It is doubtful that there is a Sitecore Developer who never opened /sitecore/admin/showconfig.aspx at least once in his life to check what went wrong with the amazing configuration patch that hadn`t worked. Showconfig is just one of the many admin pages that Sitecore has by default. Other admin pages are not so popular, so I decided to put a blog post about them.
Cache
This page displays details about the Sitecore cache for the instance. There you can find useful information about the prefetch cache, the item cache and all the other enabled caches (if you are interested in cache optimizations, you can take a look at some of the modules in the Sitecore Marketplace).
DB Browser
A quick way to browse through the separate Sitecore databases. It is pretty lightweight and supports previewing of item’s fields, versions, languages etc. The DB Browser also allows preview of the file system. The most amazing thing about it is the option to delete all of the item’s children – something which is not available from the content editor itself without writing custom code.
Login
The default admin login form. If you are not authorized to access any of the admin pages you will be redirected here. The good thing about the form is that it supports returnUrl query string parameter which comes in handy when you want to protect some custom sections on the front-end.
Restore
I personally never used this, but from the code of the page (or at least the one I got from decompilation of the sitecore.client.dll) it is not doing much 🙂
protected void ButtonGo_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
using (new SecurityDisabler())
MainUtil.Out("Done.");
}
Serialization
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/serialization.aspx
A quick way to serialize/update/revert databases.Nothing special here, the serialized data will be dropped to the Data folder of the website.
Show Config
The infamous showconfig page. Shows the compiled Sitecore config. Keep in mind it just shows the <sitecore> node and its descendants. An amazing way to check how the config replacements worked out.
Stats
The page provides rendering statistics for all registered sites. Includes load times, cache sizes, etc.
Unlock Admin
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/
unlock_admin.aspx
Used to unlock the admin user (if it was locked for some reason). The feature is disabled by default. To enable it, the actual aspx file needs to be edited. There is a boolean value there called enableUnlockButton which needs to be set to true.
Update Installation Wizard
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/
UpdateInstallationWizard.aspx
Not to be confused with the package installer. This is the page which is used when upgrading the Sitecore instance, so most of the people might be familiar with it. It allows the users to upload .update packages and execute them over the Sitecore instance. It is also leveraged by some external tools (for example TDS generates .update packages for files and items). There is also a pretty cool open source tool out there, called Sitecore.Ship, which allows us to use the UpdateInstallationWizard by posting files via HTTP.
All the pages covered are available in Sitecore 6.4+. The other admin pages are available only for the listed version and higher.
Starting from Sitecore 6.6
Set Application Center Endpoint
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/SetSACEndpoint.aspx
Used to change the Sitecore App Center endpoint. It is useful when playing whit Email Campaign Manager.
Starting From Sitecore 7.0
Fill Database
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/
FillDB.aspx
The page was introduced in Sitecore 7.0. It allows the developers to create huge amount of test data. The page needs to be enabled via setting EnableFillDB in /App_Config/Include/Sitecore.Buckets.config. A quick walkthrough on how to use this page will be covered in a separate blog post, as the specifics are not so easy to explain. Meanwhile here is an article from the Sitecore Development Team which explains how to use the page with Sitecore 7.2 – FillDB Updates.
LINQ Scratchpad
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/
LINQScratchpad.aspx
A good place to test your Sitecore queries over the current context. Pretty good testing tool when executing queries over indexes or when you are not using any ORM. For more information about the LINQ Scratchpad you can check this article from the Sitecore Development Team – Sitecore 7 LinqScratchPad.
Pipeline Profiler
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/
Pipelines.aspx
The pipeline profiler allows the developers to profile the performance of the Sitecore Pipelines. You can check the number of executions, execution times, etc. Keep in mind that the Pipeline Profiling is not enabled by default and it needs to be enabled by renaming /App_Config/Include/Sitecore.PipelineProfiling.config.disabled to /App_Config/Include/Sitecore.PipelineProfiling.config. There is also an option to measure the CPU usage of the pipelines by setting Pipelines.Profiling.MeasureCpuTime to true in the config file. Here is an awesome article by John West which explains how to use the Pipeline Profiler – Sitecore 7 Pipeline Profiling
Remove Broken Links
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/RemoveBrokenLinks.aspx
Used to remove all broken links in a database. Nothing quite special about this page, but comes in handy after content reorganizations, content imports and content clean-ups. Comes with an option to auto-serialize the modified items, so they can be easily restored across instances.
Happy admining 🙂 !
Starting From Sitecore 7.5
Media Hash
As most of you know starting from Sitecore 7.5 the process for the server image resizing was changed, as this process is well described by Sean Holmesby on his blog I will not get into much detail. This page allows to generate the hash values required by Sitecore to return the resized image.
Rebuild Reporting Database
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/RebuildReportingDB.aspx
Starting from Sitecore 7.5 Sitecore now uses MongoDB for storing analytics data, but most of the aggregated data is stored in the SQL Reporting Database. In the rare cases of inconsistencies or problems with the processed data – this page can be used for rebuilding the reporting database. Keep in mind that this process requires your instance to have secondary reporting database attached in order to transfer the data. You can find more information about rebuilding the reporting database on the official documentation.
Starting From Sitecore 8.0
Path Analyzer
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/PathAnalyzer.aspx
Admin page for Path Analyzer Utilities. Contains the maps manager and if they are deployed correctly. Also used to rebuilding the historic maps, triggering the map agents etc.
Redeploy Marketing Data
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/RedeployMarketingData.aspx
Used to redeploy the default Experience Analytics segments. Also has an option to redeploy the Path Analyzer Mappings.
Starting From Sitecore 8.1
Install Language
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/InstallLanguage.aspx
Used to install a new language for the Sitecore content. Also has an option to run the Sitecore UI in the selected language, so be careful when using this feature !
Rebuild Key Behavior Cache
URL: http://www.example.com/sitecore/admin/RebuildKeyBehaviorCache.aspx
Used to rebuild the Key Behaviour Cache. You can find more information on the Key Behavior Cache on the official documentation.
Sitecore Corner 
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