Creating a Public Internet Site

While many content management capabilities are certainly useful in team sites, the most likely scenario for content management involves the enterprise. Therefore, I will assume for the rest of the chapter that you are using MOSS. To support the discussion, I’ll use an Internet web site created on the VSMOSS server.

Follow these steps to create an Internet site:

1. Log in to VSMOSS as a SharePoint administrator.

2. Select Start --> Administrative Tools --> SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration.

3. On the Application Management tab, under the SharePoint Web Application Management section, click the link titled Create or Extend a Web Application.

4. On the Create or Extend a Web Application page, click the link titled Create a New Web Application.

5. On the Create a New Web Application page, select the option to Create a New IIS Web Site.

6. In the Description field, type Internet.

7. In the Application Pool section, select Create a New Application Pool.

8. Enter Internet_Pool as the pool name.

9. Select the Configurable option for the application pool security account.

10. In the User Name field, enter DOMAIN\SPContentPool.

11. In the Password field, enter the account password.

12. In the Reset Internet Information Services section, select the option to Restart IIS Automatically.

13. Click the OK button.

14. On the Application Created page, click the link titled Create a New Site Collection.

15. On the Create Site Collection page, enter APress in the Title field.

16. Under the Template Selection section, click the Publishing tab, and then select the Publishing Portal template.

17. Under the Primary Site Collection Administrator section, enter DOMAIN \ Administrator in the User Name field.

18. Click the OK button to create the new site collection. When the site collection is created, open it in a separate copy of the browser.

When creating a public Internet site, you may want to set it up so that you can author content on it from inside the firewall. One way to do this is to configure it so that it is accessible from two different zones. Typically the Default zone is accessible through Windows authentication while the Internet zone is accessible anonymously.With this configuration, you can use the Default zone for managing content and the Internet zone for presenting it. This is not the only possible authoring configuration; I discuss a more formal content deployment scenario in the section titled “Using Content Deployment.”

Follow these steps to extend the web application into the Internet zone:

1. In the Central Administration site, click the Application Management tab.

2. Under the SharePoint Web Application Management section, click the link titled Create or Extend Web Application.

3. On the Create or Extend Web Application page, click the link titled Extend an Existing Web Application.

4. On the Extend Web Application to Another IIS Web Site page, drop down the Web Application selection list and click Change Web Application.

5. In the Select Web Application page, click the link for the Internet Web Application that you created.

6. Under the IIS Web Site section, choose to Create a New IIS Web Site.

7. In the Description field type Public Internet, but leave the port number in parentheses as part of the name.

8. Under the Load Balanced URL section, select Internet from the Zone drop-down list.

9. Make note of the URL for the extended web application so you can access it later.

10. Click the OK button.

Once the web application is extended, you will want to enable anonymous access to the
new site collection. Enabling anonymous access requires that you first allow it for the site collection using Central Administration and then designate what portions of the Internet site will support anonymous access. In this way, you can create an Internet site that has both public and private areas.

Follow these steps to enable anonymous access:

1. Click the Application Management tab in the Central Administration web site.

2. Under the Application Security section, click the Authentication Providers link.

3. On the Authentication Providers page, make sure that your new web application is shown in the drop-down. If not, use the drop-down to change the selection.

4. Click the Windows link for the Internet zone of your web application.

5. On the Edit Authentication page, check the box labeled Enable Anonymous Access and click the Save button.

6. Click the Application Management tab in the Central Administration web site.

7. Under the Application Security section, click the link titled Policy for Web Application.

8. On the Policy for Web Application page, make sure that your new web application is shown in the drop-down. If not, use the drop-down to change the selection.

9. Click the Add Users link.

10. On the Add Users page, make sure All Zones is selected and click the Next button.

11. Enter DOMAIN\Administrator in the Users box and check the Full Control permission to grant the administrator access to both the Default and Internet zones.

12. Click the Finish button.

13. Now open the home page of the public Internet site you extended on the Internet zone and click the link titled Enable Anonymous Access.

14. On the Change Anonymous Access Settings page, select the option labeled Entire Web Site and click the OK button.

Once you have completed the previous steps you will be able to author content on the Default zone and access it anonymously on the Internet zone. While these steps are good for investigating MOSS, you will probably want to ensure the Internet zone is on port 80 in a production environment. Usually, I create the Default zone on a different port (e.g., 8080) and then extend the web application into port 80 as the Internet zone.

Another real-world consideration is the fact that Internet sites are often isolated in the DMZ and may not be accessible from the Windows domain. In this case, I make use of the content deployment capabilities of MOSS to push content from a staging server to production.