Re: ASP.Net development - must you have IIS on the machine that VS.Net is on?

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Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 20:48:53 -0400

"Jeff Bishop" <jeffbis@email.arizona.edu> wrote in message
news:uei%2390ZeEHA.4092@TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> Hello Everyone,
>
> Is it absolutely a requirement to have IIS on the same machine that you
have
> Visual Studio.Net on if you are planning on doing ASP.Net development? If
> not, what is the best way to connect to the remote server and have full
> control of that server while doing development? Any hints are greatly
> appreciated.
>
> -----
>
> Jeff Bishop

Jeff, I wanted the same thing. It's how I wrote ASP projects with Visual
Studio 6. My internet server (IIS 5) was on my test Win2k domain
controller, and I never installed IIS locally. On my local workstation
(development box), I run as a "power user", not an administrator. Then,
VS.NET 2K3 came along, and I tried to re-create the same environment- it
took weeks. Here's some info:

To create a project on a remote Win2k/IIS server, you either need IIS
installed locally, or FPSE (FrontPage Server Extensions) installed on the
server. The VS.NET IDE has two methods that it creates a remote project
with- the "file share method" or the FrontPage Extensions method. The "file
share method" requires the ADSI (Active Directory Service Interfaces)
component. This ADSI component is a part of IIS, and is not available
separately. I verified that it wasn't installed on my pc by searching for
two files, adsiis.dll and adsiisex.dll - they were on my test server, but
not my development pc. At first, I tried the FrontPage Server Extensions
(FPSE) method- but it would only let me create a project, it wouldn't let me
debug it. See Microsoft KB article #320451 for details on IIS, ADSI, and
FPSE requirements.

Also, to remote-debug, you must be an Administrator on the domain. This
becomes a problem if you're in an environment like I am, with your
development PC connecting to a production domain (for normal day-to-day
operations), and a separate isolated test domain. My development PC was a
member of the production domain, but not of the test domain. My local IIS's
ADSI component could NOT find the test server's IIS instance- it was looking
at the production domain! trying to log me in with my production domain's
credentials- which didn't exist on the test domain! Finally, I created a
one-way non-transitive trust between the domains- my test domain will take
an authentication from the production domain, as long as I allow it (on the
test domain). But the production domain won't take ANYTHING from the test
domain. So on my test domain, my production credentials hold
"administrator" status- but only for the test domain.

By creating the one-way non-transitive trust, I also "fixed" the problem
with debugging a project with FPSE. As I said, on my test domain, I always
held administrative rights. But, my workstation was a member of the
Production doman. When I would create/edit a project with FPSE, it would
prompt me for (and use) my username/password of my test domain. As soon as
I went to remotely debug the application, FPSE would try to log me onto my
test domain with my -production- domain's username/password!

As far as the best way? Well, what I just described isn't quite the
ultra-secure environment I had with Visual Studio 6.0. But, Microsoft's
provided us with the free IIS Lockdown Tool and free URLScan, which add an
extra layer of security. If I'm not doing ASP.NET work, I simply stop my
development box's instance of IIS. I'm not sure if you have the 3-system
environment that I do (development pc, production domain, test domain), so
you might not run into those Administrator-access requirement problems. If
you haven't yet, you could also go to
http://www.asp.net/Forums/Search/default.aspx?tabindex=1 and put in
something like "fpse 2000 iis remote server". Also, go over the readme file
for Visual Studio .NET, located at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=8861 for the most current revision.
But that KB article #320451 should clear everything up.

Good luck!

-Thomas

• Previous message: maximusproblimus: "Re: Internal Error 2349 ms visual studio.net"
• In reply to: Jeff Bishop: "ASP.Net development - must you have IIS on the machine that VS.Net is on?"
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