IIS Virtual Directories using network shares

Hello all,

I have created a V.D with a view to having it point to a network share. Is there anything else in particular I need to configure as I'm getting authentication problems.

Many thanks

If you are using the anonymous authentication, make sure that the account IUSR_computername (where computername is the name of the web server) has access to read the contents of the folder.

A bit more, normally the IUSR_computername user account is local to the webserver and won't even exist on the 2nd machine. You can clone the account on the target machine, using the same password, and then grant rights to the folder.

Or you can put your IIS under a domain account if you have a domain, but do some research on the pro's & con's of that approach.

Sorry Doug G, I forgot about that - I'm used to computers in a domain environment so I can access accounts from all computers.

No prob, somewhere in the MS Knowledge Base there is an article on this subject but I've misplaced the link

Thanks for your input guys, most grateful.

So far I created an account called IUSR_SERVER1 on the workstation (non domain member) and set the same password as the server's IUSR_SERVER1 account. On the workstation the account has full rights to the share.

I made sure IIS is using the IUSR_SERVER1 account for connecting, and can see now that IIS has no problems with authenticating (red error icon changes to a normal icon, indicating no problems with getting to the share).

However, when trying to connect to the V.D from the web I don't even get an authentication dialogue box come up. It goes straight to 'Page not displayed'.


Any ideas?

Is it just static pages you are trying to view, or do you have dynamic pages (ASP, PHP etc.)?

The workstation and the server will need to be on the same LAN, and in the same workgroup or domain. On the occasions that I've needed IIS to access files on another computer, I found it easiest to make IIS run under a domain account.

Actually, all I want to do is browse a directory (for files only).

I can confirm they are on the same LAN, but the workstation is in a workgroup whilst the server is a DC.

Does it make a difference if the share is actually the root of a drive? i.e. the share points to \\computer1\d$ ?

Not sure - but I doubt it. Perhaps you should try a different share.

If you're still getting problems, try right-clicking the virtual directory and checking the security options (that anonymous is enabled and it's using the IUSR_SERVER1). In the past, I've had anonymous access enabled on the whole Default Web Site, but this didn't affect the virtual directory which had a different setting.

The workgroup name needs to be the same as the domain name, I believe, and the user account from the workgroup computer should exist in the domain with the same password.