How To Authorize A Virtual Directory In Your Application In IIS

When we create any virutal directory in IIS, normally we follow the below steps:

1. Give the Alias name

2. Give the physical path

3. Click OK.

No doubt, the above steps will create the virtual directory of your application successfully and you will not get any issue while running

the application ; but it can give some major issue at runtime.

For example:

* Not able to load css

* Not able to log in to the application

* Not able to access particular files

* 401.3 access denied issue, and so on.

The only solution to the above issues is : Authorize the application in IIS.

After creating the virtual directory, we are not checking the authentication and authorization settings.

Click on the button "Test Settings", you will find that the site is authenicated properly but it needs authorization.

You can look into the below image for details:

Now our aim is to remove the waring symbol from the Authorization Test and we need to convert this into green check mark.

To provide authorization to the application, delete the previously created virtual directory and create the new one with the following stpes:

1.Give the Alias name

2. Give the physical path of your application

3. Click on "Connect As" button.

4. Click on radio button "Specific User" and then click on "Set".

5. Give the Username and password of your machine, confirm the given password and Click on "OK".

6. And finally Click "OK" to add the virtual directory.

Now, check the Authorization and Authentication settings by clicking "Test Settings" button.

Refer the below screen shot, all are marked as green. That means now your application is authorized and authenticated properly.

By doing this settings, we can resolve the above discussed issues as well as we can get rid of a major issue that we normally face, that is folder sharing issue.

Few days back, we have faced this problem. My client has shared one of the folder present inside the project directory and we were unable to access the files present within the shared folder. Though we were unaware about the folder sharing, it will take a day to find out the cause. Finally we got the issue and after doing some R&D, we found the solution.

We have deleted the application virtual directory and re-create it by giving the proper connection settings and after sharing the folder also, our application runs like magic.

Submitted By: Snehanjali Sahoo, Coldfusion Developer, Mindfire Solutions