Tips on setting up internet facing WSS 3.0 site without Active Directory

Question

We're trying to setup an internet facing WSS 3.0 site without Active Directory. We have a single WFE and a single SQL Server (2005). The WFE will be outside our DMZ.

We've successfully created the Central Admin site with a local admin account on the WFE and a separate account on the SQL server for the database, but we're stuck on setting up the WSS search capability.

I couldn't seem to get things to work when using Central Admin to start the WSS Search service. I'm thinking I'll need to use stsadm -spsearch to set up the WSS search manually, rather than using the menus in Central Admin.

Does anyone have any tips and/or resources they recommend?

Answer 1

We're looking for the same... rather we have a separate AD for our DMZ, however, for the extranet, would like to use it without AD accounts. May I ask what you've come up with so far?

Have seen posts talking about local machine accounts, but we do have 2 app servers and realize the maintenance involved to keep them in sync if we use local machine acounts. Swore I saw a 3rd party tool that would allow user's to be added into their own db and managed through their web-part/portal but can't seem to find it now.

Answer 2

You want to setup your WSS3 site using Forms Based AUthentication, with an ASP.Net SQL Membership Provider and backend database.

Microsoft have a very nice guide on MSDN.

Answer 3

I followed this guide when attempting something similar. This explains how to allow forms based and AD authentication on the same site but you could just follow the parts that explain how to setup forms based.

This also includes changing the web.config file for central administration so that it can access the SQL database used to store users for forms based authentication.

It is very easy to follow.