Sunday, May 4, 2003

Setting up a "Network Place" with IIS6



I don't know if you've ever done this or not, but if you go into "My Network Places"
in an explorer instance, you can add a new "Network Place". This allows you to do
the equivalent of mapping a network drive, but over HTTP. I've found this useful in
the past for transferring really large files that won't make it through the email
system. All someone has to to is map to my server this way and then drag and drop
the file in explorer - voila! It transfers the darn thing.



This was particularly useful at home last week, since I needed to get some special
files for my new gig (more on this when I find out how much I can say about it). Since
I have cable, with its large downstream bandwidth, having someone push the files to
me made sense.



It wasn't easy, though. You might have seen over on Brad's
Blog
 that I was having some issues getting it set up. Well, here's the whole
sequence I had to go through:



0) Create a new virtual directory. Make sure it has "write"
permissions. Make sure the NETWORK SERVICE account has write permission in the physical
directory. (NETWORK SERVICE is the IIS6 equivalent of IUSR_MachineName, which - although
still present - is not used.)



1) Enable WebDAV. Open up the IIS admin tool and surf to the "Web
Service Extensions" folder. "Allow" WebDAV.



2) Enable FrontPage Extensions. Same place - "Allow" FrontPage
Server Extensions. You'll also need to do a "Configure Server Extensions" on the virtual
directory that you created in step 0. This will pop open a web page that lets you
create the new FP subweb. Keep it open when you're done.



3) Set up a FrontPage user. Using the same FrontPage admin interface,
set up a FrontPage user and give them "author" permission.



The client should now be able to do a "add network place". Horribly obscure steps
to get it set up, if you ask me, but very convenient once you get it going.


4 comments:

  1. Do you know if WebDAV access to the root of a web site is supported? All the instructions I can find on the web rely on creating a new vdir, which isn't something that doesn't work for me. Thoughts?

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  2. I just did a little more poking around. Turns out, the explorer integration works for the root if you turn on FPSE, but I'd rather not turn on FPSE. *sigh*

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  3. I also had to add Allow Directory Browsing so that I could see the contents of the Virtual Dir.



    I also had to disable Anonymous access to keep the world out and trigger authentication.

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  4. Thanks - that's a good addition. It's been so long I don't remember if I had to do that but forgot to mention it, or if I just didn't have to do it for some reason.

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