Renaming a MOSS 2007 Server

Renaming anything in a Microsoft’s environment is a risky business. Whether you are thinking about renaming a Domain Controller, an Active Directory domain (you better get your resume updated first), Exchange Server 2007 (ouch!), or a Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007, you know it could potentially turn into a nightmare. Of course, a lot depends on your environment and the size and complexity of your network.

I haven’t had the pleasure to actually rename a MOSS 2007 server in a production environment, but I ran into this blog by Mirjam van Olst. She explains the step-by-step procedure, in case you ever have a need to rename a MOSS server, so I thought I’ll share this with you.

Renaming a MOSS server is meticulous job. If anything goes wrong along the way chances are that you need to reconfigure your whole MOSS environment.

Here are the steps to take, and the order in which to take them if you want to rename a server that has MOSS already installed and configured on it:

*** NOTE: Use only letters, digits and minus for the machine name (so no underscores), max 15 characters.

* Change each alternate access mapping for your MOSS/WSS deployment in Central Administration:
– Open Central Administration, “Operations” Tab, “Alternate access mappings” link
– Modify each mapping item to reflect your newly chosen server name

* Use stsadm.exe to invoke the “renameserver” command option:
– Open a command prompt window
– cd “C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN”
– stsadm -o renameserver -newservername <newname> -oldservername <oldname>

* Rename your Server via Change Name Operation in Windows Server 2003:
– Start Menu | Control Panel | System, “Computer Name” tab, “Change” button.
– Input your new server name

* Reboot the server NOW.

* After reboot, open command prompt
– cd C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN
– stsadm -o updatefarmcredentials -userlogin <domainuser> -password <password>
– iisreset /noforce

* Check all application pool identities in IIS, update where the old machine name is still there.

* If you already have a search index drop this, and rebuild it

Your server is now renamed.