About managed paths

When you extend a virtual server, create a top-level Web site, or configure Self-Service Site Creation, you may also need to define managed paths. Managed paths allow you to perform two important tasks:

• Indicate which pieces of the URL namespace are controlled by Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services.

  Many organizations installing Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services already have a Web server or server farm in use and must be able to identify areas of the existing URL namespace that should not be managed by Windows SharePoint Services. For example, if you have a Web application on your Web server already, and you install Windows SharePoint Services, you need a way to specify that Windows SharePoint Services will not to attempt to control content in, or settings for, that path.

• Specify paths to use for Self-Service Site Creation.

  You can restrict Self-Service Site Creation users to specific paths when they create sites. By default, the /sites path is created and added as a path for Self-Service Site Creation users when you enable Self-Service Site Creation. You can create other paths for Self-Service Site Creation users, or you can remove the /sites path when you manage paths.

You can manage two categories of paths: included and excluded paths. An included path indicates that Windows SharePoint Services manages that path. An excluded path indicates that a different application manages the path and that Windows SharePoint Services should leave it alone. Included paths can be further broken down into the following two types:

• Explicit inclusions    Includes only the specific path that 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.
• Wildcard inclusions    Includes any sites below the path that 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.

Note  Web server performance declines linearly with the number of inclusions and exclusions. You can minimize the performance impact by using wildcard inclusions rather than many explicit inclusions, and by putting as many excluded applications under the same excluded path as possible.

The following table lists example URLs and explains the types of paths.

Included and excluded paths are used only for directories, not pages in a Web site, and they are recursive (for example, if you exclude /mango, Windows SharePoint Services ignores any URL beginning with /mango/ or equal to /mango). Exclusions take precedence over inclusions, so if you accidentally set a particular path to be both included and excluded, the path is excluded. Inclusions are evaluated by length; longer URLs are checked before shorter URLs, so an inclusion for http://server1/sites/teams is evaluated before an inclusion for http://server1/teams.

You can manage paths by using either SharePoint Central Administration or the command line.

Related Topics

Extend a virtual server

Create a site

Configure Self-Service Site Creation