It all started when i tried to build VS solution that was supposed to deploy my sharepoint site with all of the goodies on it to the farm, but it failed. And that`s why I`m here.
As I realized later, not bad troubleshooting step too, you can try using SharePoint installer to see which part failed. SharePoint installer is a GUI install tool and before you can proceed to the installation you can see which requiremenets fail: lack of permissions, time service stopped, etc.
Once you have determined what part fails – if it`s not explicit from the installer description – you can see its open source code and check what particular part of validation fails. In my case I noticed that SharePoint installer gets FALSE when tries to call
CurrentUserIsAdministrator()
This function is part of SPFarm.Local and tells you whether the user is farm administrator or not. Yes, you have to be a farm administrator to deploy solutions. Also, while we`re on a permissions note, you also must be: local administrator, and site collection administrator.
To check if you`re farm administrator in this case you need to go to your Central administration-> Operations->Update farm administrator’s group.
If you don`t see Update farm administrator’s group – you`re not farm administrator, so needless to say: current farm admin has to add you first.
So this is my little tip for the day, hopefully it`ll save you some time.
Here are useful links on:
Adding farm admins to sharepoint
Adding farm admins using STSADM
Cheers!
