How to create a sharepoint site collection remotely via powershell? - powershell

Question

How to create a new site collection remotely via Powershell
I have tried the following and all failed
Trial one:
# Create a PSCredential Object using the "User" and "Password" parameters that you passed to the job
$SecurePassword = '...............' | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force
$cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList "domain\user", $SecurePassword
$spms = New-PSSession -ComputerName servername -Credential $cred
$Parameters= #{
Session = $spms
ArgumentList ="siteurl","sitename",'domain\user','domain\user2'
ScriptBlock = { Param ($SiteURL,$SiteName,$SiteOwner,$SecondSiteOwner)
Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.sharepoint.powershell -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
Function Recreate_Site_Collection ($SiteURL,$SiteName,$SiteTemplate,$SiteOwner,$SecondSiteOwner){
# Delete Site Collection
$site = get-spsite -Identity $SiteURL -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
if($site){
Write-host "Removing the site $SiteURL" -f Red
Remove-SPSite -Identity $SiteURL -Confirm:$false
}
# Create Site Collection
Write-host "creating the site $SiteURL" -f green
echo $SiteOwner
echo $SecondSiteOwner
New-SPSite -Name $SiteName -Url $SiteURL -Template $SiteTemplate -OwnerAlias $SiteOwner -SecondaryOwnerAlias $SecondSiteOwner -Confirm:$false
}
$SiteTemplate = "DEV#0" #Developer Site Template
Recreate_Site_Collection $SiteURL $SiteName $SiteTemplate $SiteOwner $SecondSiteOwner
}}
Invoke-Command #Parameters
Error:
The user cannot be found.
however, if I run the same code on the server with the same variables it goes ok when I run the PowerShell as an admin
Trial two:
# Create a PSCredential Object using the "User" and "Password" parameters that you passed to the job
$SecurePassword = '..........' | ConvertTo-SecureString -AsPlainText -Force
$cred = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential -ArgumentList "domain/user", $SecurePassword
$spms = New-PSSession -ComputerName servername -Credential $cred
$Parameters= #{
Session = $spms
ArgumentList = "siteurl","sitename",'domain/user',"1033","DEV#0"
ScriptBlock = { Param ($PortalUrl,$SiteName,$userName,$LCID,$WebTemplate)
$adminSiteUrl = "centraladminurl"
$user = "user"
$pwd = '..............'
$securePwd = ConvertTo-SecureString $pwd -AsPlainText -Force
$cred = New-Object PSCredential($user, $securePwd)
$wsdlUrl = $adminSiteUrl + "/_vti_adm/Admin.asmx?WSDL"
$svc = New-WebServiceProxy -Uri $wsdlUrl -Credential $cred
$svc.Timeout = 300000 # 5 minute timeout
$svc.CreateSite(
$siteUrl, # URL
$siteTitle, # Title
$Description, # Description
$LCID, # LCID 1033 arabic
$WebTemplate, # WebTemplate
$user, # Owner Login
"user", # Owner Name
"mail",
$PortalUrl ,
"portalname"
)}}
Invoke-Command #Parameters
Error:
Exception calling "CreateSite" with "10" argument(s): "Exception of type 'Microsoft.SharePoint.SoapServer.SoapServerException' was thrown."
however, also when running the same script on the server itself with PowerShell run as admin it works with the same variables
please help
I need to automate SharePoint deployment from Jenkins which require a remotely PowerShell script and the main step is creating the site it cannot be established

Answer 1

It's definitely a permissions issue, but it can be kind of a pain to find. My user (the one running the script - probably your Jenkins user) was:
a local admin on the server,
listed in https://sharepointsite/ > Site Settings > Permissions > Site Collection Administrators.
but still got weird errors when running remotely:
# These commands did not work - I'm quoting the errors:
Enter-PSSession -ComputerName MySPServer
Add-PSSnapIn Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell
$URI = 'https://MySharePoint.domain.com'
# Can't pipe Site object to Web
Get-SPSite $URI | Get-SPWeb
'Get-SPWeb : Access is denied. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80070005 (E_ACCESSDENIED))'
# Can't get SP users using web:
$web = Get-SPWeb $URI
Get-SPUser 'DOMAIN\user' -Web $web
'Get-SPUser : Cannot find an SPWeb object with Id or Url: 7aee0dc1-fe3b-4f9b-bd4b-000000000000 and Site Id: 8b662499-bb26-41ce-978e-000000000000.'
# Can't list properties of a site object
Get-SPSite $URI | fl
'Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.'
# Can't create a new site because the user can't be found:
New-SPSite -Url $URI -Name 'Test' -Description 'Test Site' -Template 'DEV#0' -OwnerAlias 'DOMAIN\user'
'New-SPSite : User cannot be found.'
I found that my user was not showing up as a site admin in powershell for some reason. Note that I'm running directly on the server here in order to view the users:
$URI = 'https://MySharePoint.domain.com'
$web = Get-SPWeb $uri
Get-SPUser "$env:USERDOMAIN\$env:USERNAME" -Web $web | Select UserLogin,IsSiteAdmin,IsSiteAuditor,AllowBrowseUserInfo
'UserLogin IsSiteAdmin IsSiteAuditor AllowBrowseUserInfo
--------- ----------- ------------- -------------------
DOMAIN\user False False True'
So I added myself as a site admin for my main site like so:
# Set my user as collection admin:
Get-SPUser 'DOMAIN\User' -Web $web | Set-SPUser -IsSiteCollectionAdmin:$true
# Check permissions again:
Get-SPUser "$env:USERDOMAIN\$env:USERNAME" -Web $web | Select UserLogin,IsSiteAdmin,IsSiteAuditor,AllowBrowseUserInfo
'UserLogin IsSiteAdmin IsSiteAuditor AllowBrowseUserInfo
--------- ----------- ------------- -------------------
DOMAIN\user True True True'
Get-SPSite $uri | fl UserIsSiteAdminInSystem
'UserIsSiteAdminInSystem : True'
And now all of the above commands work normally. It seems like the powershell module for sharepoint requires some access to the main webservice object in order to resolve usernames. I'm not sure what level of access is really required, but this worked for me.