Settings in Sharepoint_config database instead of appSettings

Anatoly Mironov

January 22, 2012

An alternative to store key-value paired properties in appSettings in web.config we can use Sharepoint_config database by creating our own SPPersistedObject. First we have to create a class which inherits from SPPersistedObject and decorate its properties with [Persisted]:

namespace Takana.SharePoint
{
    public class Settings: SPPersistedObject
    {
        \[Persisted\]
        public string DbConString;
 
        public LinkCheckerPersistedSettings() { }
        public LinkCheckerPersistedSettings(string name, SPPersistedObject parent) : base(name, parent) { }
    }
}
```Then we must create such an object. Let's do it in Powershell:

if(-not(Get-PSSnapin | Where { $_.Name -eq “Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell”})) { Add-PSSnapin Microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell }

[Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName(“takana.sharepoint”) $app = get-spwebapplication http://takana $configName = “takana.sharepoint.settings” $farm = [Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm]::Local $settings = $farm.GetObject($configName, $app.Id, [takana.sharepoint.settings]) if ($settings -ne $null) { $settings.Delete() }
#Create a new persisted settings object $settings = New-Object Takana.Sharepoint.settings ($configName, $app) $settings.DbConString = “Some Connection String” $settings.Update();

public static string FindSettings(string key, SPWebApplication app) { var s = string.Empty; try { var farm = Microsoft.SharePoint.Administration.SPFarm.Local; var settings = farm.GetObject(“Takana.Sharepoint.Settings”, app.Id, typeof(Settings)) as Settings; if (settings != null) { var type = typeof(Takana.SharePoint.Settings); var f = type.GetField(key); s = f.GetValue(settings) as string; } } catch (ArgumentException ex) { throw new ArgumentException(“Settings could not be found.”), ex); } return s; }

comments from wordpress

Anatoly Mironov — 2012-01-01

Thank you Jens for your input! The property bag of SPWeb or SPWebApplication are handy, indeed. I have used them a lot. Using SPPersistedObject is tricky and when possible should be avoided. I tested this method, and this blog post is just a brain dump :) Maybe it can be useful in the future. By the way, in powershell, you can a reference to your web directly: $web = get-spweb “http://server”

Jens Malmberg — 2012-01-01

Thank you for a good blogg! ;) Very useful. I can also recommend using the property bag, which is a key-value set which you can set on farm, application, site or web level. usable via code:

//Retrieve a property entry web.AllProperties[key] // Add a property entry web.AllProperties[key] = value; web.Update();   // Remove a property entry web.AllProperties.Remove(key); web.Update();

via powershell:

$site = spsite "http://server" $web = $site.OpenWeb() $web.AllProperties

I for one use it in a current project where we set up a custom configuration site in central admin where we store and fetch settings from. Using:

SPAdministrationWebApplication.Local.Properties["importPersonalRoot"].ToString();

to fetch settings at run time. /Jens