Proper Setup for an Extranet using SSL, AAM, and URL Rewrite

Question

We have a SharePoint 2010 web application \ website that is being used as an Extranet. It has been setup with SSL and will ONLY be accessable thru https. In IIS we have the site bound to 80 and 443 and are using the URL Rewrite module to redirect any non-ssl requests to https. My question is should I remove the port 80 binding on the website, and if I do will my redirect rule still work? Will I need to mess with any AAM on the SharePoint side? Thanks!

Answer 1

If the site is to only use HTTPS, I would recommend creating the web application using HTTPS only. I suspect because you're asking this question that you likely created the web application with an http:// url on port 80 and then extended the application to port 443 with an HTTPS URL.

Recreating the web application can be a bit of a process (especially if the web application is currently in use). URL rewrite is happening at the IIS layer, so in theory it should work. I'd suggest not removing the binding if it's working (or test it out in a non-prod environment)

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Jason Warren

Infrastructure Specialist

Habanero Consulting Group

habaneroconsulting.com/blog

Answer 2

Hi,

In theory, you could remove the port 80 binding on the website, 80 is the default port number of the http portal.

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Ivan-Liu

TechNet Community Support

Answer 3

Thanks all - I guess I am looking for confirmation that by removing the port 80 binding that the URL rewrite will still work. SharePoint's only mapping is to the https. So if I remove the binding will how will the redirect know to 'listen' and change any http request? I mess with it in my dev environment, but was curious how other have set up their enviroment (SharePoint, IIS, & URL Rewrite).

Answer 4

If you remove port 80, IIS will not be listening on port 80 hence the URL Rewrite rule to redirect from 80 -> 443 not function.

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http://sharepoint.nauplius.net

Answer 5

That's what I was thinking. Would it be better to leave the default site running and apply the Rewrite on it to redirect to the https. What is the prefered/best practice for handling this type of situation? Thx

Answer 6

Best/Preferred would be to have an intermediate proxy handle it (e.g. UAG).  The other thing you could use is a 403.4 custom error redirect, or like you said, URL Rewrite (though URL Rewrite support is questionable with SP 2010).

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http://sharepoint.nauplius.net