SharePoint 2010 Alternate Access Mapping

I recently got tripped up while setting up Alternate Access Mappings on a test server I was using for development.

I built a Share Point Foundation farm using the default as the default URL. I needed to mimic a client environment to use "TheHub" as the default URL for demonstration purposes.

I followed the step by step instructions found on TechNet for accomplishing this, (Located Here), but I was still unable to browse my site.

Here are the high level steps for accomplishing this task:

1. The first step is to disable the loop back check on the server. In my case, this was a test server, so I was doing development and browsing the site from the server itself. Until you disable the loopback check, you will not be able to hit the site successfully with the new URL. I used method 2 located here.
2. Next, Open Central Administration /Application Management/Configure Alternate Access Mappings and create a new internal URL as described here.
3. The next step, and the one I neglected, is to open the hosts file located at C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc and add an entry for 127.0.0.1 and point it to the new URL. You'll need to open Notepad with 'Run As Administrator' permission in order to do this. For more information on editing the host file, check out this article: Creating Entries in the Hosts File.
4. The final step is to go back into Central Administration /Application Management/Configure Alternate Access Mappings  and select "Edit Public URLs" from the menu, and swith the entries so that the new URL is in the default text box and the servername entry is in the intranet text box and click Save.

This will insure that SharePoint uses the new URL as the default URL; otherwise alerts and other emails will go out using the servername instead of the desired URL.