You can create a new server farm or manage the connection to an existing SharePoint server farm. You must provide the database server name, the database name, and the credentials for a user account that will be used for database access. If you are connecting to an existing farm, you will also have to specify a passphrase to use to connect to the farm. For more information, see Specify Farm Security Settings.
All the servers in the farm must use the same configuration database. If the database does not exist, a new database will be created. If the database name is the same as an existing database, the database must not contain any tables, stored procedures, or other objects.
Enter the credentials for the user account that the SharePoint product will use for database connectivity. If the configuration database is hosted on a different computer, the account must be a domain account.
You can select one of the following options:
Note All of these options might not appear in your installation. The options that are displayed depend on the configuration and state of your server farm.
The configuration wizard checks for an existing connection to a configuration database. If a connection does not exist, a new server farm is created. If a connection exists, settings are not modified.
When you manage the database connection to an existing server farm, the configuration wizard ensures that one or more SharePoint Central Administration Web applications exist in the server farm and are registered in the configuration database. This is designed to prevent a situation where a server farm exists but a SharePoint Central Administration Web application is not installed to manage the installation.
If you select Disconnect from this server farm, the configuration wizard removes the server from the farm and then updates SharePoint Central Administration for the farm.
If the computer you are disconnecting has a SharePoint Central Administration Web application, it is removed, and the entry in the configuration database is removed.