Command-Line Administration of SharePoint Using the STSADM Tool

The STSADM tool has a long history with SharePoint products and technologies. Indeed, the acronym itself refers to SharePoint Team Services (STS) administration, which was the 1.0 version name of the SharePoint Foundation product, originally released with older version of the FrontPage (now SharePoint Designer) web authoring tool.

With SharePoint 2010, the STSADM tool is still used and supported, but Microsoft is switching focus of command-line administration to its PowerShell tool, which now supports more than 500 commandlets specifically built just for SharePoint. Administrators should first learn how to use PowerShell before using STSADM, because it is the preferred method of administering SharePoint. More information on PowerShell administration for SharePoint can be found in Chapter 7, “Leveraging PowerShell for Command-Line SharePoint Administration and Automation.”

It’s not intuitive to find the STSADM tool, unfortunately, because it is buried in the C:Program FilesCommon FilesMicrosoft Sharedweb server extensions14BIN folder on a SharePoint front-end server, where C: is the drive where SharePoint was installed.

STSADM can create sites, delete sites, back up sites, restore sites, add users, remove users, change timer job intervals, change roles, and perform many other tasks. You should review the entire list of options available.