Move SharePoint to new Domain

Question

I have SharePoint Foundation installed on a domain joined machine. It is a single server install (SharePoint and SQL on the same machine). I need to un-join this machine from the domain and install Active Directory on it (AD DS and AD DC Roles). This is a dev machine. I want it on its own AD (local to the machine). Is this painful? I am trying to avoid having to uninstall/reinstall SharePoint on the machine.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

As you need to move your SQL servers, this can and will be treated as a simple SQL server move, which requires a farm migration. This is because the domain name of the SQL server changes.

For farm migration, you can find instructions at http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/42511e01-ecdd-4dc5-b06f-35aaada8a5d81033.mspx?mfr=true. Make sure you also have SQL backups and backups of the IIS root folders with the web.configs and any custom webparts that you may be using. Just disjoin the servers from the existing farm, rejoin them to a new farm, and follow the migration to new farm steps.

The general steps are going to be as follows:

1. Backup farm.
2. Remove existing servers from farm.
3. Move servers to new domain.
4. Re-create a configuration database in the new SQL location.
5. Restore the farm as per New Farm Migration instructions.
6. Restore any customizations (Customized web.config for forms authentication may apply.)

For question about migrating users between domains, even though you have used the Active Directory Migration Tool to migrate your users from Domain A to Domain B, and have chosen to preserve SID history, users in Domain B are logging in to MOSS 2007 as though they are new users. In order to migrate the users over you will need to use the STSadm command listed below.

stsadm -o migrateuser -oldlogin DOMAIN \ user -newlogin DOMAIN \ user [-ignoresidhistory]

This command must be run on a per user basis. As this is the case, it may be advantageous to write a custom application that will pull users programmatically and update them all at once. Another option for this would be to use Powershell to do the same. More information about the stsadm command listed above can be found in the KB Articles linked below.

After you migrate a user from a different Active Directory domain, the user can no longer access Windows SharePoint Services http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;896593

A user can no longer access SharePoint Portal Server 2003 after you migrate that user from one Active Directory domain to another Active Directory domain http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;896161

The commands above work for users, but not for groups. Domain Groups will have to be manually added back to SharePoint and re-assigned the appropriate rights.

For more information about move and migrate servers and server farms (Office SharePoint Server 2007), please refer to the following article: Move and migrate servers and server farms (Office SharePoint Server 2007) http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/42511e01-ecdd-4dc5-b06f-35aaada8a5d81033.mspx?mfr=true

Moving SharePoint to a new active directory domain http://justgeeks.blogspot.com/2007/09/moving-sharepoint-to-new-active.html

move SharePoint to a new domain http://sharepointapplied.com/2009/02/04/move-sharepoint-to-a-new-domain/

Answer 2

You MUST uninstall/reinstall SharePoint if you are moving the domain SharePoint resides on.