Thursday, December 22, 2011

Configuring Anonymous access on SP2010 sites

The steps involved in enabling anonymous access to a SharePoint 2010 site are very similar to what we have been doing in MOSS 2007, so I won’t go into details of everything and do a quick walkthrough for achieving the same in SP 2010.

So here are the basic steps:

Step 1: Create the Web Application and the Site Collection.

Step 2: Select the Web App in [Manage Web App] section.

Step 3: In the ribbon, click [Authentication Providers].

Step 4: You’ll only see the “Default” zone, if you have just followed my instructions above and have not extended to any other zone. So, click the Default from the list.

Step 5: Select the check-box for [Enable Anonymous Access] and leave the [Windows Authentication] section as it is. You want this to sign-in using your AD account and grant access for “anonymous” users in the next step. (You may also want this to let you make additions/modifications to the site later.)

Step 6: Click Save.

Step 7: Next, login to your site using your AD account as the Site Collection owner.

Step 8: Go to [Site Permissions] – [Anonymous Access] on the ribbon – Then select “Entire Site” – Click “OK”.

Step 9: Once you are done with all changes/updates to your done, follow the Steps 2 through Step 5 again and uncheck the [Windows Authentication] and Click Save.

Step 10: You might get the error “401”, if you try to refresh the page after Step 9. In this case, clear your cache, close all the browser instances and try again. You’ll be able to get to the site without any login prompt.

So there it is. In just 10 steps you have been able to setup an anonymous site.

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