Kudos to you Mr. Sharepoint migrator man (or person), commands in your pocket and you shoot from the hip.  I was working on migrating a Sharpoint Portal Server, version 3.0 to a new server (from a physical box to a VM and I didn’t want to do a full P2V).  This was the last piece of the pie to get migrated off the machine and I’ve been putting it off knowing it would probably be a pain.  It certainly was a pain but then I bumped into this post on Experts Exchange -> Here <- The final piece of the pie was there, the ‘restore’ piece…I couldn’t be happier!

The processes I had done (By the way, this is a 64 bit server, Server 2003 R2, SP2):

1. Install IIS (default)
2. Install ASP.NET 2.0 (use command:  C:\WINDOWS\microsoft.net\Framework64\v2.0.50727>aspnet_regiis.exe -i)
3. Allow ASP.NET 2.0 to ‘run’ in the security profile (IIS Snapin > Your Server > Web Service Extensions > select the ASP.NET 2.x.xwhatever version it is and select ‘Allow’)
4. Run ‘sharepoint.exe’ <- 64 bit version
5. Install your ‘application template core’ command (repeat with other apps you’re using, example might be ‘HelpDesk.wsp’, etc:
   1. stsadm -o addsolution -filename <file_path>\ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp
   2. stsadm -o deploysolution -name ApplicationTemplateCore.wsp -allowgacdeployment
6. On your OLD sharepoint portal server run this command to ‘back it up’:
   1. stsadm -o backup -url http://youroldserver -filename C:\YourFile.bak
   2. stsadm -o restore -url http://yournewserver -filename C:\YourFile.bak

Now:  Victory happy dance!  Thanks to jorge_toriz on Experts Exchange I avoided a TON of headache, anguish, curling up into a ball and crying myself to sleep, etc.  I didn’t even have to reboot!

Total life saver.  Thanks be to you oh great one jorge_toriz…kudos!

* Note:  If you can add to this please post it and I’ll update my post.  I didn’t include every detail of the process but if you can manage these general steps without much hand holding you’re golden

** Note:   I bumped into that post because I couldn’t use the built in Sharepoint Backup and Restore function because it was continually bombing out on the search portion even after deleting the sites, databases, contents, etc it just wouldn’t work.  I was getting this error:  “Object WSS_Search_New Servernamehere(previous name: WSS_Search_OldServernamehere) failed in event OnRestore. For more information, see the error log located in the backup directory.”

*** Note:  One last thing, if stsadm isn’t ‘working’ for you; you need to migrate to “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Web Server Extensions\12\BIN>” via the command line.

Let me know if this helps anyone because it sure saved me, I can’t keep saying it enough.  This tip was so great I’d PayPal him a donation for the help!

I had this problem but failed to find a quick answer so I clicked the little explanation link and that had my answer :p

VirtualMin web hosting server backup error:  “Failed to save scheduled backup : Deletion of old backups is only supported when a date-based destination is used, and strftime substitutions are enabled”

You can easily fix this by having your backup path and “file name” correctly formatted like this:

/backup/yourfilenamehere-%d-%m-%Y

It wants a properly formatted file name with variables that it’s looking for, if you click on the text with the explanation link:  Do strftime-style time substitutions on file or directory name

You’ll see what it’s looking for:

%d The day of the month as a decimal number (range 01to 31).
%m The month as a decimal number (range 01 to 12).
%Y The year as a decimal number including the century.

I found an interesting site the other day (forwarded to me from a colleague found here –> WizCrafts | I also found another COOL continent (then by country) IP block .htaccess download site that has block and allow IP’s here –> CountryIPBlocks.net).  I decided to implement their IP block technique on my CPanel server.  I happen to host on my own CPanel server (http://flophost.com if you’re interested ;) ) and as a result I have ssh access to it BUT as most CPanel hosting providers go you likely won’t!

Note, I had problems actually implementing a “global” IP block policy because of the way CPanel operates in conjunction with IPTables on my server (or so I suspect!).  If I had a separate firewall I could better implement a global IP block (because it would be separate from CPanel) but I don’t for now so I’m encouraging all to follow these steps to implement the IP block not only with sites I’m using but for others who host on CPanel servers.  If you don’t use CPanel you could likely tweak your .htaccess file in the same way but you’d have to figure out if that’s how your web hosting panel does things and if it doesn’t this .htaccess method should still work anyway…try it and see.

Here we go!

1. Download my example file here (note it’s a text file) –>  .htaccess example
2. Edit the text file to meet your needs, maybe you want to delete, add or modify the list?  Check WizCrafts site for updates!
3. Backup your original .htaccess file, rename it to something like .htaccess.original or download it to a safe place just in case (I recommend downloading it for safe keeping and taking it off your server EVEN THOUGH you’ll get an error if trying to view it; it’s good practice to keep things tidy!)
4. In the “Wizcrafts_htaccess.txt” file you’ll need to edit just a few lines to match your CPanel installation
   • AuthName YOURDOMAIN.COM<–GOESHERE<–also delete the “GOESHERE” part :)
   • AuthUserFile /home/yourusername/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.pwd
   • AuthGroupFile /home/yourusername/public_html/_vti_pvt/service.grp
5. Now upload this to your “public_html” folder, rename the “Wizcrafts_htaccess.txt” file to just .htaccess and look at your IP Deny Manager in CPanel.

* Troubleshooting, if you get an “Internal Server Error” like I did it turned out to be my comments bleeding over into being uncommented.  I had a line like this…

# My cool comment, I’m blocking xyz IP’s from
such and so country
# Next comment would come along
then it would bleed over into uncommented land

Turns out that will throw the server into error because it doesn’t understand or know what “such and so country” is SO if you have an “Internal Server Error” after you implement this look over your file and make sure your comments aren’t wrapping!