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Having trouble getting IUSR anonymous web login to access files on another server on Windows Server 2008 domain
I have a web application that accesses files in a database folder that sits on a Windows Server 2008 R2 PDC. The PDS has IIS installed and I can configure the app to run fine from that server. I can set the app to find the files via local drive letter or UNC to its own hard drive. To get this to work I added permissions to the IUSR account for the folder with the database files.
I installed a Windows Server 2008 Web Server edition computer on the network. I had this server join the domain by right-clicking My Computer and going to properties, then changing it from workgroup to domain login. I installed the web application we're using to this server and configured it to access the database files on the PDC via the UNC path: \\MAINSERVER\SHARED\DATABA
Problem: when I run the application it returns an error that seems to indicate that it doesn't have permissions to the database folder that's on the other server. I went to the authentication item in IIS Manager on this server and verified that the anonymous login uses the IUSR account. I assume this is the same AD account user that the PDC was using when I ran this and it worked.
For testing purposes, I changed the anonymous user ID to use the administrator account and it worked. So my next step was to create a new user in AD called webuser. I added that user to the Administrators group. But even being a member of the administrators group didn't allow this to work.
I installed a Windows Server 2008 Web Server edition computer on the network. I had this server join the domain by right-clicking My Computer and going to properties, then changing it from workgroup to domain login. I installed the web application we're using to this server and configured it to access the database files on the PDC via the UNC path: \\MAINSERVER\SHARED\DATABA
Problem: when I run the application it returns an error that seems to indicate that it doesn't have permissions to the database folder that's on the other server. I went to the authentication item in IIS Manager on this server and verified that the anonymous login uses the IUSR account. I assume this is the same AD account user that the PDC was using when I ran this and it worked.
For testing purposes, I changed the anonymous user ID to use the administrator account and it worked. So my next step was to create a new user in AD called webuser. I added that user to the Administrators group. But even being a member of the administrators group didn't allow this to work.
ASKER
My intent was not to leave anyone as domain admin, but simply to troubleshoot to see where the problem is. The real goal is to figure out why the built-in IUSR account will not access the database files when the user comes in via the web server. My goal is to eventually turn off IIS on the PDC and force users to run this app from the web server itself. So if the IUSR account can access the database files when the user comes in via IIS on the PDC, why can they not do so when coming in via the web server with the app (which is an ISAPI app) configured to pull the database files via the UNC path?
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If the files are on a PDC (this seems like a poor idea to begin with) then the user will probably need to be a domain admin in order to access them. Making an anonymous web account a domain admin presents all sorts of security holes, so i would HIGHLY discourage this.