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zebrachris

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Web service thread doesn’t inherit security context

Using .NET 1.1 – Windows 2003.

I've created a web service that spawns a thread.  The service needs access to other servers, so I've created a user (lets call it "ServiceUser") with privileges and assigned the "anonymous user" in IIS to that user.  I then added <identity impersonate="true"/> to the web.config of my web service.

From inside any of the functions of the web service I make a call to WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent (which displays the current user), it returns "ServiceUser".  Great!  If I spawn a thread from that function and launch it, then I call WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent inside that spawned thread, it returns "ASPNET".

All I want is for the thread to have the same security context as it's calling function.  I've read solutions that require "ServiceUser" or ASPNET to have "Act as part of operating system" checked.  Anyone have a more elegant solution?

Thanks,
Chris
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Dragonmen

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zebrachris

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Actually I've tried assigning the context to the thread directly.

   'create thread to handle processing
   Dim th_DORProcess = New Thread(AddressOf oImportObject.StartProcess_Thread)
   'Pass credentials
   th_DORProcess.CurrentPrincipal = New System.Security.Principal.WindowsPrincipal(System.Security.Principal.WindowsIdentity.GetCurrent)
   'start the thread executing
   th_DORProcess.Start()

I've walked through this code and verified that the windows identity I want is set to the current principle of the thread.  Once the thread is started though, it reverts to the ASPNET process.

I tried WindowsImpersonationContext as per Dragonmen's link above and it works great.  (Thanks Dragonmen)

..I am wondering though, why it works.  Microsoft themselves even says that it shouldn't in the comments of the WindowsImpersonationContext example code:

' This sample demonstrates the use of the WindowsIdentity class to impersonate a user.
' IMPORTANT NOTES:
' This sample can be run only on Windows XP.  The default Windows 2000 security policy
' prevents this sample from executing properly, and changing the policy to allow
' proper execution presents a security risk.