How can I create a local user profile for the anonymous user of an ASP.Net MVC application under IIS 7? - asp.net-mvc

I've been experimenting with ASP.Net MVC, and have come across a problem that is probably not specifically MVC related. But I cannot get the authentication in the default MVC application (the one created by the wizard when you create a new MVC project) to work properly under IIS 7 on Windows 7.
If I run under the Visual Studio environment, it works, but if I switch the settings to run under IIS instead, I get the following exception trying to submit the login or registration:
Failed to generate a user instance of
SQL Server due to failure in
retrieving the user's local
application data path. Please make
sure the user has a local user profile
on the computer. The connection will
be closed.
I believe that this is because the website runs under my own account in Visual Studio, but under the IUSR account in IIS. Google searches on the exception message have been unhelpful so far.
So, can one create a local user profile for the IUSR account? If so, how? Is there something else I should be doing to get the SQLExpress engine to work under the anonymous account in IIS 7?
I also tried configuring the IIS website to use my account, but since this is my home machine, my account doesn't have a password, and it appears that IIS won't let a website be configured to use an account without a password. Or, since this is my first experience with IIS 7, and configuration feels very different than IIS 5/6, I am just missing the right setting that will let me configure the account to use for anonymous access.
EDIT: Some additional information. If I empty the App_Data folder and try again from IIS, SQLExpress attempts to create my database and fails, but the exception message has further information with the following suggestions.
SQLExpress database file auto-creation
error:
The connection string specifies a
local Sql Server Express instance
using a database location within the
applications App_Data directory. The
provider attempted to automatically
create the application services
database because the provider
determined that the database does not
exist. The following configuration
requirements are necessary to
successfully check for existence of
the application services database and
automatically create the application
services database:
If the applications App_Data directory does not already exist, the
web server account must have read and
write access to the applications
directory. This is necessary because
the web server account will
automatically create the App_Data
directory if it does not already
exist.
If the applications App_Data directory already exists, the web
server account only requires read and
write access to the applications
App_Data directory. This is necessary
because the web server account will
attempt to verify that the Sql Server
Express database already exists within
the applications App_Data directory.
Revoking read access on the App_Data
directory from the web server account
will prevent the provider from
correctly determining if the Sql
Server Express database already
exists. This will cause an error when
the provider attempts to create a
duplicate of an already existing
database. Write access is required
because the web server accounts
credentials are used when creating the
new database.
Sql Server Express must be installed on the machine.
The process identity for the web server account must have a local user
profile. See the readme document for
details on how to create a local user
profile for both machine and domain
accounts.
I've pretty extensively confirmed that the first three suggestions have been satisfied. The fourth seems to be the cause of my problems, but I can't figure out how to do that. And although the suggestion claims there is a readme document that describes it, I have not been able to find that document.

I got this problem as well running under medium trust. The process that creates the database requires at least High trust. You can check this by looking in your Web.Config for
<trust level="TrustLevel" />
If there is no trust specified in your Web.Config, try adding it and set it to either Full or High. If this doesn't work, there is a machine.config in your IIS which you would need to modify.
That being said, the best route I have found to solve this is to just use aspnet_regsql.exe to create the necessary tables and then change the connection string in your Web.Config to look at it directly.

I solved "The directory 'LocalApplicationData' does not exist." error when running an SSIS package through an SQL Job by ensuring the SQL SSIS service and SQL Server Agent service were running under the same account as the swql job was set to use!
This in my case was a domain account.

Solution: Try UNINSTALLING any updates before you started experiencing the issue. I spent countless hours - wasted hours that I will never get back in my life - reading and following every solution possible without success. I uninstalled all SQL Server updates and now everything works fine.

Related

Umbraco cannot start. A connection string is configured but the Umbraco cannot connect to the database

I'm using Umbraco CMS v7.4 with SQL Server 2014, the project was working fine until a few hours ago, when an error started showing up:
Umbraco cannot start. A connection string is configured but the Umbraco cannot connect to the database
The error occurs when I tried to open the website, see the image below:
I tried the following:
Checked to see if SQL Server is running
Checked the connection string credentials in web.config
Any help is appreciated.
After a few tries, even I loaded the backed up DB, I found that it caused by the DB login, the user in the connection string was having a password expiration enabled (the password had expired).
So, this is what I did:
Open the SQL server
Logged in as the user used in the connection string
Created a new password
Updated the web.config connection string "Password"
Hope this will help
So, in my case I tried to get started with the existing project. I got all the files, restored DB backup locally, made sure all permissions are set for IIS AppPool user etc. But I kept getting the error in question. It turns out that I cannot use server=localhost;database=... in connection string. After I replaced it with server=.\;database=..., it started to work right away.
Also note that if you're running it in Azure with an Azure SQL database you'll have to go to the Azure SQL Server settings and under "Firewalls and virtual networks" you'll need to tick "Yes" for "Allow Azure services and resources to access this server".
I was getting this error when running an Umbraco project locally, with the DB pointing to an instance on Azure. In that case, this problem happens if you haven't allowed the IP access within the Server Firewall of the DB in Azure.
You can fix this by finding out your IP and then adding it to the DB:
Click All Resources within your Azure portal, then click on the SQL Database your project points to.
Click Set Server Firewall on the right-side window.
Add in your IP as the start and end points, and call it something memorable.
Click Save and once you get the confirmation message that It has been applied, refresh your site locally.
I experienced the same problem and here is how I fixed it.
Right-click on your localhost in SSMS and select Properties
Got to the Security page and select "Select authentication" as "SQL Server and Windows Authentication mode"
Hit OK.
Go to Services and find your SQL Server service and restart it.
Check your local umbraco website now, you should be able to see it without any issues. If you still have problems, then you might need to check your local setup and permissions.
Further details are below and on this blog post.

Umbraco installation wizard Error - Could not connect to database

I'm trying to install Umbraco on an ASP.NET environment. After I downloaded the umbraco nuget package I tried to run the installation wizard, by building and running the project. All is fine and good, if i take the default database configuration, but if I want to customize my configuration, it fails and says :
"Could not connect to database"
I'm trying to configure it to use my local SQLExpress database, but I just cannot get it working. I have both tried putting in the server information and connecting via. a connection string, via. the wizard. It produces the same error every time.
I have made a database called umbracoblog and created an admin user, with credentials. He has dbowner etc. for the database. Besides that, I have also given full permissions to IIS_IUSRS and Network Service accounts for the project and all subdirectories, and it still doesn't work.
These are some of the connection strings I have tried:
datalayer=SqlServer;Data Source=.\SQLExpress;Initial Catalog=umbracoblog;User Id=admin;Password=********;
datalayer=SqlServer;Data Source=127.0.0.1\SQLExpress;Initial Catalog=umbracoblog;User Id=admin;Password=*******;
I have also tried putting in the connectionstring into the web.config, manually, but that just makes the project load infinitely in the browser, when I run it.
It's starting to get frustrating, that I cannot even get past the configuration of Umbraco, because it look very cool. I have tried everything I was able to found online. Have anyone gone through this and know what I need to do ?
Start again - clear out and remove the umbracoDbDSN connection string entirely from your web.config and reset the umbracoConfigurationStatus AppSetting back to empty if it has been populated.
Use the Wizard to configure the database - if it's still having problems connecting then here's a few things to check:
Check the Log file here: ~/App_Settings/Logs/UmbracoTraceLog.txt - does that show up any errors?
Make sure you can connect to the database using other clients - if Umbraco can't connect to it, chances are something else won't be able to as well.
What happens if you use Integrated Authentication? If that works, then it's most likely an issue with the username and password you specified.
The password I had for the SQL Server user had a character that the installation UI didn't accept. I changed the password to remove special characters and it was able to connect to the server again. I could successfully log in through SSMS with the previous password.

ASP.NET MVC3 Aspnetdb Sql Production Server

I created a fully functioning web application (MVC MusicStore, downloaded from here: http://mvcmusicstore.codeplex.com/).
The application created an ASPNETDB.MDF file, and a MusicStoreDB.mdf file.
I used SQL Server Management 2008 R2.
The problem is that after I deploy the application on a host server,
when clicking on "Register" link, the default error page is displayed.
When trying to log in, the default error page is displayed yet again.
It appears that the host server (which is SQL 2008 compatible) can read data from the MusicStoreDB.mdf file, but has no access to the ASPNETDB.MDF file. It is not possible to log in or register users.
I did change the connection string in the web.config file to the host server address, it works fine.
I also created the ASPNETDB tables in the MusicStoreDB by using aspnet_regsql, but the errors persist.
Also, the MusicStoreDB file contained no data after Publish (though there is sample data in a cs file). I know the host server can read data from this file because I manually added data through a local SQL server.
I have two questions:
a. What are the steps to correctly deploy the application and databases so that it would be possible to register and log in? How can the both mdf files work in consort?
b. How can the data in the SampleData.cs file be recreated in the MusicStoreDB.mdf file?
I haven't been able to find an answer over the web, though I've been searching for a week...

Trouble Deploying Sql Server CE 4.0 to IIS 7

I'm having trouble deploying an ASP.Net application using Sql Server CE 4.0. I get the following error:
Access to the database file is not allowed.
I've verified that I'm using the local "add_data" folder in my connection string:
<add name="DemoStudy" connectionString="metadata=res://*/Data.StudyContext.csdl|res://*/Data.StudyContext.ssdl|res://*/Data.StudyContext.msl;provider=System.Data.SqlServerCe.4.0;provider connection string="Data Source=|DataDirectory|\CRS20SandboxCE.sdf"" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient"/>
I've also tried granting IUSR account full access to the app_data directory, but that didn't seem to help. Another SO thread suggests granting IUSR access to the bin directory, but that didn't help either.
UPDATE:
Well, it's definitely a permissions issue. If I give the "Everyone" user group access to the app_data folder, everything works fine.
QUESTION:
What is the correct user to give full access to in IIS 7? It's obviously not IUSR...
One must grant read/write access to the appropriate app_pool user. In this case,
IIS APPPOOL\DefaultAppPool
Note that the user group must be specified as shown.
Not 100% sure but it think it may be the Network Service account that needs permissions.

Deploying an ASP.net application

What is the correct proceedure when deploying an ASP.net MVC application? I am using the built in forms based authentication and deploying using the publish function in VS2008 but when deploying it doesn't seem to deploy the ASPNETDB to the server and I end up with errors like
An error occurred during the execution of the SQL file 'InstallCommon.sql'. The SQL error number is 1802 and the SqlException message is: CREATE DATABASE failed. Some file names listed could not be created. Check related errors.
CREATE FILE encountered operating system error 5(Access is denied.) while attempting to open or create the physical file 'C:\INETPUB\WWWROOT\HOURS3\APP_DATA\ASPNETDB_TMP.MDF'.
I looked this up and attempted to change the sql server to run under the local system account as per
http://forums.asp.net/t/984436.aspx
but that doesn't seem to have helped.
When you try to publish this way, I believe you're going to overwrite your database with the one you are currently developing with. This means if you had any changes in your web environment, such as new users, you would lose them when you overwrote them in a publish. Additionally the reason you're probably getting permission denied, is because the file is already in use by the website, and Windows doesn't like it if you try deleting a file that is in use.
Typically I set my databases to publish in a different methodology than the ASP.net files. I often generate an upgrade script using a tool such as RedGate SQL Compare. This allows me to upgrade the one live on the server instead of copying a new file.

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