web
application and the web application that houses the SharePoint site
collections [SharePoint – 80]).
A quick review of the
managed paths settings for the web application is accomplished by
clicking the Managed Paths button. This shows that for this new web
application that the Sites path is a Wildcard Inclusion type, and the
Personal path is also a Wildcard Inclusion. This allows for the creation
of site collections beneath /sites and /personal in the web
application, which is required for users to create their own My Site
sites.
Self-Service Site Creation is
required for My Site site provisioning and is managed from the Manage
Web Applications page, also shown in Figure 23.1.
By default, Self-Service Site Creation is enabled in SharePoint Server
2010 for all authenticated users. To verify that this is on, with the
User Profile Services web application selected, click the Self-Service
Site Creation button and review the settings. If this is set to Off for
the My Site web application, when end users click the link to My Site
the first time, their My Site site will appear to be created and they
will see the My Newsfeed page, but when they click the link for My
Content, an error message will display that states the following: “Your
personal site cannot be created because Self-Service Site Creation is
not enabled. Contact your site administrator for more information.”
Step 3: Create a New My Site Host Site Collection
For testing
purposes and in many production environments, it is also recommended to
then create a new My Site host location. The steps required to create a
My Site host are covered in the following Microsoft document: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff729456.aspx.
From a high level, this requires creating a new site collection that
references the web application created, which involves the following
steps:
Providing a title, description, and URL for the site
Selecting My Site Host as the site collection template
Entering the primary and secondary site collection administrators
The
site collection will then be created using the My Site Host template,
and should then be ready for the User Profile service application to be
created. The farm administrator can verify the site collection by
visiting the Central Administration site, clicking Application
Management on the Quick Launch, and then clicking View All Site
Collections in the Site Collections section. Make sure the web
application is selected from the Web Application drop-down menu, and all
site collections that exist within the web application will be shown. Figure 2
shows the contents of a web application created for My Site management
and the site collections created within it after several test users have
created their own My Site sites.
High-Level Review of Steps Required to Create a New User Profile Service Application
Although it is generally
not required to create a new User Profile service application, a farm
administrator may choose to do so during the testing process, and to
better understand the inner workings of My Site and profiles, or to
change the default configuration that results when the wizard is used to
configure the farm. The previous sections should be reviewed because
they cover the steps required to create a new web application and site
collection to house the My Site sites, which is a generally recommended
configuration.
The steps required to create a new User Profile service application are covered in detail in the following Microsoft site:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee721052.aspx#createapp
The process to create the service application using PowerShell is also covered. From a high level, the steps are as follows:
1. | Create a new User Profile service application from the Manage Service Applications page.
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2. | Use an existing application pool or create a new one.
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3. | Choose the database server and provide a name for the profile database that will be created.
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4. | Choose the database server and provide a name for the synchronization database that will be created.
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5. | Choose the database server and provide a name for the social tagging database that will be created.
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6. | Provide
failover database server names if database mirroring is being used for
the profile, synchronization, and social tagging databases.
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7. | Provide the URL of the site collection where the My Site host has been provisioned.
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8. | Provide the managed path where individual My Site web sites will be created.
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9. | Determine
which type of username will be used to create My Site sites: User Name
(Do Not Resolve Conflicts), User Name (Resolve Conflicts by Using
domain_username), or Domain and User Name (Will Not Have Conflicts).
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10. | Select whether the proxy of this User Profile Service will be a part of the default proxy group on this farm.
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Once the service
application is created, it will appear in the list of service
applications on the Service Applications page in Central Administration
(accessible by clicking Application Management in the Quick Launch and
then clicking Manage Service Applications in the Service Applications
section). Clicking the User Profile service application that was created
will take the administrator to the Manage Profile Service page for the
User Profile service application.
Verify the User Profile Service and User Profile Synchronization Service Are Started
After the User
Profile service application is created, or for general troubleshooting
of User Profile service application, visit the Services on Server page,
by clicking System Settings in the Quick Launch from Central
Administration site and then clicking Manage Services on Server.
User Profile Service and
User Profile Synchronization Service should show as Started. If User
Profile Synchronization Service is shown as Stopped, which often happens
after the creation of a new User Profile service application, click the
Start link and enter the information requested. This involves selecting
the User Profile application, which will be the one just created, and
providing passwords for the service account used. The process of
starting the User Profile Synchronization Service can take 5 to 10
minutes, and an IIS reset command from the command prompt is also required.
