I recently got emailed a question about where to begin troubleshooting a problem relating to IIS 5.1. IIS 5.1 shipped as part of Windows XP Professional and is very similar to the Windows 2000 Professional release of IIS (also called IIS 5.0). Here was the question:
I recently installed the IIS 5.1 from my Windows CD. I am new to this but it loaded fine and I can normaly work my way throught things but, it installed a default password for the default web page. I type the URL into the address bar and a Windows prompt appears. I am not sure which Username and password to enter into the box..I did not assign one. Any help would be appreciated/resources. Thanks.
This covers multiple topics, one of which, I will cover in the next few weeks (authentication). However, in case anyone else is struggling with this situation can hopefully find this useful.
Anonymous Authentication
It should be noted that on IIS 5.1 the following was enabled by default for authentication types:
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AuthAnonymous = True
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AuthNTLM = True (this is actually Integrated Authentication though it isn’t just NTLM)
Thus, anytime a installation fails right after finishing then you know you are using Anonymous authentication. The next question that should come to mind is…
a). What causes Anonymous to fail?
– Bad Username
– Bad Password
– Inefficient Anonymous user’s permissions to the Web root (i.e. IUSR_MachineName doesn’t have NTFS read access to c:\inetpub\wwwroot)
b). Ineffecient policies set for the machine
– Does IUSR have Log on Locally right (IIS 5.x and below only)
These aren’t all the requirements I am sure, but the best I can do at 9 PST on a Friday night!
Troubleshooting Suggestions:
I apologize for the delay in responding. This is a fairly straight-forward issue typically. Though, with the information provided I will have to "guess" somewhat as it could be a multitude of issues. It is a tad unusual for this problem to occur on typical manual installs. If I was in your shoes, here is what I would think it was\and try:
a). Anonymous Account username\password is broke
1a). Reset the IUSR_{MachineName} accounts password (use Computer Management MMC – mmc compmgmt.msc)
1b). Change the IUSR_{MachineName} password in the metabase:
cscript adsutil.vbs set w3svc/anonymoususername {username}
cscript adsutil.vbs set w3svc/anonymoususerpass {password}
b). Check the error message in the IIS Log file
2a). Check the %windir%\system32\logfiles\w3svc1
2b). Look at the request to http://localhost and look for 401 1 or 401 2
~Chris