Retrieve the passphrase in SharePoint 2010

Adding another server to a SharePoint farm is an easy task if you have the Passphrase that were used to create the farm initially. This “Passphrase” is needed to be able to add a new server to the farm. I have not seen any way to retrieve the passphrase if you forget it, this is where PowerShell can help you rest the Passphrase.


Just make sure that:
1. The account that you are using has the right privileges Securityadmin server role access on the SQL instance and the db_owner role in a database.
2. Administrative permission on the local computer.
• From your Start menu select “SharePoint 2010 Management Shell” or Start, “Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Products”, “SharePoint 2010 Management Shell” then click run as administrator to cover the second requirement above.

• Type the following command:
$passphrase = ConvertTo-SecureString -asPlainText -Force

This line will prompt you for a password and then stores the secure version of your password in the $passphrase variable.

Type the string that you want to use as your passphrase; I used “changePassPhrase” as an example as shown above.

Now type the following command:

Set-SPPassPhrase -PassPhrase $passphrase -Confirm

Then you need to confirm the passphrase and then ask you if you are sure that you want to change the passphrase to the password you typed.

After that, you can join your new server to the farm using the passphrase that you just updated.