Overriding authorization rules in machine.config - iis

I have the following code which works fine in web.config, but doesn't work when used in machine.config:
<authorization>
<allow roles="admins"/>
<deny users="*"/>
</authorization>
I'm using IIS Express that comes with Visual Studio 2015.
The code is placed under configuration / system.web.
I've checked that I'm using a correct machine.config file by adding invalid configuration and forcing the app to crash.
The reason why I want to do this in machine.config is because we have a test server with lots of applications on it. All applications should be password protected / not accessible by search engines, unauthorized users, etc.
Sometimes developers forget to set up web.config correctly, and we would like to prevent this by overriding authorization rules on the server level.
Any help would be greatly appreciated!


In the machine.config folder you can find a web.config file. Put the settings there.

Related

IIS sudden stop loading images, css, js and other files

I was working on web app to get IP and username and for test I use this code in the visual studio in a web app's web.config file,
<system.web>
...
<authentication mode="Windows"/>
<identity impersonate="true"/>
...
</system.web>
and then IIS stopped to show images, css and js files even I've remove and again add IIS to the system. All published sites even IIS default site didn't show its image, see image1.
image1
The said configured app and other apps work on web server even IIS Express of Visual Studio but not work on Localhost.
The browser in the status bar shows Waiting for static.antp.co...

The reason for this problem is you added windows authentication in web.config file. On local machine, your windows credentials are automatically passed so it can work as expected. But if you run the application on IIS on localhost, you are treated as an anonymous user.
To solve this problem, you can remove the line <authentication mode="Windows"/> if you do not need windows authentication. Or add a web.config in the directory(s) containing CSS, images, scripts, etc. which specifies authorization rules.

Is it possible to change web.config values based on the hosting environment, such as iisExpress

I am developing a .net core 3.0 web app with a very simple web.config
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.webServer>
<serverRuntime uploadReadAheadSize="10485760" />
</system.webServer>
</configuration>
However, I want to change the web.config file so that this configuration is active with iis, but not with iisExpress, where the permissions to change uploadReadAheadSize are locked.
Surely there must be a simple way to do this, but all my googling hasn't given me a straightforward answer

Due to the design, there seems to be no way to tell from within web.config whether the hosting server is IIS or IIS Express.
But because IIS and IIS Express use different configuration file path, you can move such configuration elements from your web.config file to the desired applicationHost.config file.

Error 0x80070021 IIS windows 8

I'm trying to deploy web pages on IIS. When I try to browse site I got such mistake:
This configuration section cannot be used at this path. This happens
when the section is locked at a parent level. Locking is either by
default (overrideModeDefault="Deny"), or set explicitly by a location
tag with overrideMode="Deny" or the legacy allowOverride="false".
Section in my config file:
<security>
<authentication>
<basicAuthentication enabled="false" />
</authentication>
</security>
May anybody help me to "unlock" parent section (as far as I understand).

You may need to allow feature delegation.
IIS Manager -> Feature Delegation
Select "Authentication - Basic" and change it to Read/Write.
By default it is ReadOnly.

I had the same kind of problem when I tried to deploy ASP.NET pages on IIS. (To be honest don´t know if exactly the same - I am using Windows 10 now, but got same kind of message).
At first it seamed complicated to fix but found out that had a really easy solution.
I Just needed to reinstal IIS at the Control Painel - but with ASP option enabled (I enabled all of the resources for development of applications).
And at the Website (basic) configuration had to select .NET v4.5 Classic.

Error 500.19 and file execution issues and locked on IIS 8
To resolve it I had to execute in cmd:
%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd unlock config -section:system.webServer/handlers
%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd unlock config -section:system.webServer/modules

IIS 7: value does not fall within the expected range

When I tried to start my IIS server on my local machine (which is running on Windows 7), it is giving me an error saying:
value does not fall within the expected range
I have tried number of thing to correct this issue, but no success. then finally I re-installed the IIS server on my machine but issue is still persist.
Does anyone have any idea about this error? And how can I resolve it?

I have found that, this issue was coming due to incorrect virtual directory was created by visual studio in IIS due to which default web site was unable to start.
What I'd done to resolve this, I'd deleted my Default Web Site and created again in IIS. After that I'd created my application's specific virtual directories. This resolve my problem. Still not know why default web site stop working after incorrect virtual directory created by Visual Studio.
Hope this helps for those who are facing this issue.

I had this issue in IIS 8.5, the problem ended up being an incomplete entry for the host name in the bindings. I didn't include .com on the FQDN.

I have this issue with setting specific accounts for the site to run as..
It goes away if you set the password in the applicationHost.config directly. Cannot do it though IIS anymore though..
In: C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config
May help.

I was experiencing the same problem. And the problem was with the file pointed out by #aaron-gibson.
applicationHost.config at: C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config
(see here: IIS Configuration Reference)
One of the site had incorrect data:
<application path="/e:\MyFolder\MySiteWithProblem\VDir" applicationPool="AppPool152">
<virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="e:\MyFolder\MySiteWithProblem\VDir\Vdir" />
The application path in this case had invalid characters. And also, the physicalPath didn't exist.
Fixing this entry fixed the problem.
The answer marked as the solution fixed the problem because it recreated this file from scratch. But in my case I did not lose all my sites.
I changed the file
applicationHost.config
at: C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config
And the entries for each site are in the tags:
<configuration>
<system.applicationHost>
<sites>
...
<site name="Default Web Site" id="1" serverAutoStart="true">
<application path="/MyPath" applicationPool="AppPool152">
<virtualDirectory path="/" physicalPath="e:\MyFolder\MySite\Vdir" />
</application>
...
<site>
...
</sites>
</system.applicationHost>
</configuration>

I had this issue with a new IIS 10 deployment. Our network team copied over the applicationhost.config file from the older servers and this caused it. In IIS 10 there are two new settings that encrypt the password for the app pool identity. Since the IIS 7 config file didn't have those encryption settings then IIS threw this error when assigning a new user. I simply copied over the settings from a brand new server build and it started working fine. Add these two settings to the existing ones already there:
<configProtectedData>
<providers>
<add name="IISCngProvider" type="Microsoft.ApplicationHost.CngProtectedConfigurationProvider" description="Uses Win32 Crypto CNG to encrypt and decrypt" keyContainerName="iisCngConfigurationKey" useMachineContainer="true" />
<add name="IISWASOnlyCngProvider" type="Microsoft.ApplicationHost.CngProtectedConfigurationProvider" description="(WAS Only) Uses Win32 Crypto CNG to encrypt and decrypt" keyContainerName="iisCngWasKey" useMachineContainer="true" />
</providers>
</configProtectedData>

Mine turned out to be an issue with the binding. I deleted than used another name in the binding and it worked great.
Good luck!

I've had this issue and the problem was that the binding was wrong, there was a "space" after the url.
Check your bindings for any wrong characters and if there's anything else wrong with it.

I've had this issue with Octopus Deploy.
It turned out the issue was with the binding where it had an extra space at the end of the hostname when setting up the project in Octopus.
You can also see this from the applicationhost.config in C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\Config

This message can be caused by a malformed application name in the applicationHost.config file in C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config.
For example, I had a "\" in an application name which, once removed, eliminated the error.

This problem can be caused by setting the "Host name" to a number. The "Host name" needs to contain at least 1 letter.

I've had this error message before when I was using an automated build and deployment system (TeamCity with Octopus deploy). It turned out that the port number I'd specified for IIS in the Octopus Deploy variables was too high.
From what I could find on this web site the highest port number IIS will accept is 65535.

Config Error: This configuration section cannot be used at this path

I've encountered an error deploying a site to a server. When trying to load the home page, or access authentication on the new site in IIS, I get the error:
Config Error: This configuration section cannot be used at this path.
This happens when the section is locked at a parent level. Locking is
either by default (overrideModeDefault="Deny"), or set explicitly by a
location tag with overrideMode="Deny" or the legacy
allowOverride="false".
More detail can be found here, in Scenario 7 matches my hex error code.
The solution given on the linked site above is to set Allow for overrideModeDefault in the section mentioned in my error, in the applicationHost.config file. In my case, under Security in system.webServer. But if I look at the applicationHost.config on my local computer, where the site is properly deployed already, that section is set to Deny.
If this solution is correct, how is my local instance running just fine with the same web.config? According to my applicationHost.config, that section should be locked, but it's not. I'd prefer to not change the applicationHost.config file, because there are many other sites running on that server. Is there another solution?

I had the same problem. Don't remember where I found it on the web, but here is what I did:
Click "Start button"
in the search box, enter "Turn windows features on or off"
in the features window, Click: "Internet Information Services"
Click: "World Wide Web Services"
Click: "Application Development Features"
Check (enable) the features. I checked all but CGI.
btw, I'm using Windows 7. Many comments over the years have certified this works all the way up to Windows 10 and Server 2019, as well.

You could also use the IIS Manager to edit those settings.
Care of this Learn IIS article:
Using the Feature Delegation from the root of IIS:
You can then control each of machine-level read/write permissions, which will otherwise give you the overrideMode="Deny" errors.

For Windows Server 2012 and IIS 8, the procedure is similar.
The Web Server (IIS) and Application Server should be installed, and you should also have the optional Web Server (IIS) Support under Application Server.

Browse to “C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config” (you will need administrator rights here)
Open applicationHost.config
Note: In IISExpress and Visual Studio 2015 the applicationHost.config is stored in $(solutionDir).vs\config\applicationhost.config
Find the section that showed up in the “config source” part of the error message page. For me this has typically been “modules” or “handlers”
Change the overrideModeDefault attribute to be Allow
So the whole line now looks like:
<section name="modules" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" overrideModeDefault="Allow" />
After saving the file, the page loaded up fine in my browser.
Warning:
Editing applicationHost.config on 64-bit Windows

You need to unlock handlers. This can be done using following cmd command:
%windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe unlock config -section:system.webServer/handlers
Maybe another info for people that are getting this error on IIS 8, in my case was on Microsoft Server 2012 platform. I had spend couple of hours battling with other errors that bubbled up after executing appcmd. In the end I was able to fix it by removing Web Server Role and installing it again.

1. Open "Turn windows features on or off" by: WinKey+ R => "optionalfeatures" => OK
Enable those features under "Application Development Features"
Tested on Win 10 - But probably will work on other windows versions as well.

I ran these two commands from an elevated command prompt:
%windir%/system32/inetsrv/appcmd unlock config /section:anonymousAuthentication
%windir%/system32/inetsrv/appcmd unlock config /section:windowsAuthentication

As per my answer to this similar issue;
Try unlocking the relevant IIS configuration settings at server level, as follows:
Open IIS Manager
Select the server in the Connections pane
Open Configuration Editor in the main pane
In the Sections drop down, select the section to unlock, e.g. system.webServer > defaultPath
Click Unlock Attribute in the right pane
Repeat for any other settings which you need to unlock
Restart IIS (optional) - Select the server in the Conncetions pane, click Restart in the Actions pane

This Did the trick for me, for IIS 8 Windows server 2012 R2
Go to "Turn on Features"
Then go to all default setting , Next, Next, Next etc..
Then, select as shown below,
Then reset IIS (optional) but do it safer side.
This is an additional solution as its a generic problem everyone have different of problem and thus different solution. Cheers!

The best option is to Change Application Settings from the Custom Site Delegation
Open IIS and from the root select Feature Delegation and then select Application Settings and from the right sidebar select Read/Write

On Windows Server 2012 with IIS 8 I have solved this by enabling ASP.NET 4.5 feature:
and then following ken's answer.

To fix this open up the IIS Express applicationhost.config. This file is stored at C:\Users[your user name]\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config
Update for VS2015+: config file location is $(solutionDir).vs\config\applicationhost.config
Look for the following lines
<section name="windowsAuthentication" overrideModeDefault="Deny" />
<section name="anonymousAuthentication" overrideModeDefault="Deny" />
<add name="WindowsAuthenticationModule" lockItem="true" />
<add name="AnonymousAuthenticationModule" lockItem="true" />
Change those lines to
<section name="windowsAuthentication" overrideModeDefault="Allow" />
<section name="anonymousAuthentication" overrideModeDefault="Allow" />
<add name="WindowsAuthenticationModule" lockItem="false" />
<add name="AnonymousAuthenticationModule" lockItem="false" />
Save it and refresh Asp.net Page.

In our case on IIS 8 we found the error was produced when attempting to view Authentication" for a site, when:
The server Feature Delegation marked as "Authentication - Windows" = "Read Only"
The site had a web.config that explicitly referenced windows authentication; e.g.,
Marking the site Feature Delegation "Authentication - Windows" = "Read/Write", the error went away. It appears that, with the feature marked "Read Only", the web.config is not allowed to reference it at all even to disable it, as this apparently constitutes a write.

Seems that with IIS Express and VS 2015, there's a copy of the applicationHost.config file at $(solutionDir).vs\config\applicationhost.config so you'll need to make changes there. See this link: http://digitaldrummerj.me/iis-express-windows-authentication/
Make sure these lines are changed per below:
<section name="windowsAuthentication" overrideModeDefault="Allow" />
<section name="anonymousAuthentication" overrideModeDefault="Allow" />
<add name="WindowsAuthenticationModule" lockItem="false" />
<add name="AnonymousAuthenticationModule" lockItem="false" />

In my case it was that on server was not enabled "HTTP Activation" under .NET Framework Features. So for Windows Server 2012 the solution which worked for me was:
Server Manager -> Add roles and features -> Features -> make sure that under .NET Framework of version you want to use is checked "HTTP Activation"

The Powershell way of enabling the features (Windows Server 2012 +) - trim as needed:
Install-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Core
Install-WindowsFeature Web-Server -IncludeAllSubFeature
Install-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-Features -IncludeAllSubFeature
Install-WindowsFeature NET-Framework-45-ASPNET -IncludeAllSubFeature
Install-WindowsFeature Application-Server -IncludeAllSubFeature
Install-WindowsFeature MSMQ -IncludeAllSubFeature
Install-WindowsFeature WAS -IncludeAllSubFeature

The error says that the configuration section is locked at the parent level.
So it will not be directly 1 config file which will resolve the issue,
we need to go through the hierarchy of the config files to see the inheritance
Check the below link to go through the File hierarchy and inheritance in IIS
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms178685.aspx
So you need to check for the app config settings in the below order
ApplicationHost.config in C:windows\system32\inetsrv\config. Change the overrideModeDefault attribute to be Allow.
ApplicationName.config or web.config in the applications directory
Web.config in the root directory.
Web.config in the specific website (My issue was found at this place).
Web.config of the root web (server's configuration)
machine.config of the machine (Root's web.config and machine.config can be found at - systemroot\MicrosoftNET\Framework\versionNumber\CONFIG\Machine.config)
Go carefully through all these configs in the order of 1 to 6 and you should find it.

I noticed one answer that was similar, but in my case I used the IIS Configured Editor to find the section I wanted to "unlock".
Then I copied the path and used it in my automation to unlock it prior to changing the sections I wanted to edit.
. "$($env:windir)\system32\inetsrv\appcmd" unlock config -section:system.webServer/security/authentication/windowsAuthentication
. "$($env:windir)\system32\inetsrv\appcmd" unlock config -section:system.webServer/security/authentication/anonymousAuthentication

I needed to change the SSL settings on a subfolder when i got this nice message. In my case following action helped me out.
Opened C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config
And changed the value from overrideModeDefault="Deny" to "Allow"
<sectionGroup name="system.webServer">
...
<sectionGroup name="security">
<section name="access" overrideModeDefault="Allow" />
</sectionGroup>

In my case, I got this error because I was operating on the wrong configuration file.
I was doing this:
Configuration config = serverManager.GetWebConfiguration(websiteName);
ConfigurationSection serverRuntimeSection = config.GetSection("system.webServer/serverRuntime");
serverRuntimeSection["alternateHostName"] = hostname;
instead of the correct code:
Configuration config = serverManager.GetApplicationHostConfiguration();
ConfigurationSection serverRuntimeSection = configApp.GetSection("system.webServer/serverRuntime", websiteName);
serverRuntimeSection["alternateHostName"] = hostname;
in other words, I was trying to operate on the website's web.config instead of the global file C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config, which has a section (or can have a section) for the website. The setting I was trying to change exists only in the applicationHost.config file.

In my case, it was something else.
When I loaded the solution in a new version of Visual Studio, VS apparently created a new project-specific applicationhost.config file:
MySolutionDir\.vs\config\applicationhost.config
It started using the settings from the new config, instead of my already customized global IIS Express settings.
(\Users\%USER%\Documents\IISExpress\config\applicationhost.config)
In my case this was the setting that needed to be set. Of course it could be something else for you:
<section name="ipSecurity" overrideModeDefault="Allow" />

Received this same issue after installing IIS 7 on Vista Home Premium. To correct error I changed the following values located in the applicationHost.config file located in Windows\system32\inetsrv.
Change all of the following values located in section -->
<div mce_keep="true"><section name="handlers" overrideModeDefault="Deny" /> change this value from "Deny" to "Allow"</div>
<div mce_keep="true"><section name="modules" allowDefinition="MachineToApplication" overrideModeDefault="Deny" /> change this value from "Deny" to "Allow"</div>

Can You try this:
Go to application path where you're getting deny error, right click
Properties->Security tab
In that, change the permissions and check the checkbox read and write. Then it will work without any error hopefully.

For Windows Server 2008 and IIS 7, the procedure is similar.
please refer to this:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/vstudio/bb763178(v=vs.100).aspx
in add role service, u will see "Application Development Features"
Check (enable) the features. I checked all.

In my case I was getting this error when attempting to update the authentication settings in IIS also in addition to browsing. I was able to remove this error by removing the authentication setting from the web.config itself. Removing a problematic configuration section may be less invasive and preferable in some cases than changing the server roles and features too much:
Section Removed:
<security>
<authentication>
<windowsAuthentication enabled="true" />
</authentication>
</security>

I had the similar issue, but I used the following powershell script which helped me to achieve above steps in on button click.
#Install IIS
Import-Module ServerManager
Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server, Web-Asp-Net45, Web-Mgmt-Console, Web-Scripting-Tools, NET-WCF-HTTP-Activation45, Web-Windows-Auth
the list of features can be added or removed based on the requirement.

I had an issue where I was putting in the override = "Allow" values (mentioned here already)......but on a x64 bit system.......my 32 notepad++ was phantom saving them. Switching to Notepad (which is a 64bit application on a x64 bit O/S) allowed me to save the settings.
See :
http://dpotter.net/technical/2009/11/editing-applicationhostconfig-on-64-bit-windows/
The relevant text:
One of the problems I’m running down required that I view and possibly edit applicationHost.config. This file is located at %SystemRoot%\System32\inetsrv\config. Seems simple enough. I was able to find it from the command line easily, but when I went to load it in my favorite editor (Notepad++) I got a file not found error. Turns out that the System32 folder is redirected for 32-bit applications to SysWOW64. There appears to be no way to view the System32 folder using a 32-bit app. Go figure.
Fortunately, 64-bit versions of Windows ship with a 64-bit version of Notepad. As much as I dislike it, at least it works.

I had the same issue.
Resolved it by enabling Application Server feature. Restarted iis
after that.

This worked for me
Also in IIS 8 you can solve this problem by changing the server to IIS Express. Goto debug->Properties
In the Web select the server as IIS Express from the dropdown and then rebuild the solution

To make a change at Application Level (Web.Config):
Please remove the Trust Level from the web.config:
Actually I was getting this error when I was trying to host my Website on the Hosting Server where I don't have control on their Server. Removing the above line from my Application web.config solved my issue.

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