SharePoint 2010: Host header Web Application

When you create a web application in SharePoint 2010 you specify IIS web site name and a port number to which the web application will be running on, and to browse that web application you normally enter the server IP address and port number in the http url (e.g http://ServerIPAddress:portanumber) or you enter the machine name and port number. If you want to avoid entering IP Address or server machine name in the url and wanting to browse the web application by a domain host name e.g mywebapp.testdomain.com, there is an option called Host Address, while creating the SharePoint web application you can specify the fully qualified host address which you will use for browsing the web application.

Below steps shows how you can specify the host address and configure it to route the request to your SharePoint web application.

Step1: First you need to decide the host name, let’s say your domain name is testdomain.com, and you want to create a web application with host address mywebapp.testdomain.com

Step2: Now you need to create a DNS entry on your AD server. Open the DNS from Start->Administrative Tools as shown in below screen shot

Step 3: Explore your domain name testdomain.com and right click to create New Host (A or AAAA) entry.

Step 4: Specify the new host name and IP address of your SharePoint WFE where your web application will be deployed

Step 5: Once the DNS entry is done, you need to make Registry entry on your SharePoint WFE server. To make registry entry on the WFE server, just type regedit in Start->Run window

From the Registry Editor, explore HKEY_LOCAL_MACHIN -> System -> CurrentControlSet -> Control -> Lsa -> MSV1_0 as shown in below screen shot and edit the BackConnectionHostNames and specify fully qualified host name.

Once the registry entry is done, it is recommended to restart the server.

Step 6: Now you can create a web application in SharePoint 2010 from Central Administration and use the host header mywebapp.testdomain.com

Once the web application is created, you can create a root site collection. Now you can browse the web application by using the host header and specified port number (http://mywebapp.testdomain.com:port/)

Note: In your intranet if it still does'nt render the web application by browsing it by host address, just make sure 1) you have entered the host address in your browser proxy 2) host address and IP address entry in host file on your local machine (Start->Run, type drivers and enter, click on etc folder you can see host file)