XP HOME, IIS2 & Can't Logon to Localhost With Firefox

[Joe Harleyman]

By now we all know that XP Homew and IIS2 work pretty well together,
However...

I have installed IIS2 v.5.0 on XP Home sp2 from my win 2000 CD.

I recently installed Firefox v.1.5.0.4. for the benifit of using it
and its "Open Link in IE Tab" feature to be able to check out my
websites as I work on them in both browsers while developing. Now it
looks as though that is impossible.

I can logon to "Localhost" fine with MSIE, but of course all that MS
stuff is integrated into one another.

When I try to access a webpage I'm working on with Firefox, I get the
MS error "401.1 Unauthorized: Logon failed". I am able to get to the
file locally via something like "file:///c:/website/", however I have
no PHP support, etc.. This would probably be no problem if I were
running 2000 with it's easy asscess to NTFS file permissions or
possibly even with XP Pro, I'm not sure. XP HOME and IIS2, however is
another beast all together.

Settings are as follows; Under IIS, "Default Web Site / Properties /
Directory Security / Anonymous access and authentication control", I
have "Authentication Methods" Integrated Windows authentication box
Checked as well as the "Anonymous access" box Checked. Basic
authentication is UNchecked. The "Anonymous User Account" Username set
to ComputerName\IUSR_ComputerName with the password block empty. "Allow
IIS to control password" is UNchecked.

I've tried a few combinations of things to no avail.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

PS. I first posted this to mozillaZine and the reply posted by
"dakboy" was absolutely no help stating first that he was confused
because he didn't know IIS could run on XP Home and then said " It's a
hack and nothing more" and that one should use a "proper server
environment"... "on a real server". Hmmm seems just about everything
else works fine on XP Home/IIS. Thanks for passing the buck there
Mozilla. If they didn't know the answer they could have just said so
or said nothing.

Sincerely,
Joe

 

[Robert Moir]

By now we all know that XP Homew and IIS2 work pretty well together,
However...

I have installed IIS2 v.5.0 on XP Home sp2 from my win 2000 CD.

I recently installed Firefox v.1.5.0.4. for the benifit of using it
and its "Open Link in IE Tab" feature to be able to check out my
websites as I work on them in both browsers while developing. Now it
looks as though that is impossible.

I can logon to "Localhost" fine with MSIE, but of course all that MS
stuff is integrated into one another.

When I try to access a webpage I'm working on with Firefox, I get the
MS error "401.1 Unauthorized: Logon failed". I am able to get to the
file locally via something like "file:///c:/website/", however I have
no PHP support, etc.. This would probably be no problem if I were
running 2000 with it's easy asscess to NTFS file permissions or
possibly even with XP Pro, I'm not sure. XP HOME and IIS2, however is
another beast all together.

Settings are as follows; Under IIS, "Default Web Site / Properties /
Directory Security / Anonymous access and authentication control", I
have "Authentication Methods" Integrated Windows authentication box
Checked as well as the "Anonymous access" box Checked. Basic
authentication is UNchecked. The "Anonymous User Account" Username set
to ComputerName\IUSR_ComputerName with the password block empty.
"Allow IIS to control password" is UNchecked.

I've tried a few combinations of things to no avail.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

PS. I first posted this to mozillaZine and the reply posted by
"dakboy" was absolutely no help stating first that he was confused
because he didn't know IIS could run on XP Home and then said " It's a
hack and nothing more" and that one should use a "proper server
environment"... "on a real server". Hmmm seems just about
everything else works fine on XP Home/IIS. Thanks for passing the
buck there Mozilla. If they didn't know the answer they could have
just said so or said nothing.

Well "dakboy" has a point. You're trying to troubleshoot a hack as if it
were a reliable and supportable system. Every time you see an error you'll
never be quite sure if you have a fixable problem or if you're encountering
a case where the hack doesn't quite work. Sorry if that isn't what you
wanted to hear, but whether you want to hear it or not that is still the
case.

Secondly, your post is unclear. You talk about something working from IE and
then failing from Firefox. If it runs ok in one browser but not another then
it's unlikely to be NTFS file permissions on the files in the website. If
you still want to play around with this then the 'cacls' command will still
work for this from the command line in XP home, I think, or if you're
desperate you can boot into safe mode to get the normal XP permissions
interface.

Normally on sites I work on, firefox will stop and ask you for login
credentials if it needs to rather than just error out.

As for PHP installation then you can try using the manual install
instructions that come with PHP downloads (or at least did the last time I
looked). If it doesn't work you can of course ask them for help so that they
can be the 3rd set of people to tell you that you can't expect rational
behaviour out of a hack.

--
--
Rob Moir, Microsoft MVP for Security
Blog Site - http://www.robertmoir.com
Virtual PC 2004 FAQ - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk/win/VirtualPC2004FAQ.html
I'm always surprised at "professionals" who STILL have to be asked:
"Have you checked (event viewer / syslog)".