SharePoint 2016: How To Implement Alternate Access Mapping

In this article we will discuss implementing “Alternate Access Mapping” or commonly known as “AAM” in SharePoint 2016.

If you are not aware of AAM or you have some misconceptions about it, I would highly recommend you to read through an excellent blog Alternate Access Mappings (AAMs) *Explained by “Brain Pendergrass” from Microsoft and would like to thank him for such an awesome blog to make me understand this concept in depth.

This article will focus on guided steps to configure AAM in SharePoint 2016 and we won’t discuss AAM as a concept.

Create New Web Application

Step 1: To start the demo let go to SharePoint Central Admin Site and click on “Manage Web Applications” as shown below-

I am creating a new Web Application for demo purpose. In real environments we can use any existing Web Application to perform these steps.

Step 2: Click “New” menu to launch “Create New Web Application” wizard

Step 3: Enter Web Application Name and other necessary information

Once done click OK to start the process

When the creation process has been completed then we can see a new Web Application listed in the list of Web Applications

Also we may see the Modal Dialog that offers quick link to create new Site Collection for this Web Application

Create New Site Collection

Step 4: Click on “Create Site Collection” link to create new Site Collection for the Web Application.

Select Web Application

Enter Title, URLs, Template, Primary Site Collection Administrator

Click “OK” to start the process

Once process has been completed we can see new Site Collection created for the Web Application

We can navigate to the site collection by clicking the URL

Add DNS Entries

Step 5:  Now we have configure add host entries to DNS.

Search for DNS

Add new Host Entry to the “Forward Lookup Zone” as shown below-

In New Host screen, enter Host Name, Select FQDN, enter IP Address. Once done click “Add Host”

If operation completed successfully we can see popup window show success message

We can see this new Host added to the existing list

Add/Update IIS Bindings

Step 6: Add “IIS” Bindings

Now we have to add IIS bindings for the new Host. Search for “IIS” and select “Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager”

Select the Web Application that we have created in above steps from the “Connections” Panel on the left under “Sites” node

Click on “Bindings…” on the right to Add/Edit Web Application Bindings

In the “Site Bindings” screen select the default binding and click “Edit”

In the “Edit Site Binding” screen enter Host Name value and this should match the entry that we have created earlier in DNS

Click OK

Once saved the existing binding will look like as shown below-

Configure Alternate Access Mappings Using Central Admin

Step 7: Configure Alternate Access Mappings (From Central Admin)

Go To Central Admin -> “Application Management”

Under Web Applications Click “Configure alternate access mappings”

Click “Edit Public URLs”

In the “Edit Public Zone URLs” Screen and enter “Default Zone” URL with “Host Name” configured earlier as shown below.

Click “Save” once you entered the default Zone URL to save the data.

Now try accessing SharePoint Web Application using Public Zone URL and if the configuration goes well, the access will be granted to you

Test Alternate Access Mappings

Configure Another Mapping

Step 8: Repeat Step 5 to add another DNS entry to add a new Host Name

Step 9: Repeat Step 6 to Add Web Application Bindings

Configure Alternate Access Mappings Using PowerShell

Step 10: Configure Alternate Access Mappings (Using PowerShell)

Now we will add this new Host Name to the default zone for the web application

Launch SharePoint 2016 Management Shell

“New-SPAlternateURL” cmdlet gives us option to add new Alternate URLs to the required zone for web application

This cmdlet take following parameters

• New Alternate URL – URL that you need to register as alternate URL
• Web Application Path – URL that represent Web Application
• Zone – Represents a zone that you need this alternate URL to add to

Once this command executes successfully we can a new Alternate Access Mapping added to the list

Test Alternate Access Mapping

Now if try to access this web application using this new mapping it still be translated to the same Public URL for the Web Application.

By following above steps we can enable a web application that receives the request from an internal URL in one of the five authenticated zones to return pages that contain links to the public URL for the zone

Hope you find it helpful.

SharePoint 2016: How To Get SPUser By User ID

While working with a whole range of applications using SharePoint Platform & Services I have come across lot of issues specially while dealing with SharePoint User Information let it by user names entered by application users on the UI or by querying user information by User ID.

In most scenarios you will need this to query data for the users based on User ID from within code itself. I have add a little User Interface in this article to make sure you get the idea on how this approach will work and what all properties will be exposed as results.

Here is the process flow that depicts the flow of information between Client Request & Server Response:

To start with the demo I have add some of HTML elements to prepare the UI with a textbox to enter User ID as shown below-

In the below screen shot you can see the simple HTML markup for the user interface.

We have a textbox where users can enter user id of the SharePoint User

In order to display the results I have add a HTML table as container. Purpose is to prepare HTML on the fly and paste it at runtime into this container.

In Step 1 we have bound the blur event of the textbox to a function that will execute the query against the User Data based on the User ID

In Step 2 we call another helper function “getUserById” by passing user id to it. This function call return a jQuery promise which can be further evaluated in upcoming steps

In Step 3 we will check if the JQuery call has been completed or not by using JQuery “when” construct.

In Step 4 we will call another helper function “renderUser” once the JQuery call has been completed in Step 3. The “renderUser” function is responsible to render User Information into the container.

In Step 5 we call “_api/Web” REST API endpoint can using its function “getUserById”, during this call we will specify “json” as datatype to ensure that we will get results in “json” format

In Step 6 we are rendering the details of the user in the container

And here is the final output of the operation performed.

So we can see Title, Login Name, Email returned back for a specific User Id as shown below-

That is all for this demo.

Hope you find it helpful.