Application User (pass-through authentication)

Question

_{Saturday, April 9, 2011 12:06 PM}

If I use pass-through authentication, which user account is being used?  The reason I ask is that I am getting an issue with permissions - WordPress cannot edit a file because it does not have write permissions.  I thought it was the IIS_IUSR account, so I gave that account write permissions, but it still says that it does not have write permission.

Greg

All replies (2)

_{Saturday, April 9, 2011 11:15 PM ✅Answered}

With pass-through authentication, it uses the authenticated user. That will either be the anonymous user, the application pool identity, or the passed credentials if using basic or integrated auth. WordPress is likely passing the application pool identity which, to a remote system, appears to be the server's SYSTEM account unless the application pool is configured to run as a specific user. You can also configure ASP.NET impersonation to use a specific user or the authenticated user:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730708(WS.10).aspx

_{Sunday, April 10, 2011 9:09 AM}

Thanks Jeff, this was very helpful.  This is what I learned:

IIS 7 has a new built in account called IUSR.  By default, this account is used with the as the Anonymous user identity.  You can see this in the applicationHost.config file:

 <anonymousAuthentication enabled="true" userName="IUSR" defaultLogonDomain="" />

So in my case,  I needed to set the file permissions to IUSR.

However, the anonymousUser identity can also be set in the IIS Manager under the "Authentication" tab, by editing the "Anonymous Authetication" settings.

There is a full write up on this at: http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/140/understanding-built-in-user-and-group-accounts-in-iis-7/

Greg