Is it possible to export a site definition in MOSS/Sharepoint using STSADM?

Question

Is it possible to export a site definition (NOT a site template) using stsadm? I'm looking for a way of getting an export of ONET, WEBTEMP and any required features.

Answer 1

Matt,

There wasn't too much detail on the specifics of your situation but given the info in the question here's what I think you're looking for.

Assumption : You have a custom site definition deployed on your farm and you want to get the source for it.

I can think of 2 ways to do this:

1) Check the \Templates\SiteTemplates folder in the 12 hive. yes, these are the default site definitions ... MS has a real issue w/naming objects consistently in SP. The definitions in this folder all have an XML subfolder containing the ONET.xml file.

If the site definition was deployed in a solution (.wsp) it may not be present in the hive's structure (should be but I haven't tested this in a while). If that's the case, use option #2.

2) Create a site on the farm using the definition you want to export. Use stsadm to export that site to a file. The file's structure is pretty straight foward. It's compressed archive that contains a manifest that will provide the neccessary mapping of internal -> actual file names. The definition will be contained in the archive.