Introduction

During installation of Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003, a random port number is generated for the SharePoint Portal Server central administration pages. When you have multiple servers in a server farm, the port numbers for the central administration pages are different on each server, making remote administration cumbersome because you must know the port number for the page for each server.

To simplify remote administration, you can change the port number to be consistent on all servers on the server farm. This allows you to type the URL for the central administration pages without going through the Site Settings page for each server.

 Important   If the port number of one server is known, all of the servers in the server farm are accessible. You should consider the tradeoff between security and the convenience of simplifying remote administration.

Standardize the Port Number for the Central Administration Pages

Do the following on each server in the server farm:

1. Open a command prompt.
2. Navigate to %programfiles%\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\web server extensions\60\BIN.
3. Type stsadm.exe -o setadminport -port port_number, and then press ENTER.

   For example, to specify 8088 as the common port, type stsadm.exe -o setadminport -port 8088

4. Close the command prompt.
5. Update the shortcut for SharePoint Central Administration on the All Programs menu. Do the following:
   1. On the taskbar, click Start, point to All Programs, point to SharePoint Portal Server, and then point to SharePoint Central Administration.
   2. Right-click SharePoint Central Administration, and then click Properties.
   3. On the Web Document tab, in the URL box, replace the existing port number with the updated port number.

      For example, if the updated port number is 8088 and the existing URL is http://localhost:10505/sps/Default.aspx, change 10505 to 8088 so that the URL is http://localhost:8088/sps/Default.aspx.

   4. Click OK.

Performing the preceding procedure also changes the port number for the Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services central administration pages on the computer running SharePoint Portal Server.

You can enable Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) for the SharePoint Portal Server central administration pages. It is recommended that you enable SSL for the virtual server for SharePoint Central Administration on each front-end Web server on the server farm. Otherwise, passwords can be sniffed across the network. For more information, see the Microsoft Office SharePoint Portal Server 2003 Administrator's Guide.