Add environment variable to an IIS User account - asp.net

I want to add a system variable in Windows specific to an IIS user account. Is this possible? I do not want to install anything to/modify my IIS installation.
I have tried searching for this over the internet but couldn't find a solution. Also, what I understood from this post is, that I would need to change the user under which the application pool runs. I do not want to do that either.

Related

IIS7 Accessing Network Share

I am running IIS 7 on Windows Server 2008 R2 with PHP 5.4. One of my PHP scripts is trying to access a file on a protected network share using a UNC path. How can I change the IIS service account to an account that has permission to access the share? This is really easy to do on Apache HTTP server (you just change it), but it's not clear how to do with IIS. What can I do?
Update:
I was able to get things working using the "Connect As" option in the "Basic Settings" of my website and then specifying an account that has access to the network share. It appears that my problem is related to this question:
https://serverfault.com/questions/366234/iis-identities-application-pool-vs-connect-as-in-basic-settings
For IIS 7 running on Windows Server 2008 R2 ... In the IIS Manager, select the Application Pool under which your Web Site is running.
Click "Advanced Settings". There will be an entry for Identity (it is under the Process Model section). Click it, provide credentials for your account that has permission to access the share.
UPDATE
You should make sure that if you are using an Active Directory Domain Account, you provided that correctly under Identity for the running App Pool. For example, MYDOMAIN\myAccount.
After making this change, you will need to do the following:
Stop the Web Site.
Recycle your Application Pool.
Start the Web Site.
UPDATE II
From the comment discussion on this answer, #HydroPowerDeveloper was able to get the PHP script to be able to access the network share via UNC path using WebSite -> Basic Settings -> "Connect As" and setting the credentials there.
In the past, I have always used the approach of setting Identity via Application Pool and that has allowed my code to access Network shares via UNC path.
However, all of the sites/applications I have deployed on IIS are .NET based WCF or ASPX sites.
I would speculate (but am not 100% certain on this, would need research/testing to confirm) that the Identity specified in the Application Pool is used by executing .NET code, whereas the "Connect As" is used by the PHP script.
Generally the Application Pool is set using the least amount of privileges as possible.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff647402.aspx
The easiest route is to allow access to the current IIS account.
In Explorer, navigate to the shared directory.
Right Click -> Properties -> Security
If you don't see the expected IIS user in the list (Group or user names), edit and add the user as required.
I used "NETWORK SERVICE" -> Check names.
The detailed instructions are on that site.
In this way, the system is still restricted, we're ONLY allowing access to specific directories, we don't need to create any new users, we don't need to recycle the application pool and we don't need to perform any nifty impersonation code.
To resurrect an old question...
I've just been setting up a Win 2016 server that uses some Perl to access a UNC share. I set the Application Pool to an account that I verified had the correct permissions on that share. I then set up my site to 'Connect as...' (under 'Basic Settings') the same user. I still couldn't get access working.
Much head scratching later, I realised that my 'Virtual Directory', cgi-bin, was running under the original 'pass through' account. I then set up the virtual directory to 'Connect as...' the same account as the site and the application pool and, bingo, it all works fine.
So, remember to update any Virtual Directories as well as the site and App Pool...

Permissions issue when accessing Active Directory from an ASP.NET web app?

I just joined a company to support a web app that no one knows anything about. Everyone who might have once known is gone.
The app is using a dll (I only have the binary) which is used to get a string list of Active Directory groups that the user belongs to. The code works in production and when I run interactively in the VS2005 IDE, but does not work when I run it locally in IIS.
The code is this. It blows up on line 127:
Line 127: userGroups = new FW.DirectoryHelper(username).getGroups();
Line 128: List<string> roles = new List<string>();
Line 129: List<string> groups = new List<string>();
With this error:
Error getting group information. The specified domain either does not exist or could not be contacted.
This looks like some sort of an issue with the ASPNET account not having access to Active Directory, but why is it working interactively but not under IIS? Is this because when I run interactvely I am running under my own credentials instead of the ASPNET account? Why would it run on other (eg, UAT) IIS servers including Production and not local?
Is there some local IIS configuration or fodler security configuration that I need to make to get it to work locally?
The binary is surely used elsewhere within my company; I think it is a shared IT utility that no one will support or trying to find someone who will will prove difficult.
My local IIS was configured with Windows Authentication turned on and Anonymous off. I also tried Windows Auth on and Anonymous...
Your issue is very similar to a question I answered recently, they too were using IIS 5.1.
Is it possible to retrieve data from Active Directory by impersonating a Windows authenticated user in ASP.NET?.
In my answer I provide a couple of possible solutions, what you will probably want to do is use ASP.Net impersonation.
The code is using the windows login credentials for ldap, whichever pc is running the program. Try setting iis to anonymous access and give it an account (a dummy one perhaps) that has ldap reading rights. And in your web.config file, you're going to want to set this anonymous account like so:
<system.web>
<identity userName="DOMAIN\username" password="myPW"/>
</system.web>
Is this IIS6 or 7?
If II6 make sure the application pools Identity is set to that of a domain account.
If IIS7 make sure under Basic Settings it is set to that of a domain account.
Hope this is helpul.
A quick fix is to set the identity of your local IIS to use your login credentials instead of the default system account.

IIS - Required permissions cannot be acquired. Enabled "Full Trust" and Load User Profile on App Pool is "True"

Setup
There is an IIS 6 application running in a .NET 2.0 App Pool on Server-A. IIS 7 Server-B needs to host that same code-base under a different URL. I created a virtual directory under Server-B's website to the network path of the application on Server-A. I've enabled this virtual directory on Server-B as an application running in its own .NET 2.0 App Pool in Classic Mode. Both app pools run as the same domain account that has access to that folder.
Issue
When accessing the site from Server-A it works fine. Accessing it from Server-B however generates the infamous "Required permissions cannot be acquired." error.
I have been trying to find a solution to this problem for two days. The two most common solutions have been to check the CLR Trust level on the Server-B box or to set the Load User Profile property on the App Pool to "True". Since I have full administrative rights I set the Trust level to Full and set the profile sitting to "True". Strongly naming all the assemblies the application and throwing them in the GAC is not where I want to go.
I'm sure I'm just missing some configuration somewhere. Any ideas? Thanks.
We have had a similar problem once.
In our case the user that was the identity of the app pool have never logged on to the server. Therefore, there was no local user profile, therefore there was a problem when the system tried to use the profile.
As a test try and set the identity of the app pool to the admin account you use to log in with.
Manually verify that user can access that share. Try logging into windows as that user and then accessing that share (or fake it with something like a "runas /User:{Domain\UserName} net use {\server\share}").
Also try loading ShareMonitor wherever the files actually live. It should tell you what user account is trying to access a given share. It might not be the account you think it is. I cannot recall if it was this program or not, but I have used something very similar in the past to figure out a really odd permission problem.
That should determine if it is a file access problem. If it isn't, then all I can say is to make sure you have ASP.NET enabled (on windows server it is a separate option).
Also check out the file permissions on your "Temporary ASP.NET Files" directory. I've had to explicitly add users write access to that before to get things working.
in my case my IIS App Pool had LoadUserProfile=false, so it was not loading the profile of the app pool's Identify (a domain account). This caused this unable to acquire permissions even though my Webroot files/folders (including /bin) had correct permissions. Setting LoadUserProfile=true fixed the issue for my setup.
I would set that application pools identity attribute (in advanced settings) as administrator. That way, you application will work on the server, just like it works on the local setup.

FTP Error 530 User cannot login

I am trying to FTP to a new FTP site I setup with IIS 7.0 for the Windows Server Web (64-bit) edition. But I get the above error when I try to login to this site. But I can login to my other FTP sites.
Also, when I select this website from IIS Manager, the FTP section does not display in the middle section although it does display in Action panel. And I cannot successfully login to this FTP site either.
I have checked and I have Log on locally selected. I do not have allow only anonymous connections. I have Access this computer from the network selected.
I restarted my IIS and FTP services also.
The one different thing I noticed about this website in IIS different from the other site that has FTP working is that this one there are 3 virtual directories beneath the site. And that when I click on any one of these 3, then the FTP strip does appear in the center pane. Make sense?
How can I debug cause of this error? Any SW tools I can use?
Have you tried logging in from the FTP server? If you do this, and have "Show detailed messages from local requests" enabled under FTP Messages, then you'll get a clearer idea as to why the login if failing. In my case I got the following message (I am using IIS Manager Users, and Passthrough authentication)
530-User cannot log in.
Win32 error: Access is denied.
Error details: Filename: \\?\C:\Windows\system32\inetsrv\config\redirection.config
Error: Cannot read configuration file due to insufficient permissions
To solve this I gave the NETWORK SERVICES user read only access to the config directory specified in the error message. I'm not 100% sure this is the right thing to do, but it certainly fixed this issue for me.
in my situation, I was missing Role Service FTP extensibility, which is actually allows IIS Manager Auth.
This is pretty tricky, as you could allow IIS Manager auth, but still it would not work until you have not installed FTP Extensibility
In my case I forgot to enable the Basic authentication
There seem to be many different possible causes. In my case, I was unable to login with the plain "username" with the same error as mentioned.
It was solved when I logged in with ".\username" instead.
For some reason the FTP client was trying to login with a domain account, while I just wanted to login with a local computer account.
Hope this helps someone.
Try submitting your credentials in this format:
UserName: Domain|Username
Password: secretSquirrel
I had the same problem, I removed the FTP site and followed this:
http://www.iis.net/learn/publish/using-the-ftp-service/configure-ftp-with-iis-manager-authentication-in-iis-7
Prerequisites - I set the permissions on the folders using the 4 command samples but this did not alone fix the issue, so I cannot in good faith say this step is needed, but it is what I did and it now works.
CONFIGURE THE IIS MANAGEMENT SERVICE AND ADD AN IIS 7 MANAGER -
Just do step 4, removing the existing user first and then re-adding them.
Creating a New FTP Site and Configuring an IIS 7 Manager Account -
All the steps here
CONFIGURE THE FTP SITE TO USE IIS 7 MANAGER AUTHENTICATION
All 12 steps here, including the "administrator" setting in step 5.
Then it started working for me, I am guessing when I did this without a guide I skipped something simple.
In My case I have made that user a member of IIS_IUSERS.
Using IIS Users.
Do not isolate users -> User name directory was working fine. Users started in the right folder.
When I was switching to Isolate Users -> User name Directory I had the following error:
Response: 530 User cannot log in, home directory inaccessible.
Win32 error: The system cannot find the path specified.
For some reason, you need to add the LocalUser virtual directory that points to your root.
It has to be that exact name and it's case sensitive.
That worked for me.
Per this knowledgebase article, you would need the log on locally privilege enabled.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/200475
I had the exact same error. In my case, I was using a local user defined on the server running FTP. The username was very short (3 characters). I could "run as" this user on the server, confirming that Windows was Ok with it, and allowed it to authenticate. But when testing FTP, it would return User cannot log in.
Solution? I renamed the user to be longer (4 characters). Of course, updated its name under Authorization as well. Then FTP worked. Hope it helps someone!
For me, I've configured the IIS as per usual procedure properly. The anonymous authentication was working but specific user are not.
because, the user accounts were created in IIS. Actually it was also supposed to be created Windows local accounts.
Then it worked.
Please Check the security of folder which is use that ftp .
see if the user or group you select for that ftp is associate with security of that folder .
In my case I had to remove domain from user.
So, your user should be like username, not like domain\username.
Hope it helps to somebody.
For some reason my user was "locked". So I could "unlock" it at local user manager (computer management). Now it works fine. I hope it helps.
I would recommend checking FTP logs first. The status code will give you more information about the issue. Here is the explanation of the status codes: The FTP status codes in IIS 7.0 and later versions
I had this issue because my IIS didn't support passive mode. After entering data in FTP Firewall Support module, the issue was solved.
More scenarios from this post 530 User cannot log in, home directory inaccessible
Authorization rules. Make sure to have an Authorization rule that allows the user or anonymous access. Check “IIS > FTP site > FTP Authorization Rules” page to allow or deny access for certain or all users.
NTFS permissions. The FTP users (local or domain users) should have permissions on the physical folder. Right click the folder and go to Properties. In the Security tab, make sure the user has required permissions. You can ignore Shared tab. It is not used for FTP access.
Locked account. If you local or domain account is locked or expired, you may end up seeing “User cannot log in” error. Check local user properties or Active Directory user settings to make sure the user account is active.
Other permission issues. The user account may not have “Log on locally” or “Allow only anonymous connections security” rights.
I spent long time looking for a solution, I've tried every shared answer on the internet and nothing could solve the issue. It is an issue I was ignoring for years and I never could fix.
Ok, I've Plesk installed and I'm not sure if it has some effect on IIS FTP to do the following behavior ...
Using Process Monitor tool, and making ftp login request and watching the tool and doing your investigation using this tool, you can get a hint about the REAL reason of the problem.
For me, I found out that IIS FTP was trying to access the ftp folder from a path DIFFERENT than the actual ftp path I've set, I do not know why, but maybe Plesk has some effect on this.
The actual ftp path is
C:\inetpub\vhosts\zidapp
The path that IIS FTP was trying to access DURING the login process is
C:\inetpub\vhosts\Servers\7\localuser\zid_app_ftp_user
I fixed the issue by creating a folder link from 'actual' folder path to the path IIS was trying to access - using the tool mklink tool
CMD command
mklink /d C:\inetpub\vhosts\Servers\7\localuser\zid_app_ftp_user "C:\inetpub\vhosts\zidapp"
I've fixed the issue that way, so wen FTP is trying to access the folder from the wrong path, it is now goes to the correct one.
Please note doing folder shortcut wont work for this, you need a link like linux, not a shortcut ...
I hope it will help you :)
You can check the reference account you are using to log in.
Mine happened to be locked out causing the 530 error.

Temporarily granting elevated administrator privileges to ASP.NET code

We're trying to run a set of administrative tasks on the server via a web administration console. The console runs with impersonation as the currently logged-in user, and only administrators on the local machine are allowed to log in. Right now it works for most cases but we're having trouble when running under UAC.
The first issue is a blocker: it seems like admins do not get the "BUILTIN\Administrators" role even if they are an admin on the local box. This can prevent them from even getting into the admin console, since we're using the web.config <allow roles="BUILTIN\Administrators"> notation to specify security. I suspect that the only solutions here are to either run the ASP.NET app as SYSTEM, or to allow more users and do a more granular permissions check in code. Any other ideas? Is there any way to inject an elevation request into the built-in ASP.NET permissions check?
The other problem is that we want to run some commands that require administrator access. The user visiting the site is an administrator, and is correctly impersonated, but when we spawn a process it fails due to lack of administrator privileges. The clear answer is to elevate for the duration of that command. There are solutions that will let me temporarily elevate by impersonating a specific username and password, but I'd prefer not to have to ask the already-validated user for his password. Are there any tricks for elevating the current user?
(I can understand why the ASP.NET team might try to make this hard, so that web pages can't take invisible advantage of an administrator visiting the web site... but surely there must be some way to pro grammatically declare that your code needs full Administrator rights, appropriately warning the IIS admin of its intentions?)
There are a series of answers for Windows Forms apps, such as:
How to elevate privileges only when required?
and File.Exists returning false from a network share
but I'm hoping to find one that will work with ASP.NET...
Thanks
Steve
We were able to achieve a "higher" impersonation level from the user currently accessing the website by enabling the server for delegation in Active Directory. Per Microsoft, You can think of delegation as a more powerful form of impersonation, as it enables impersonation across a network. You may not need to go across the network, but it may resolve your security issues.
Here are a few resources on setting up delegation, hopefully this will help you.
Impersonation and Delegation
Impersonation and Delegation in ASP.NET
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810572
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa291350(v=vs.71).aspx (older article)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998351#paght000023_delegation

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