Dev Environment in IIS

Question

I am setting up an IIS server to do some ASP programming, just as soon as I solve this very relevant pre-programming problem...

The IIS server is located in a VirtualBox server, and I'm setting up a virtual directory to point to a shared directory ("a share located on another computer," e.g., \\server\serve-this) which works perfectly using net use and the Windows Explorer. However, IIS is showing me a little red error stop-sign looking thing, and it will serve no files ("you are not authorized to view this page"). I have opened up permissions on the OSX host and can move all around on the Windows guest. Where can I check to see why it's complaining?

If I set the virtual directory to a local directory (selecting the appropriate radio button), it has no permissions problems... additionally, I have tried messing about a bit with the Directory Security tab, but that seems to not be relevant whatsoever.

There is nothing in the logs in C:\WINDOWS\system32\LogFiles...

Edit: The answer is to read the article that the James Conigliaro (best answer) suggests. However, I did the following (yesterday I did something different, which worked, but I don't know what):

1. Make a user with the same username/password on the Windows guest as on my OSX host, which is what AaronS suggests
2. Change the user that is logged in for anonymous access to that user.
3. That's it. Not bad, really.

Answer 1

have you tried looking at Event Viewer through Administrative Tools, you can also get to it through Right-Click MyComputer -> Manage -> Event Viewer under System Tools.

Answer 2

IIS is trying to access the files using the local IUSR account. Either change this account to something that has access to the files on the remote server, or create a user on the remote system with the same login/pw as your local IUSR account.

Answer 3

Microsoft published a knowledge base article with a number of different options for configuration IIS to access content/files on a network drive. All of them involve different methods to ensure that the account that IIS us runing under or impersonanting has access to the network drive:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/207671/EN-US/

Answer 4

This setup is likely to cause you problems. This is because IIS (at least on XP) does not notice that files on the network have changed. You probably want to invert your setup such that you edit remote files (which are located in the VM).