Struggling with Sharepoint 3

Well to access the site from the internet, you must add it to the firewall for access.
Run the connect to the internet wizard and add that site.
You could  give it a name and assign the port that will be listening for traffic.

Now for the index Instead of Central administration go to the site administration to enable search index.

Good luck!

thanks vico1
This is a single network card server and so CEICW can't configure the firewall. port 23444 is open on the router firewall. When I point my browser at http://<companysite>:23444 I am prompted to login, which I'd expect, but after entering the correct credentials I get a page not found.

Regardless of how many NIC  that you have, You still have to run CEICW and specify that you have one NIC. If the source comes from the outside (Different Subnet IP)  It may inetrfere with your forwarding.
Vico1

I ran the CEICW and it completed successfully, but there's no change to the site behaviour.

regarding the indexer error, WSS Search Service is stopped and I can't get it started no matter what I do. I think that having it running is a pre-requisite to setting any site-based indexing options.

Hi,

Problem 1: try to create a new web application and then site collection on port 80 and try to access it from internet. You can create it on address like http://portal.mycompany.com. That will eliminate firewall suspission.

In Internet, some routers might block the Windows Integrated Authentication (NTLM or Kerberos), so try to change it to Basic just to see if it works.

Problem 2: Yes, you need to have the search service started in order to have search. When you start the search service, a configuration page should appear(service account, search access acount, etc). What exactly happens when you try to do so? Which is the knowledge based article?

For the search, try to enable all error reporting in SharePoint. Edit web.config, in the pages element, set the Call Stack="true". Then, find CustomErrors element, set the mode="off". That might give you a more detailed error.

Hope that helps, give us an update

After starting search, you need to associate content databases to search servers. If a content database is not associated with a search server and you attempt a search on a site in the content database, the following message will be displayed: Your search cannot be completed because this site is not assigned to an indexer. Perform the following steps:

a.    Open SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration, click Application Management, and then click Content Databases.

b.    Click the content database for a Web application, and for Search Server choose a Windows SharePoint Services Search Server.

c.    Repeat these steps for each content database for each Web application.

Thanks to everyone for their responses. I have solved these 2 difficulties myself by uninstalling and re-installing WSS 3.0. The site and the search now work when run on the server itself, or from a computer on the domain.
However I have 2 further difficulties you could perhaps assist me with:
1  The site is currently accessible from the internet on a http port. I'd like to change that to use SSL, but don't understand the function of the SSL port number in the properties of the site in IIS. I've added a port number there and opened it on my router firewall, but I get a page not found error. How do I make the site available on the internet via SSL?

2 When I do access the site on the internet, I get the initial view of the site, but as soon as I try a search or try to access a stored document I get a "page not found" error. How do I fix that? To re-iterate: This does work when accessing the site from within the domain.

This is a single server (SBS 2003) setup.

I just answered that question,
You need to install a certificate in order for you to assign an SSL port.
Follow the link below that shows you how to install a certificate and assign a port.
https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/22555797/SSL-Listening-Port-Server-2003.html?cid=236&anchorAnswerId=19040583#a19040583

Vico1

Sorry Vico1, just didn't understand that what you referred to in your first post was what I was looking for. Anyway, I've done what you suggest, but sadly no change.

I'm getting myself in knots here, so perhaps I should sort one thing at a time:

When accessing the site on http from the internet, although the initial default site view is displayed (after login) clicking on any link results in "page not found". I'm assuming that this is because the site address "backoffice.fred.com:10444/sites/library" is not known on the internet.

Q: do I need to create a record on my ISPs DNS server for this to work?

That is correct.
However if the website is designed properly it should replace the HEADER automatically.
Regardless of what you typed to get there: IP or HOSTNAME. Now the only thing is if you have a firewall that doesn't accept this rule, then it would block it.

Can I then run this site off port 80, to simplify things or is it best practice to use a different port. Host headers appears to give the facility to run multiple sites off a single port.

If I ultimately want to have the site secure with SSL what is the best approach?

Thanks

It's really not all that complicated if you follow the way that the companyweb is configured.  You need to use a host header in the same way that the WSS 2.0 site does.

As for the search... it's not supported in this type of installation and that is detailed in the documentation.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

vico1 / Techsoeasy... 2 months later > the client put things on hold, but now it's required again. I've spent the last 2 days playing with this without success.

I have a hostname [library.fred.com] mapped to my public IP. The router passes all traffic on port 80 to 192.168.1.2 - my SBS server. I've entered the host header value "library.fred.com" for my WSS 3 site in IIS. I have the site on port 80, with SSL port 10444. I have a server certificate for "hipslibrary.fred.com" assigned to the site. In my DNS I have library.fred.com assigned to 192.168.1.2
BUT ... it doesn't work, either internally or externally.
I don't think the host headers bit is working, since the errors I'm getting (403.6) are logged in IIS for the default website.
Why is the host header not being picked up? As far as I can see it is setup the same as companyweb, but doesn't function the same.

Here's hoping you can help me further ...

I think I made that comment a bit too hastily because it is more complicated than how I described.

You can't use SSL unless you have a separate Static IP address available from your ISP because your WSS3.0 site MUST run on port 443 for SSL.  444 only works for Companyweb because of a special ISAPI filter that's installed in IIS on an SBS.  Other ports will not be valid for an SSL connection.  The host headers won't work if the site required SSL and you used port 10444.

So leaving that part of the equation out for a moment, you should be able to run on port 80 with a host header properly configured.  The virtual web site should be set for *All Unassigned* for it's IP address.

I'm assuming that you have only a single NIC in the SBS?  

Jeff
TechSoEasy

Thanks Techsoeasy ... that explains a lot! Yes, only one NIC. I'll start again without SSL and using port 80 with headers. I read somewhere that once installed Sharepoint assumes control of the host header processing for sharepoint sites with it's AAM technology. Is that the case?

I'm not totally sure, as I don't really delve into those things too much... but I don't believe it's a problem at the level we're talking about.  I think what you may have read is with regards to a MOSS (SharePoint Server) rather than WSS.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

Does this mean that I can use ISA 2004 to bridge from https (external) to http (internal) for my site as suggested in Troy Starr's "What every SharePoint administrator needs to know about Alternate Access Mappings" blog? Does  a https connection between client and ISA mean that documents uploaded to the Sharepoint site will be secure (encrypted) during upload?

FYI, it's a generally accepted practice to always post the actual links to web sites that you reference.  This not only ensures that the reader will see the page you inteneded them to see as well as it just being a nice thing to do.

So, I assume that you meant this page:
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/03/06/what-every-sharepoint-administrator-needs-to-know-about-alternate-access-mappings-part-1.aspx

Yes, those would need to be configured on the SharePoint site.  But, security topology can get complicated, so it's not just an easy answer for the second part of your comment.  You will need to review this page to get a better understanding of what will work for your particular situation:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/windowsserver/WSS/en/library/c8ccffce-5162-46af-a3ef-1d7914e8efee1033.mspx?mfr=true

Jeff
TechSoEasy

OK after loads of messing about with failed WSS search services, I have a basic WSS site setup, and accessible from the intranet. However, when I change the properties in IIS and add a host header of "hipstest3" the site then returns a "Bad Request (Invalis Hostname)" error on the intranet. I've added an alias to the DNS for hipstest3, but that hasn't made any difference. So I'm knid of back to where I staarted. What else do I need to do to get the host header to resolve to the site? By the way this is running on a WSS assigned port at the moment (20523). Just want to get clear what is necessary to get this working with host headers before messing with port 80.

Thanks

Please ignore the previous post.

I've setup a SharePoint site called hipstest3. When the site creation wizard completes, the url http://hipstest3:20523/sites/hipstest3/default.aspx works fine from the console of the server (the only machine on the LAN I have access to). This is with an alias entered in the DNS pointing hipstest3 to 192.168.1.2

I then edited the site in IIS. I changed the port to 80, and entered a host header of hipstest3. That doesn't work. I get a 404.

I've tried to create a WSS site on port 80 with the host header value entered in the wizard, but that makes no difference. Still get a 404.

Now I'm stuck again.

You'll need to add both a host header of hipstest3 as well as hipstest.domain.local.  

Then in your DNS create a CNAME record for hipstest pointing to servername.domain.local  (you can't have a CNAME (Alias) pointing to an IP).

As I had mentioned above, this would look similar to the way companyweb is configured.

Jeff
TechSoEasy

Thanks.
I now have these host headers:
hipstest3
hipstest.domain.local

in DNS forward lookup zone if have a CNAME record pointing hipstest3 to <servername>.domain.local.

Now, on the console, when i type http://hipstest3 I get this error:
HTTP/1.1 404 Connection: close Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2007 09:23:02 GMT Server: Microsoft-IIS/6.0 X-Powered-By: ASP.NET MicrosoftSharePointTeamServices: 12.0.0.4518

if I type http://hipstest3/sites/hipstest3/default.aspx the site comes up.

Why is it necessary to type the whole path?

Furthermore, when I click a link on the site (such as Shared Documents) I get a page not found.

a bit of clarification on that last comment. If i click a link in the treeview part I get a page not found. If I click the link for Shared Documents in the "normal" part it works fine. So perhaps that's a secondary issue ...

Techsoeasy & Vico1 - I know this is from ages ago. In the end I gave up. The customer decided SharePoint 2.0 is sufficient for his needs and so I've uninstalled SS3. Thanks anyway for trying to assist and useful tips from you both which I picked up on the way.

I know this is from ages ago. In the end I gave up. The customer decided SharePoint 2.0 is sufficient for his needs and so I've uninstalled SS3. Thanks anyway for trying to assist and useful tips from you both which I picked up on the way. Hope the point-split is acceptable