Returning 401 instead of the login page

Question

I have an asp.net web application that use FormsAuthentication. Now, the application has a WCF Service that need to use Basic Authentication.

So, I need to return the 401 status code, but everytime it's picked up by asp.net and redirecting me to the login page.

How could I disable this feature and finally being able to throw a 401 without intervention from the FormsAuthentication module?

Answer 1

you can't mix modes in a single directory.

your app uses formsauth configured in the root, which is where your users access the site.

your service needs basic auth, place it in a subdirectory and configure basic auth in a web.config for that directory.

add a <location> tag to your root web.config to allow all users to access the service directory.

that should work for you.

if any of this is not clear, let me know.