Working with Managed Paths in MOSS

Bob Fox has done a great job on providing screencasts for some administrative functions in SharePoint 2007 and we all hope he continues doing a great job. There are several screencasts that he has produced and today I’m going to focus on Working with Managed Paths [direct link to Managed Paths demo].

Why is this screencast important for a SharePoint 2007 administrator, simply because as a SharePoint 2007 administrator you need to managed paths. SharePoint needs to know which URLs it controls and which URL(s) can be used for Self Service Site creation. Managing paths can be an easy task but if its not planned then things can become daunting. Now lets get into what Bob Fox walks us through in his first screencast. Here’s a brief textual walkthrough:

1. By defining a managed path you specify which paths in the URL namespace in a web application are used for site collections. You can specify one or more than one site collection exists in a specified path.
2. For example, using an explicit inclusion, you are saying that http://server_name/team is a site collection but not any possible site collections below it; however, using wildcard exclusion allows you to specify child URLs under http://server_name/sites/* are also site collections.
3. We are going to look into two different types of inclusion: explicit and wildcard
   1. Explicit inclusions — Includes only the specific path you set. Use explicit inclusions, for example, if you want Windows SharePoint Services to manage a specific path, such as /portal, but not any possible sites below it, such as /portal/webapp.
   2. Wildcard inclusions — Includes any sites below the path you set, so you don’t have to add them individually. This is the type of inclusion to use for Self-Service Site Creation, when you want users to be able to create top-level Web sites underneath a specific path, such as /sites.
4. In an example environment, we have the following topology:
   • Projects
   • Sales

   • Amer
   • Emea

   • Development

   • Amer
   • Emea

5. Projects site will be a wildcard inclusion, sales and development sites both want to have their own paths and below each there will be Amer and Emea.
6. Lets go through each of these guys so we can get a better understanding.
7. Click on Application Management using SharePoint 2007 Central Administration screen.
8. Under SharePoint Web Application Management, select Define managed paths…

For the rest, why not check out the actual screencast by Bob Fox - Working with Managed Paths [direct link to Managed Paths demo]?

Managing Paths from the Command Line

You can use the addpath and deletepath operations to manage paths on the command line. Both operations take the -url and -type parameters. The -type parameter has three values: exclusion, explicitinclusion, and wildcardinclusion. For example, to add a new wildcard inclusion to manage all sites at the top level of http://server1, you would use syntax like the following:

stsadm -o addpath -url http://server1/ -type wildcardinclusion

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You can also remove an included or excluded path by using the command line. For example, to remove an exclusion for the site at http://server1/hrweb/webapp, you would use syntax like the following:

stsadm -o deletepath -url http://server1/hrweb/webapp

[source: Administrator’s Guide for Windows Sharepoint Services - Managing Paths]

Additional Resources:

• How to Define a Managed Path Exclusion - Robert Bogue [MVP]
• Exclude the Root Directory from Windows SharePoint Services Managed Paths
• Create a Managed Path Embedded Site Collection - Ben Curry [MVP]
• Managing Paths - Administrator’s Guide for Windows Sharepoint Services 2.0