Cannot access CSS file from ASP.NET login page

Question

I have just noticed a problem accessing a CSS file using forms authentication from an ASP.NET application.

Until I have logged in, then any styles I have set in my login page are not used, as IIS seems to be preventing the login page from accessing this file.

Is there an easy solution for this?

Answer 1

Place the css file in a publicly accessible folder. This will require a change in your web.config that will look something like this:

<location path="css">
 <system.web>
  <authorization>
   <allow users="*"/>
  </authorization>
 </system.web>
</location>

Granted, this shouldn't be how you setup the permissions in the first place. The css folder ought always to be publicly accessible.

Answer 2

My CSS didn't display in the login page as well.

I noticed that Anonymous Access was using the IUSR account not the IIS_IUSRS account so I just added IUSR to the website folder and everything got back to normal.