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Just got off the phone with Sean Livingston and we had a quick discussion about host header upgrade and an issue to which some customers have contacted product support. I've seen this before in IT. I know there aren't too many host header deployments out there, but if you are you need to know about this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928305.
What is a host header farm in WSS 2.0? It's a special type of farm where you ran this command.
stsadm.exe -o setconfigdb -hh
Mike Glasser has some great info on configuring host headers in WSS 2.0 and WSS 3.0. He goes to the stored proc level in his post which is obviously something we don't recommend doing on a production box, but it is insightful.
In WSS 2.0 the -hh (host header mode) allowed you to vanity URLs all in the same web app.
Such as http://foo or http://bar both in the same web app with a blank IIS host header
Or in the extranet https://site1.sharepoint.company.com with the use of a blank host header and wild card SSL certificate and wild card DNS. Wild card DNS = https://*.sharepoint.company.com and the certificate would have to match https://*.sharepoint.company.com
1. You can not do gradual upgrade on host header farms. You can do in place upgrade, I don't recommend this on your real production environment. You should have a standby or virtual farm that you do this in. The caution is if you decide to do a database attach. From the KB... "This issue occurs if the upgraded content database contained scalable hosting mode sites. In this case, the HostHeader column in the content database sites table may contain a NULL value instead of the URL of the host header. When the content database is attached to the Web application, the scalable hosted sites that contain NULL values in the HostHeader column are inaccessible."
2. If you do database attach you're likely to run into the issue in http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928305. The resolution is to contact product support and they will run a script which will update the content database with the site value.
3. If you detach an already upgraded host header content database your site column may get nulled out. In this case contacting product support to run the script would address the issue.
I do find host header sites in WSS 3.0 more common. Now you can have both host header sites and normal (corporate hosting) mode sites the same web application. They are created using the
stsadm -o createsite command line with the required options and the optional -hh parameter:
stsadm.exe -o createsite -url http://vanity.companyname.com -ownerlogin sassy\username -owneremail batso@willard.com -hh
Creating these vanity sites does require DNS or WINS entries or host files, something for name resolution and you'll want the blank header value in IIS on this particular web app hosting these, but at least now you can host both types of sites in the same farm, and even in the same web application. This is HUGE for namespace or web farm consolidation to reduce the number of web applications (a best practice).
One last note. Host Header sites in WSS 2.0 couldn't coexist with SPS 2003 farms (since it was a special config database level). WSS 3.0 host header sites can now co-exist in MOSS farms (since it's at the site collection level). My caution is around any host header web applications you've upgraded where you may want to consolidate farms with normal MOSS farms. If you detach your databases you'll likely run into this issue. So try to avoid detaching them after you've upgraded them. It is ok to detach and attach content dbs between two WSS 2.0 host header farms when preparing to upgrade, for example.
PingBack from http://testsubdomain.netmoviehost.com/wss-20-to-wss-30-farm-host-header-upgrade-fyi/
Would it be possible to disable the host header mode in WSS 2.0 / SPS 2003 installations?
It is just configured, without having entries in the hosts file.
Regards
Benjamin
Host header in WSS 2.0 is not configured by default and like I said, it's configured when you create the config db. If you didn't do it, then it's not on. It's a farm thing here.
In WSS 3.0 it requires a server admin or a special built script to create host header site collections. It's a Site Collection thing here.
I installed WSS 2.0 in HH mode and have many sites setup as https://site.mycompany.com. I have now just installed SPS 2007 on a new box. What is the easiest way to migrate these sites over? I was thinking I would create the sites with the stsadm command on the new SPS farm and then restore my old sites using the stsadm command. I also use that command to backup the old sites on a nightly basis. Then I could just change my DNS after testing the sites.
Jbutler, I'd recommend an in place upgrade since database attach would currently fail without the hotfix, and gradual doesn't work for HH sites. I'd recommend using a separate environment to try out the upgrade FIRST. Not a big fan of in place EXCEPT in the case of virtual environments and those that are copies of the real environment so you can roll back and not affect the real environment.