Sean Wallbridge
Anyone that has worked with SharePoint for a while knows that the recycle bin in SharePoint is awesome and users will depend on it. That said, these same people also know that “sites” do not qualify as part of the recycle bin scenario. So, for a DR plan, this can be a little frightening, particularly in the SMB where the expertise to restore a site by exporting from a mounted copy of a content database is not entirely trivial.
The SharePoint Site recycle bin was developed by Bill Baer. And he provides very clear instructions here: http://governance.codeplex.com/releases/view/50029. We are not attempting to replace his documentation but rather to enhance it with some screenshots ala the “a picture is worth a 1000 words” mantra we live by. I hope others find this useful.
Before starting, download the product using the following link (extract to C:TEMP):
http://governance.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=SharePoint%20Site%20Recycle%20Bin&referringTitle=Home
Installing the SharePoint Site Recycle Bin
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Copy SharePoint Site Recycle Bin.wsp to C:TEMP on a Web front-end server in the target server farm.
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Click Start, and then click Run, and enter CMD in the field, hit Enter
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In the Command Prompt change directories to %commonprogramfiles%Microsoft SharedWeb Server Extensions14BIN by typing cd %commonprogramfiles%Microsoft SharedWeb Server Extensions14BIN and then press Enter.
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In the Command Prompt type STSADM –o addsolution –filename “C:TEMPSharePointSiteRecycleBin.wsp” and press Enter. The solution will be added to the solution store for the current server farm.
PLEASE NOTE: Remove any spaces in the filename IE it should be ‘sharepointsiterecyclebin.wsp‘
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In the Command Prompt type STSADM –o execadmsvcjobs and press Enter.
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In the Command Prompt type STSADM –o deploysolution -name SharePointSiteRecycleBin.wsp –immediate –force –allowgacdeployment and press Enter. The solution will be deployed to all content and Web applications in the current server farm.
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In the Command Prompt type STSADM –o execadmsvcjobs and press Enter.
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In the Command Prompt type STSADM -o activatefeature -name SiteRecycleBinDeleteFeature -url https://go.itgroove.org -force and press Enter.
- Close the Command Prompt by typing exit and pressing Enter.
Configuring the SharePoint Site Recycle Bin Backup Share
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Create a directory on a non-system drive on each Web front-end server in the target server farm to store the site collection and Web backups generated by the SharePoint Site Recycle Bin event receiver. The path to the directory should be consistent across all Web front-end servers in the server farm, e.g. D:Backup.
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Open %commonprogramfiles%Microsoft SharedWeb Server Extensions14TEMPLATEFEATURESSiteRecycleBinDeleteFeatureConfiguration.xml in a text editor (Notepad).
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Locate the element and modify the value to represent the directory created in the previous steps.
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Save and close Configuration.xml.
Restoring Content
The SharePoint Site Recycle Bin uses the SPSiteCollection.Backup method to create a backup file for the site object located at the specified URL requested by the end user, where the URL is a site the SPExportSettings class is used.
To restore a site collection, navigate to the backup share configured in the previous steps and open the sites directory. The sites directory contains both site collections and sites deleted in the current server farm. Site collections reside within the directory root; whereas, sites are contained within subdirectories whose naming convention reflects the site collection from where they were deleted. For example :sitesFinance.bak represents a site collection and :sitesFinanceFY09.bak represents a site hosted under /sites/Finance.
Site Collections
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Click Start, and then click Run
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Enter cmd in the Open: field and click OK
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In the Command Prompt change directories to %commonprogramfiles%Microsoft SharedWeb Server Extensions14BIN by typing cd %commonprogramfiles%Microsoft SharedWeb Server Extensions14BIN and then press Enter.
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In the Command Prompt type STSADM –o restore –url http:///sites/ –filename :sitesBackupFile.bak and press Enter.
Sites
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Click Start, and then click Run
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Enter cmd in the Open: field and click OK
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In the Command Prompt change directories to %commonprogramfiles%Microsoft SharedWeb Server Extensions14BIN by typing cd %commonprogramfiles%Microsoft SharedWeb Server Extensions14BIN and then press Enter.
- In the Command Prompt type STSADM –o import –url http:///sites// –filename :sitesBackupFile.bak and press Enter.
Figure 1 : here’s the site before a delete
Figure 2: confirmation a delete took place
Figure 3 : this is where it ended up when the site recycle bin kicked in
Figure 4 : log all clear!