Installing SharePoint 2013 Preview on Windows 2012 Server with SQL 2012-Part 2

Welcome back to part 2 on installing SharePoint 2013 Preview on Windows 2012!  In part 1 we focused on installing SQL 2012 on a Windows 2012 server and in today’s post we focus our efforts on getting SharePoint 2013 and its prerequisites installed and configured on a second dedicated Windows 2012 server , which in our testing environment will act as an Applications and Web Front End server.  As previously stated, for development and testing purposes, you can install SharePoint 2013, Active Directory and SQL on the same box.

Articles in this series – Installing SharePoint 2013

• Part 1 - Installing SharePoint 2013 Preview on Windows 2012 Server with SQL 2012-Part 1
• Part 2 – Installing SharePoint 2013 Preview on Windos 2012 Server with SQL 2012 – Part 2

The Preparation – Installing SharePoint 2013

Before we delve into the actual installation, let’s begin to talk about what service accounts are required for the new SharePoint 2013 Farm setup. There isn’t much documentation (apart from the SharePoint 2013 deployment guide) or best practices noted yet for service accounts in SharePoint 2013, but we will adopt what we have learnt and accustomed to in SharePoint 2010.  Even though you can use one account for all, Microsoft will always recommend that you install SharePoint 2013 by using least-privilege administration.  The below describes the accounts that will be used to install and configure SharePoint 2013.

• SQL Server Service Account

This should be a standard domain user account which will be used to run the MSSQLSERVER and SQLSERVERAGENT services on your SQL server.
e.g. DOMAIN\sp_sql

• SharePoint Setup/Install User Account

This should be a standard domain user account that will be used as the logged in user when installing SharePoint 2013 and for when running the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard.  This account must be a member of the Local Administrators group for each server where SharePoint 2013 will be installed.  You will also need to create a SQL server login with the following SQL server security roles; “securityadmin” and “dbcreator”.  I have posted instructions below.  Please note that if you run Windows PowerShell cmdlets that affect a database, this account must also be a member of the db_owner fixed database role for the database
e.g. DOMAIN\sp_install

• Server Farm/Database Access Account

This account is also a standard domain user account, however we do not need to grant any necessary permissions to this account as this is handled by the SharePoint Setup User Account during the SharePoint Products Configuration Wizard.  This is the account that we nominate as the “Database Access” account during the SharePoint Configuration Wizard.  This account will be applied against the SharePoint Foundation Workflow Timer Service and the SharePoint Central Administration Web Site Application Pool.  Please note that the server farm account is automatically added as a SQL Server login on the computer that runs SQL Server. The account is added to the following SQL Server security roles; dbcreateor, securityadmin and db_owner.
e.g. DOMAIN\sp_farm

• SharePoint Service Apps  This is the service application pool ID and should also be a standard domain user account.  e.g DOMAIN\sp_serviceapps

It’s imperative that all of the above accounts are created and provisioned before attempting any installation of the SharePoint 2013 bits.  Please note that we have already setup SQL 2012 in theprevious post using the SQL Server service account.

Firstly, have your Active Directory Administrator create the above accounts in Active Directory Directory Services (AD DS) as standard domain users.   Then navigate to each server in which you will install SharePoint 2013 and add the DOMAIN\sp_install account (SharePoint Setup User Account) to the Local Administrator’s group of that respective server.  To do so;

Log onto the Windows 2012 Server as the Domain Administrator and add the account to the Local Administrators Group via Server Manager > Dashboard > Tools > Computer Management

Navigate to Local Users and Groups

Click on Groups > Administrators

Add the DOMAIN\sp_install user account

We now need to provide dbcreator and securityadmin SQL roles in SQL Server 2012.

Launch the Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio and navigate to Security > Logins

Right click and select New Login and search for the sp_insall login name.

Click on Server Roles and select dbcreator and securityadmin.

Click Ok

Now that our service accounts are in order, we can now proceed with the actual installation.

The SharePoint 2013 Install

We begin the install by logging  onto the Windows 2012 server where we will be installing SharePoint 2013 using our SharePoint install service account  DOMAIN\sp_install

Insert the SharePoint 2013 Preview media

Click on Install Software prerequisites (note you will need to have internet access otherwise you will receive errors as it attempts to download certain bits.)

You will be greeted with the following Welcome Screen.

Click Next

Accept the License Terms

Click Next.  The installation of the prerequisites will begin.

Once complete, you will be greeted with the following screen.

Click Finish and re-start your server.

Upon restarting and logging back in, the SharePoint 2013 preparation tool will continue automatically.

Installation complete

Click Finish

Now that we have successfully installed the SharePoint 2013 prerequisites, we can proceed with the actual product installation.  From the SharePoint 2013 splash screen under Install, click on Install SharePoint Server

Enter your product key (the below key is the SharePoint 2013 public preview key)

6RNT8-XV26M-GWH36-VMGQH-94MMH

Click Continue

Accept the terms

Click Continue

Select “Complete” as the Installation Type. Click on File Location if you would like to specify an alternate installation and data location for your SharePoint 2013 install.

Select Complete then click Install Now

You will finally be greeted with the Run Configuration Wizard.

Click Close to continue.  You will be greeted with the all familiar welcome screen.

Click Next

The usual pop up warning regarding the shut down and restarting of services will appear.  Click Yes to acknowledge.

Click Yes

On the connect to a server farm screen, click on create a new server farm

Click Next.

Specify your configuration database settings and enter the DOMAIN\sp_farm account credentials.

Click Next

Specify the Farm Passphrase which was first introduced in SharePoint 2010.  This passphrase is important and will be required for future installs of SharePoint 2013 when configured in the same farm.

Click Next

Here I like to specify an alternate more memorable port number.

Click Next

Click Next

Now this is were I ran into an issue.  The configuration process began and it failed at step 3

The error stated that the SQL Server instance does not have the required ”max degree of parrallelism” setting of 1.  Here I was scratching my head until Google came to the rescue.  I came across the following MSDN article which gave me the command I needed to resolve this.  http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms181007(v=sql.105).aspx

We need to run the following script on our SQL 2012 server.

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;
GO
sp_configure 'max degree of parallelism', 1;
GO
RECONFIGURE WITH OVERRIDE;
GO

Navigate to your SQL 2012 server and launch SQL Management Studio. Open a new SQL Query Window and paste the above.  That should do it!

You may have noticed in SQL under databases that the SharePoint_Config database had been created.  We need to delete the SharePoint_Config DB otherwise we would have to specify a new name when re-running the SharePoint Configuration Wizard.

After deleting the SharePoint_Config DB, re-run the SharePoint configuration Wizard.

This time is should go right through to the end without any errors and you will finally be greeted with the below successful screen.

Click Finish

Central Administration will launch automatically and you will be greeted with the Initial Farm Configuration page.

Click OK.

At this stage we have the option to start the wizard to configure the service applications or click cancel.  We will click cancel as we will be configuring the service applications separately in future articles, so stay tuned.

So, that’s all that is to it.  Before signing out, let’s venture into a couple of key areas to confirm the details of our farm configuration and then venture across to our SQL server and launch SQL Management Studio to determine what databases are created by default.

Let’s begin by navigating to Central Administration / System Settings / Manage servers in this farm.  After confirming the server listing as per our installation, navigate to your SQL 2012 server and launch SQL Management studio. Browse to databases to see our SharePoint 2013 Databases listed, namely the SharePoint config database and the SharePoint Central Administration Database.

Articles in this series – Installing SharePoint 2013

• Part 1 - Installing SharePoint 2013 Preview on Windows 2012 Server with SQL 2012-Part 1
• Part 2 – Installing SharePoint 2013 Preview on Windos 2012 Server with SQL 2012 – Part 2

Technical Resources

• Getting Started with SharePoint 2013 for IT Pros http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/fp142366.aspx
• Overview of SharePoint 2013 Preview installation and configuration  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee667264(v=office.15)
• Install SharePoint 2013 Preview http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc303424(v=office.15)