Professional SharePoint® 2007 Web Content Management Development: Building Publishing Sites with Office SharePoint Server 2007

15.5. Anonymous Access

One thing that was always tricky to configure in the previous version of SharePoint was anonymous access. Microsoft has made it much easier to support anonymous access in WSS 3.0. However, configuring a SharePoint site for anonymous access frequently trips up developers and administrators initially because first the Web application hosting the SharePoint sites must be configured to allow for anonymous access before the options for enabling and configuring anonymous access are available within the site.

As a general rule, administrators should never configure Web applications using the Internet Information Services Manager application. Instead, the majority of changes should be implemented using the SharePoint Central Administration Web site. There are many reasons for this but consider just one example: a load-balanced environment. When changes are made through Central Administration, all Web applications on all SharePoint WFE servers are changed at the same time.

To configure a Web application to allow anonymous requests, browse to Central Administration and select Application Management Authentication Providers under the Application Security group. On the Authentication Providers page, select the desired Web application and the zone to be configured. Check the Enable Anonymous Access checkbox, shown in Figure 15-3 and click Save. Now the Web application ...