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Configuring Digest Authentication in IIS 6.0

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1

Configuring Digest authentication on the server running IIS requires the following two tasks:

  • Enable Digest authentication for Windows domain servers.

  • Configure the realm name.

Important

You must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer to perform the following procedure or procedures. As a security best practice, log on to your computer by using an account that is not in the Administrators group, and then use the runas command to run IIS Manager as an administrator. At a command prompt, type runas /user:Administrative_AccountName "mmc %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\iis.msc".

Procedures

To enable Digest authentication for Windows domain servers and configure the realm name

  1. In IIS Manager, right-click the Web Sites folder, Web site, directory, virtual directory, or file, and click Properties.

    Note

    Configuration settings made at the Web Sites folder level can be inherited by all Web sites.

  2. Click the Directory Security or File Security tab, depending on the level at which you want to configure security settings.

  3. In the Anonymous access and authentication control section, click Edit.

  4. In the Authenticated access section, select the Digest authentication for Windows domain servers check box.

  5. In the Realm box, type the realm name, or click Select to browse for a domain.

  6. Click OK twice.

  7. Restart the W3SVC service.

Note

If Basic authentication is enabled for the site, virtual directory, or folder you are configuring, the Default domain box will also be available. However, only Realm is meaningful to Digest authentication.