Create Classic Authentication Web Application In SharePoint 2016

In SharePoint 2016, by default, a Web Application will be created using Claims Based Authentication.



However in SharePoint 2010, the default is Classic Authentication. Thus, when we plan to migrate from SharePoint 2010, which has classic authentication Web Application, to SharePoint 2013/2016, we will have to make sure that we have a classic authentication Web Application setup in SharePoint 2013/2016. The reason is we cannot migrate from a Classic SharePoint 2010 Web Application to Claims SharePoint 2013/2016 Web Application.

Having said this, unlike in SharePoint 2010, we really don’t have an option to create classic authentication Web Application from UI. The only option we have is to use PowerShell to create the classic authentication Web Application. Let’s see how to do this. Spin up SharePoint 2016 Management Shell as an administrator.



Run the command, given below, which will create the Classic Authentication Web Application.  

New - SPWebApplication - Name "SP2016_Classic" - ApplicationPool "SP2016_ClassicAppPool" - AuthenticationMethod "Kerberos" - ApplicationPoolAccount "AzureAD\farmaccount" - Port 25000 - URLhttp: //SP2016Classic

The script parameters are-

• Name – Name of the Web Application.
• ApplicationPool – Name of the Application pool.
• AuthenticationMethod – Kerberos or NTLM. Kerberos is recommended.
• ApplicationPoolAccount- The user account under which the app pool will run.
• URL – The URL, where the Web Application will be hosted.

Heading back to the Web Application management page, we can see the Authentication provider for the new Web Application is Windows, which is a classic authentication provider.



Summary - Thus, we saw how to create a Classic Authentication Web Application in SharePoint Server 2016, using PowerShell.