Starting today, I’m publishing my first article that will inaugurate a new serie of posts on how to install SharePoint 2010 by using PowerShell. This article will be available under a new section in my blog: The Special Edition.

Before going further with the PowerShell syntax to configureSharePoint 2010. I suggest to review two previous articles I wrote.

• SharePoint 2010 – Best Installation Guides
• SharePoint 2010 Service Account Requirements

The following PowerShell Script allows to create the SharePoint 2010 Configuration Database and the Central Administration Content Database. Unlike the SharePoint Configuration Wizard, It is possible with this script to specify the name of these databases and thus avoid the horrifying GUID in the database name.

#-------------------------------------------------------------
#Loading SharePoint Powershell Snapin
#-------------------------------------------------------------
Start-Sleep 5
$snapin = Get-PSSnapin | Where-Object {$_.Name -eq 'Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell'}
if ($snapin -eq $null) 
{ 
	Write-Host "Loading SharePoint Powershell Snapin"
	Add-PSSnapin "Microsoft.SharePoint.Powershell" 
}
 
#Set variables
$Credential = Get-Credential #Authentication Popup to Enter Farm Service Account Credential
$DatabaseServer = "smtlshpsql99" #SQL Server Name
$ConfigDatabaseName = "SHP_2010_DEV_Config_temp" #SharePoint Configuration Database Name
$AdminContentDatabaseName = "SHP_2010_DEV_Admin_Content_temp" #SharePoint Administration Content Database Name
$Passphrase = "test1234!" #Passphrase must be with a special character
$PassphraseConv = (ConvertTo-SecureString $Passphrase -AsPlainText -force) 
$CentralAdminPort = 65000
 
New-SPConfigurationDatabase -DatabaseServer $DatabaseServer -DatabaseName $ConfigDatabaseName -AdministrationContentDatabaseName $AdminContentDatabaseName -Passphrase $PassphraseConv -farmCredentials $credential
New-SPCentralAdministration -Port $CentralAdminPort -WindowsAuthProvider "NTLM"
 
#Provisioning Central Admin
Install-SPApplicationContent
Initialize-SPResourceSecurity
Install-SPFeature -AllExistingFeature
Install-SPService

The second line triggers the Windows Authentication Popup which allows to enter the Farm Service Account. The fourth line configure the Central Administration Web Application with the port 65000 and the NTLM Authentication Provider. I recommend to keep it that way. Using a specific port on Central Admin URL is much more easy to remember. As for the NTLM Authentication Provider, it is preferable to use NTLM instead of Kerberos for Central Administration.

Have you ever run into a problem like this before? You’ve been workin two days straight on the newly installed SharePoint 2010 Farm, everything run perfectly and you’re about to release it in production. The Network Administrator calls and says he has a problem with one of the servers. There’s a mispell in the name of the machine, and it’s not following the IT naming convention. So the server must be renamed. In the Windows Server world, this action is very easy to execute, but with a SharePoint 2010 farm, renaming a server has some consequences. In fact, the name of a server is stored in the SharePoint Configuration Database, many communications between servers member of a SharePoint Farm are based on the server name. It’s logical. Tied with the LAN DNS, changing an IP address of one of the servers has no impact if all communications are based on server name.

Because of this name retention in the configuration database, do we need to reinstall the SharePoint Application if the name is changed? Fortunally no! Again PowerShell comes at the rescue.

1. First rename the server in Windows
2. Run this PowerShell Command using the SharePoint 2010 Shell Command.

Rename-SPServer –Identity “wfb1″ –Name “WFE1″

The complete reference is available on TechNet.