Why is my MVC3 web page not sending Windows credentials to IIS Express? - asp.net

Question

I have been struggling with getting Windows Authentication to work with my MVC3 application in development (VS 2010 SP1), with no real luck so far. I am running XP on my dev machine (no money until next year for an upgrade), if that makes a difference. I should also mention I am using IIS Express as the default web development server from VS 2010.
I started with an empty MVC3 app awhile back, as I didn't have the Intranet template available from the VS menu until I upgraded the MVC3 tools yesterday (OK, I was a little slow). Once I installed and inspected that template, I added a reference to DirectoryServices to my project and added the bit of code that displays the current logged-on user in the upper right corner of the page. According to the graphics, it should now say "Welcome PCE\dnewman!"
I followed the excellent instructions in this post: IIS Express Windows Authentication and did make some headway. However, I now get the 401.2 error from IIS Express, telling me I am not authorized...
So, I went in to my project properties and set Anonymous Authentication to Enabled. Now I can access the web page, but what I see in the upper right corner of my page is "Welcome !" -- no username.
I tried this with both IE and Firefox, with the same result. What the $#^&! am I missing here? It seems I am not logged in to Windows!! Where do I need to start looking for the problem?
At a previous employer a couple of years back, I wrote a Windows Forms app that authenticated the user with their Windows logon credentials. In that case, I had to take special care to both send the credentials and then to explicitly authenticate them on the service end. Is there something I have to do to make the browser include credentials with every GET or POST?
By request, here's the contents of my web.config, with apologies for all the Glimpse config stuff.
<?xml version="1.0"
encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<configSections>
<section name="glimpse"
type="Glimpse.Core.Configuration.GlimpseConfiguration" />
</configSections>
<appSettings>
<add key="ClientValidationEnabled"
value="true" />
<add key="UnobtrusiveJavaScriptEnabled"
value="true" />
</appSettings>
<system.web>
<compilation debug="true"
targetFramework="4.0">
<assemblies>
<add assembly="System.Web.Abstractions, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
<add assembly="System.Web.Routing, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
<add assembly="System.Web.Mvc, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31bf3856ad364e35" />
<add assembly="System.Web.Helpers, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
<add assembly="System.Web.WebPages, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=31BF3856AD364E35" />
</assemblies>
</compilation>
<pages>
<namespaces>
<add namespace="System.Web.Mvc" />
<add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Ajax" />
<add namespace="System.Web.Mvc.Html" />
<add namespace="System.Web.Routing" />
<add namespace="System.Web.Helpers" />
<add namespace="System.Web.WebPages" />
</namespaces>
</pages>
<trace writeToDiagnosticsTrace="true"
enabled="true"
pageOutput="false" />
<httpModules>
<add name="Glimpse"
type="Glimpse.Core.Module" />
</httpModules>
<httpHandlers>
<add path="glimpse.axd"
verb="GET,POST"
type="Glimpse.Core.Handler" />
</httpHandlers>
</system.web>
<system.webServer>
<security>
<authentication>
<anonymousAuthentication enabled="false"/>
<windowsAuthentication enabled="true" />
</authentication>
</security>
<modules runAllManagedModulesForAllRequests="true">
<add name="Glimpse"
type="Glimpse.Core.Module,Glimpse.Core"
preCondition="integratedMode" />
</modules>
<validation validateIntegratedModeConfiguration="false" />
<handlers>
<add name="Glimpse"
path="glimpse.axd"
verb="GET,POST"
type="Glimpse.Core.Handler,Glimpse.Core"
preCondition="integratedMode" />
</handlers>
</system.webServer>
<system.serviceModel>
<bindings>
<netTcpBinding>
<binding name="NetTcpBinding_IReporting"
maxBufferSize="1024000"
maxBufferPoolSize="1000000"
maxReceivedMessageSize="1024000">
<readerQuotas maxDepth="200"
maxStringContentLength="65536"
maxArrayLength="32768"
maxBytesPerRead="4096"
maxNameTableCharCount="16384" />
<security mode="None" />
</binding>
<binding name="normalBinding">
<security mode="None" />
</binding>
</netTcpBinding>
</bindings>
<client>
<endpoint name="tcpAdminServiceEndpoint"
address="net.tcp://PCESRV22.pce.local:9000/ProductionMonitor/AdminService"
binding="netTcpBinding"
bindingConfiguration="normalBinding"
contract="Contracts.IAdmin" />
<endpoint name="tcpMasterDataServiceEndpoint"
address="net.tcp://PCESRV22.pce.local:9010/ProductionMonitor/MasterDataService"
binding="netTcpBinding"
bindingConfiguration="normalBinding"
contract="Contracts.IMasterData" />
<endpoint name="tcpReportingServiceEndpoint"
address="net.tcp://PCESRV22.pce.local:9030/ProductionMonitor/ReportingService"
binding="netTcpBinding"
bindingConfiguration="NetTcpBinding_IReporting"
contract="Contracts.IReporting" />
</client>
</system.serviceModel>
<runtime>
<assemblyBinding xmlns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:asm.v1">
<dependentAssembly>
<assemblyIdentity name="System.Web.Mvc"
publicKeyToken="31bf3856ad364e35" />
<bindingRedirect oldVersion="1.0.0.0-2.0.0.0"
newVersion="3.0.0.0" />
</dependentAssembly>
</assemblyBinding>
</runtime>
<glimpse enabled="true" />
</configuration>
I am more than willing to divulge more details as needed, but I really don't even know where to start looking. Every post or article I can find seems to assume this part just happens as part of the Windows/MVC3/ASP.NET setup.
Thanks, Dave

Answer 1

If you follow all the recommendations in the referenced post, you'll end up with a non-working mess, like I did. Each answer has its own merit, but applying all of them only ends in frustration.
The post from Microsoft that answered all questions and got me working is here: How to Create an Intranet Site Using ASP.NET MVC
Save this link, it's golden...
I also found the "Add Deployable Dependencies" option can break Windows authentication. If I selected the "ASP.NET Web Pages with Razor syntax" option in the "Add Deployable Dependencies" dialog box, it immediately broke Windows authentication and seemed to go back to forms authentication -- I got a 404 error "The resource cannot be found" looking for /Account/Login. I didn't have to deploy it, just selecting that option broke it. The only way to fix it then is to start over. I was unable to remove enough of anything to get it to start working again, and I was unable to determine what change was made that caused this behavior.
This blog post saved the day: How to Deploy an ASP.NET MVC 3 App to Web Hosting with "\bin Deployment" - it shows which assemblies are needed and how to get them included with your web app when you deploy it WITHOUT using the "Add Deployable Dependencies" nonsense.
I hope this saves somebody the hours I spent trying to get it all to work.