Deploying Sharepoint WSP's

Deploying a solution is a two step process:

First you must upload your WSP into Farm.

Then the solution must be deployed to the servers in your farm , also known as Web Front Ends.

You cannot upload the wsp into the farm using "Central Administration" instead you must use the stsadm tool.

The stsadm tool is located in :

C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\



From Cmd line:

SET PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\12\BIN\


Syntax:


stsadm -o addsolution -filename SharepointDesignerWebPartDemo.wsp


Important!

In order to add a solution into the farm, you will need to ensure that the user you are using to execute the command is a local administrator and also has access to the sharepoint admin database.

If you attempt to run the command without being a local administrator you will receive an
"Access Denied" message., if you are using Windows Server 2008 or Vista you will receieve this error if UAC is enabled, to get round this run the command prompt as an Administrator.



If you receieve "Object not set to a reference" then the account you are using does not have access to the Admin Database.

It's usually not worth setting up an account with these priviledges although good practice says you should set one up so thats it's exact mirror of the Moss Farm Account.

The Moss Farm account can be found by going into IIS, and looking at Identity of the Application pool for the Sharepoint site in question.

Once you have uploaded the WSP into Sharepoint you can either use the stsadm or go to Central Administration and deploy the solution.

I would recommend that you use the GUI, not only becuase it's easier, but it also shows you the progress and failures as it deploys, unfortnately it's not in real time, but if you hit refresh you can see any issues.