Alternate Access Mapping in Sharepoint
January 17, 2007
I’m posting this as a quick reference on how to use the Alternate Access Mapping in WSSv3 and MOSS 2007.
Alternate Access Mapping enables you to access your Sharepoint site via a typical url like http://mysharepoint.com instead of hitting the server name at http://mysharepointserver. In combination with DNS A host entries you can also define urls like http://mysite.mysharepoint.com even though your My Site web application is hosted on a different port.
So to start:
1. Go to Central Administration for your WSS or MOSS instance.
2. Click on the Operations Tab
3. Click on Alternate Access Mappings under Global Configuration
4. You should now see a list of your web applications, switch over to the one you want to map to the new URL by selecting it from the drop down on the right side.
5. Click on Edit Public URLs and change the desired zone URL type to your new domain name. You can also change your internal URLs also by clicking Add Internal URLs.
6. Now you’ll have to switch over to your DNS server.
Within the DNS Management Console and Under Forward Lookup Zones:
7. Add a new Primary Zone with your new domain name.
8. Add a new Host (A) to the records and point the IP Address to the sharepoint server.
And that should be it! Now you can have friendly URLs pointing to whatever Sharepoint Site Collection/Web Application you’d like without exposing the server names or ports.
June 15, 2007 at 10:49 am
Hello,
I have installed/configured a MOSS 2007 website but am having some problems with the url mapping. The DNS entry for the site has been made but when I type in that name (1 word) for the site, the my sites page comes up instead of the main website application default aspx page. I’ve tried adding the name to the Alternate Access Mappings default and internet zone and adding a host header in IIS but so far, no success. Can you provide some insight into fixing this? Prior to all this, we did extend the application to port 80.Thanks.
Terry
June 18, 2007 at 10:21 am
Hey Terry,
I’m not too sure about what’s going on but you’ll want to make sure there’s a 1 to 1 correlation for each DNS and AAM entry. And then you’ll want to make sure in the Alternate Access Mapping that you have your portal as the default site collection. Let me know if that helps.
December 1, 2007 at 5:35 am
When editing Public Zone URLs, do you typically replace the Default entry, or do you simply add the new address under one the corresponding entries below default.
Default = http://unprefered-hostname
Intranet = http://prefered-new-name
Internet = http://prefered-new-name
December 1, 2007 at 11:36 am
Hey PlusUltra,
It depends, but I do typically replace the default entry if that’s the only URL I want to use for the portal.
January 8, 2008 at 10:01 am
Hi! I’ve just installed WSS 3.0 on my server and can’t figure out how to have the main site with a short url – like it was before with WSS 2.0 ->http://companyweb
Is there a kind soul to help or direct me to the right answer (steps) to have something more friendly than http://server:port/site/sharepoint.
Thanks in advance
March 15, 2008 at 3:08 am
Hi,
I have one top level site collection “http://abc.xyz.com” but now I want to access it as http://abc.com.
can you please guide on this how it can be done using aal or any way?
Regards
March 15, 2008 at 6:30 pm
Hey Srinu,
if you have that already set in your alternate access mapping then an additional DNS entry should make it work.
May 19, 2008 at 4:53 am
So how would you compensate for secure? Where as for mine:
Internal: http://www.mywss.com
External: https://www.mywss.com
Those are the only two addresses I would want.
(I keep getting that darned “url may only map to one zone at a time” error)
May 20, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Hi Henry,
You mention friendly URLs without exposing the server names or ports but I would like to know if there is anything more that needs to be done besides AAM and DNS?
I’m trying to map the ugly http://intranet_test:port to the friendly http://intranet_test and all that comes up for me is “Under Construction” .
Thanks in advance,
Scott
May 20, 2008 at 9:03 pm
Hi Henry,
This is exactly what I was looking for but it doesn’t seem to be working for me.
Is there something extra that needs to be done to have http://intranet_test:1234 mapped to http://intranet_test?
Thanks,
Scott
July 31, 2008 at 5:58 pm
I would like to know something similar to what Jay asked. I’ve got my MOSS server setup internally as site.briarcrest.com and am trying to access that through my firewall. Obviously you would assume you would at least need 80 and 443 allowed, but I’m not getting anything from my webserver. What else needs to be opened through the firewall to allow that access?
Thanks.
August 1, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Hey Barry, I’m assuming you can access both port 80 and 443 internally? If so, then I can only imagine it being a router configuration and an update to your external DNS provider – most likely done with your domain registrar.
September 24, 2008 at 7:50 pm
Hi Henry,
Just wondering how I could do this;
I have successfully mapped http://unfriendly_url:80 to http://friendly_url using the steps you provided above. Now I wanted to do the same thing for the central admin site which is hosted on the same server.
How do I go about doing these as I don’t see any option to specify the port number when I add a host?
Thanks in advance.
November 2, 2008 at 8:04 am
Thats brillent work mate. Thanks very much I was struggling for donkey days.
Thx
December 10, 2008 at 11:12 pm
I have a problem in alternate access mapping. While i am dong on port 80. I have some problems,So i start working on separte portal named as http://server:9999.So for this i need to change to intranet url as http://Intranteportal.com. Present in my side i know the server name, and server host ipaddress, Domain name.So what are the changes to need to do on alternate access mapping in Moss2007. plz suggest and guide me how to change that url as mentioned above.
Thanks in Advance…..!
December 11, 2008 at 12:25 am
I have a problem in alternate access mapping. While i am dong on port 80. I have some problems,So i start working on separte portal named as http://server:9999 .So for this i need to change to intranet url as http://Intranteportal.com. Present in my side i know the server name, and server host ipaddress, Domain name.So what are the changes to need to do on alternate access mapping in Moss2007. plz suggest and guide me how to change that url as mentioned above.
Thanks in Advance…..!
February 17, 2009 at 10:42 am
Hey, Henry. This is a great article.
April 1, 2009 at 4:49 pm
My scenario: Is it necessary to modify AAM settings for an Intranet only environment? Do you see a potential issue if all users are accessing thru the public url specified in the INTRANET zone below?
Here’s my environment:
DEFAULT ZONE: Public URL – http://myservername
INTRANET ZONE: Public URL – http://portal.zip.com
Thoughts appreciated!
April 1, 2009 at 7:46 pm
no, it’s not necessary. the zones really are just labels and could be used interchangeably.
April 15, 2009 at 10:59 pm
Hi Henry
I setup mysite under the main site so I have one IIS application i.e. https://server and https://server/mysite.
I can get https://server working on the LAN and the internet using AAM, but for Mysite there is no AMM settings so I can only get it work on the LAN or the internet but not both at the same time.
Any help appreicated, I have been hitting a brickwall for a while now…
April 24, 2009 at 3:03 am
Not that I’m impressed a lot, but this is more than I expected for when I stumpled upon a link on Digg telling that the info here is quite decent. Thanks.
May 8, 2009 at 4:48 am
This is very helpful, and a LOT simpler than some of the sites I’ve looked at…
However, I do have one question…
While trying to add an AAM so that http://sharepoint can be used instead of http://server:port I seem to stumble with the DNS. Most of the forums and websites I’ve seen say you need to do this that and the other in ISA, but then I was under the impression that all you need to do is add the AAM, and SharePoint should be able to do the rest. I’m assuming I’m horribly wrong in saying this… So, my question, do I need to touch ISA or DNS in order to get AAM to work?
Thanks
May 8, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Hey Andy, unless you’re running a dev machine we’re you’re doing everything locally, you’ll most likely have to touch upon at least the DNS server.
May 10, 2009 at 11:38 pm
I was afraid of that… Thanks Henry
June 16, 2009 at 7:24 am
I used the alternate access mappings to change the site name which generally works, but when the user clicks the “My Site” link in the header, it still goes to the old URL
http://servername/MySite/_layouts/MySite.aspx
Clicking this link fails with an “Unknown error”. I changed the site name to sharepoint and if you go to the link directly
http://sharepoint/MySite/_layouts/MySite.aspx
You get a “You do not have permissions to have lists and pages within My Site”
If I change access mapping back to the server name then everything works.
Any suggestions on how to fix this?
Thanks
Shawn
June 16, 2009 at 11:40 am
Hey Shawn, for My Sites, you also have to update another setting. It’s in SSP > My Site Settings > Personal Site Services.
June 18, 2009 at 3:49 am
Having this setup:
internalname zone externalname
http://servername default http://servername
http://shortname intranet http://shortname
https://www.name.dk extranet https://www.name.dk
http://extern.name.dk extranet https://www.name.dk
and it’s working ind daily use. I have 2 problems:
1. Site reminders to external users is sent with an url like this: http://servername/...
2. When external users subscribe to a search then same url shows up
Any suggestions on how to fix this?
Thanks
Preben
September 28, 2009 at 6:33 am
Sorry I am new to Sharepoint and web administration.
Should my sharepoint sites all be on the same port.
I set up 3 Web Front ends and want to set up my load balancer. Problem I have is my sites are set up site.domain.org:port# I can’t get to the site unless I add the port number to url. I tried to create AAM’s but they dont seem to work unless I add the port number. I have a hardware LoadBalancer ( ServerIron Foundry) and the Admin of that box says he can’t have the port added what he is trying to do is have site.domain.org point to one of 3 front ends and switch to https. It seems to work if I just put all sites on port 80 but I was told not to do this. Is that correct?
September 30, 2009 at 6:39 am
Hey Willral, your SharePoint sites don’t have to be on the same port. I think if you’re using IIS7 in this type of scenario, you may have to also work with host headers. It’s been awhile since I’ve encountered this issue, hopefully that helps.
November 10, 2009 at 1:22 am
Hi,
I’m very new to Sharepoint. I have a webapplication which will be accessed via internet and intranet by users. Users will have different authentication
1. Intranet – Uses windows authentication and mode using URL 1
2. Same webapp extended for internet access – Uses windows authentication
3. Same webapp extended for internet access – Uses forms authentication
How do i plan URLs for the sites , alternate access mapping and reverse proxy settings. Need urgent help. Thanks in advance
Regards
Nathi
December 12, 2009 at 11:18 am
Now I know why so many people love this site, nice contribution. Thanks
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February 22, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Hi
I want someone to help me with Sharepoint services 3.0. When I checkout a document in sharepoint site using internet explorer i get error “object ref not set to an instance of an object”. I searched on internet and this guy had same issue : http://blogs.technet.com/isablog/archive/2008/10/02/unable-to-check-out-a-document-in-moss-2007-published-through-isa-server-2006.aspx
Please let me know if you can help me with this. My email is hnaushad@dixiesales.com
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