HOWTO: Configure VID to Work with an Authenticated Web ProjectLast reviewed: December 18, 1997Article ID: Q178215 |
The information in this article applies to:
SUMMARYThe default setup of a Visual InterDev project will not allow both the Web server to access a file database (for example, Access or FoxPro database) and authors on remote machines to use Visual InterDev to work on the project when Active Server Pages (ASP) pages that perform database access are secured. This article describes how to setup a Visual InterDev project so that data access works correctly from the secured pages, and individuals on other machines can use Visual InterDev to author those pages. While this article uses an Access .mdb file as the example, the discussion applies to any file based resource. Symptoms for this problem can appear on either the Web server or the Visual InterDev clients. The most common symptoms are as follows:
MORE INFORMATIONThe root of this problem is that the Web server and Visual InterDev clients have conflicting needs with respect to the kind of path used to reference the database.
Web Server NeedsTo avoid "delegation" errors, the database must reside on the Web server, and the Web server must reference the database using a local drive letter. A UNC path cannot be used. (Delegation refers to Windows NT's inability to access resources on other machines running Windows NT when NT Challenge/Response has been used as an authentication method. For a full discussion of delegation see the article on http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/server/asp/feature/Security.htm.)
Client NeedsSince the database must reside on the Web server, Visual InterDev clients must reference the .mdb file using a network path (either a mapped drive letter or UNC) The Global.asa created by Visual InterDev includes path information (DBQ=) that will use either a local or network path to the database. This will necessarily cause problems for either the server or the Visual InterDev clients.
SOLUTIONThe Global.asa connection string variable must be changed so that it references only the name of a DSN. For example, change the variable Session("Conn_ConnectionString") from something like this:
DSN=MyDSN;DBQ=C:\data\orders.mdb;DriverId=25;FIL=MS Access...to simply this:
DSN=MyDSNNotice that there is no longer a DBQ in the connection string that points to the file. When the Web server reads the Global.asa, it will look on its own local system for the "MyDSN" data source and use the information it contains to access the database. Likewise, when the Visual InterDev clients read the Global.asa, they will look on their local systems for a DSN of the same name and use that information. The key is to manually create these DSN's with the appropriate information for each platform. To create the appropriate DSN use the following steps:
REFERENCESFor a complete discussion on NT challenge/response and delegation, see the following:
http://www.microsoft.com/workshop/server/asp/feature/Security.htmFor the latest Knowledge Base articles and other support information on Visual InterDev and Active Server Pages, see the following page on the Microsoft Technical Support site:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/vinterdev/ Keywords : FTAuthent Technology : kbInetDev Version : WINDOWS:1.0 Platform : WINDOWS Issue type : kbhowto |
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