SharePoint 2010 Central Administration shows HTTP 404 Error after Installation

Hello Folks,

I have built lot of SharePoint Farms in my project. But came across with a new issue in IIS after the installation of first Application Server hosting Central Administration. Installation went successful oh la la!!! but there are other worries waiting for me when I tried to access SharePoint 2010 Central Administration page.

Guess what, it displayed a very simple page with a "HTTP 404 Error". I started to wonder what screwed up in the installation which caused Central Admin site to break. I quickly verified my log files all seems to be fine and cool.

I turned to the basics of Web sites and IIS, leaving SharePoint concepts and shifted my attention to verify IIS settings. Again as expected IIS is the culprit and got to know something new this time called "HTTP Verbs".

HTTP Verbs are the one responsible to allow or deny HTTP requests for the Web Server via Request Filtering

I verified the HTTP Verbs in some of the other Farms and added the following HTTP Verbs to be processed in IIS-> Request Filtering settings in my server

GET
POST
HEAD
CONNECT
PUT
DELETE
TRACE
OPTIONS

Problem: SharePoint Central Admin Page diplays HTTP 404 Error after Installation

Cause: HTTP Verbs are not configured to allow in IIS

Resolution: Go to the server where SharePoint Central Admin is hosted, Start -> Run -> Type inetmgr -> Click OK -> Expand Server_Name -> Expand Sites -> Click Web Application -> Click Request Filtering under IIS on the Right -> Double click "Request Filtering" -> Click on HTTP Verbs->Click Allow from the top right corner and enter GET and click OK. Repeat the same steps to allow other verbs POST, HEAD, CONNECT, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, OPTIONS and Central Administration started to load properly

Note: If you require, future web applications not to face this issue, then the settings has to be applied to the IIS level as well. Following are the steps to apply the same

Go to the server where SharePoint Central Admin is hosted, Start -> Run -> Type inetmgr -> Click OK -> Click on Server_Name -> Click Request Filtering under IIS on the Right -> Double click "Request Filtering" -> Click on HTTP Verbs->Click Allow from the top right corner and enter GET and click OK. Repeat the same steps to allow other verbs POST, HEAD, CONNECT, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, OPTIONS

Hope this helps!!!

Happy bug fixing!!!