HowTo setup a SharePoint development machine

Question

I'm looking for a decent howto on setting up a development machine for SharePoint. I'm not so interested in how to setup SharePoint, as there are many such howTos out there.

I'm rather asking

• which roles to activate on the Windows Server (AD-DS & DNS, but what about CA?) and which not to activate
• which GPO's to modify that make SharePoint development possible/easy (e.g. at least "Allow log on to local server")
• what do I install before starting to install SharePoint (ok, SQL Server - but what else?)
• how to (easily) set up a couple of users for testing different permission roles

Answer 1

First of all, you should check the Hardware and software requirements for SharePoint 2013 based on your SharePoint edition and match this with your machine.

Regarding which roles to activate on the Windows Server (AD-DS & DNS, but what about CA?) and which not to activate

if you need to install AD on the same machine for dev or learning purpose but you will face performance issue based on the machine specification (memory,CPU) (it's not recommended at production environment) so you should only install Active Directory Domain Service, also check the detail steps to install AD , regarding CA there is no affect !

which GPO's to modify that make SharePoint development possible/easy (e.g. at least "Allow log on to local server")

To allow log on to local computer , I wrote this article to do this , please check Logon failure : The user has not been granted the requested logon type at this computer

what do I install before starting to install SharePoint (ok, SQL Server - but what else?)

• prepare service accounts : it's recommended to create the following Service accounts during preparing your SharePoint farm based on your requirements :

  • SQL_Service: To run SQL Server service.
  • SQL_Admin: For the SQL Server administrator.
  • SP_Admin: To set up SharePoint .
  • SP_Farm: To Configure SharePoint farm .
  • SP_Crawl: if you will configure Search Service.
  • SP_UserSync: if you will configure User Profile Sync Service. (Require Replicate AD Permission)
  • SP_WebAppPool: Web Application Pool Account.
  • Sp_SrvPool : Application Service Pool Account.

• Install Application role and web server role

  • So till now you will need the following three roles

• Install SQL Server.
• Install SharePoint Prerequisites with the online mode or offline mode.

how to (easily) set up a couple of users for testing different permission roles

• Once the SharePoint has been installed , you can log in to central administration via farm account and configure managed account.

• create a web application > create a site collection .

• and to manage permission go to site setting > below Users and Permissions > click on Site permissions .

• to manage a couple of users with the same permission level , create a group.

• to test different permission role , I suggest to create a list and define its permission setting , or create a subsite and break inheritance from the parent site....etc