Backup/Restore of a SharePoint Site

Backup/Restore of a SharePoint Site

This demo will explain you how to backup and restore a SharePoint site.

We can backup and restore the sharepoint sites using 'SharePoint Central Administration' and 'stsadm'.

In this demo, I am explaining how to backup and restore using 'stsadm'.

Backup:
1. Go to Start -> Run. Enter 'cmd' and click 'OK'.
2. Go to following path.
C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN
3. Type the following command to backup a SharePoint site (By using the same command we can take the backup of site collection also)

stsadm -o backup -url <url> -filename <filename>

In the above command, <url> will be url of SharePoint site.
<filename> will be backup file path.
Ex. stsadm -o backup -url http://sitename:1000 -filename d:\backupfile

Restore:
1. Use the following command to restore a site or site collection.
stsadm -o restore -url <url> -filename <filename> -overwrite
The '-overwrite' flag will overwrite the site.

Ex. stsadm -o restore -url http://sitecoll:2000 -filename d:\backupfile -overwrite

Backup Limitations:
This command backs up only the site collection, so anything outside the site collection scope is not included. Typical data outside of the site collection include:
1. Shared Services settings (For ex. Search settings).
2. Custom webparts, if any. (You need to place the dlls in GAC)
3. Web.config