Site Restoration with stsadm - WSS 3.0 RTM

Ok,
I had the urge to restore the complete data on the server where WSS 3.0 Beta 2 TR was installed. The reason being that the upgrade to WSS 3.0 RTM was messed. If you have come to this post of mine, then i hope you might have seen my previous post about Fresh installation of WSS 3 RTM. I also mentioned there how to backup an existing site and all its data with "stsadm.exe".

In this post i will tell you how to restore a backed up site onto a new server or an existing site using "stsadm.exe". Restoration is pretty simple as the whole work is taken care by stsadm utility. But, issuing the command with correct details is critical. There are 3 scenarios that i will be explaining.

Scenario - 1:
You want to restore the site backed up on to a TOTALLY NEW SERVER WITH NEW SITE but uses the same configuration database as the existing ones.

Restore using:

"stsadm.exe -o restore -url http://my_new_server_name/site -filename mysitename.dat"
-url = The new site name that you want to have. (generally the computer name)
-filename = the previously backed up site data file.

This simple command will restore the backed up site on to the new server with the url specified. Remember, that the restoration will be successful if the structure of the site is the same as the old ones. If not, this operation fails.

Secondly, if you want to have all the content of the old site on the new site. Meaning, you dont want to have a seperate site configured (just the replica) on the new server then use the "overwrite" switch with the above command.

"stsadm.exe -o restore -url http://my_new_server_name/site -filename mysitename.dat -overwrite"

Scenario - 2 and 3:
You want to restore the site backed up on to the same SERVER WITH or WITHOUT A NEW SITE

This restoration is no different from the above scenario. The only thing to take care is that the correct parameters are provided to stsadm.exe.


Remember that using the "-overwrite" switch will totally ERASE the existing content on the new site or server where restoration is done.

I hope you liked this article. Any suggestions or feedback is most welcome.

thanks,
-Kiran Mantrala