Tips from Top Support Calls

Some useful points to remember if you are using a computer

Excerpts:

A lot may look like no brainers, but remember these are lessons from
TOP calls.  With his permission I've listed them here (some text and
links added by me).
• Do you know your backup frequency and last successful backup?  You
would be surprised how many customers call support with catastrophic
failure and have no backup to recover with.
• Are you monitoring all
your disks?  If you did a simple/basic all in one install is it all on
one drive that you are watching?  Disk space available on WFE and SQL,
common support issue is Basic install running out of drive space for SQL
• When
you enumerate your site collections in your farm are the URLs correct? 
Are you using localhost or servernames?  If you are are you using
alternate access mappings.  AAM not set or misconfigured is common. 
This is a top support issue and one to watch out for.  If you are
confused about these check out the SharePoint blog which has 3 posts on
what every administrator needs to know about alternate access mappings.
http://blogs.msdn.com/sharepoint/archive/2007/03/06/what-every-sharepoint-administrator-needs-to-know-about-alternate-access-mappings-part-1.aspx
• Changing
permissions behind the back of SharePoint on the installation
directories, home directories, where the app pool doesn't have
appropriate permissions can and will break the farm silently
(browse/read access often will look good) without you realizing it -
Permissions check, do all of the managed directories owned by WSS/MOSS
have default or expected permissions configured
• Ensure that each
content database in the manage web application manage databases has a
server assigned for indexing - Search, are content databases assigned
to an indexer (WSS Search top support issue)
• Kerberos more secure
right?  It is more complex, no question, but it can be worth it.  If
Kerberos is enabled does customer have an SPN configured, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/832769
• One
of the more common problems I've seen... Status of service accounts,
are any service account passwords expired or otherwise broken, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/934838
• If large file support is enable are the myriad of configuration settings to make this work configured, http://support.microsoft.com/?id=925083
• Scan the SharePoint farm and report if any of our capacity limits are exceeded, http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/WSS/en/library/2aa12954-2ea7-475c-9dce-663f543820811033.mspx
• SMTP
relay or anonymous relay - Ensure outgoing email server settings set
correctly and can we relay through specified SMTP server (you can
verify by using telnet to the SMTP server and if we get 220 then it's
successful)
• Is Client Integration turned on even though we don’t support it with Forms Auth (warning/caution)
• SQL
and OS versions - Is SharePoint deployed on a supported OS.  Common
problem is for MOSS customer dose not have SQL 2005 SP 2 installed and
Search breaks, WSS 3.0/MOSS 2007 is not supported on Windows 2000/NT 4.0
• Does
web server administrator have admin permissions on SQL server to run
stsadm?  Stsadm runs in context of logged in user and must have service
account level permissions on SQL to run commands.  Also ensure app pool
account when switching has appropriate access.
• Remember, remember to install prerequisite service packs and run prescan as successful before upgrade.
• Ensure that a domain account is used to connect to the databases prior to upgrade


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