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Enabling Basic Authentication and Configuring the Realm Name

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1

Users that are authenticated with Basic authentication must log on with a valid Windows user name and password.

Important

You must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer to perform the following procedure or procedures. As a security best practice, log on to your computer by using an account that is not in the Administrators group, and then use the runas command to run IIS Manager as an administrator. At a command prompt, type runas /User:Administrative_AccountName "mmc systemroot\system32\inetsrv\iis.msc".

Procedures

To enable Basic authentication and configure the realm name

  1. In IIS Manager, double-click the local computer; right-click the Web Sites folder, an individual Web site folder, a virtual directory, or a file; and then click Properties.

    Configuration settings made at the Web Sites level are inherited by all of the Web sites on the server. You can override inheritance by configuring the individual site or site element.

  2. Click the Directory Security or File Security tab, and then, in the Authentication and access control section, click Edit.

  3. In the Authenticated access section, select the Basic authentication check box.

  4. Because Basic authentication sends passwords over the network unencrypted, a dialog box appears, asking if you want to proceed. Click Yes to proceed.

  5. In the Default domain box, either type the domain name you want to use, or click Select to browse to a new default logon domain. If the Default domain box is filled in, the name is used as the default domain. If the Default domain box is left empty, IIS uses the domain of the computer that is running IIS as the default domain. IIS configures the value of the DefaultLogonDomain Metabase Property, which determines the default domain used to authenticate clients accessing your IIS server using Basic authentication. However, the domain specified by DefaultLogonDomain is used only when a client does not specify a domain in the logon dialog box that appears on the client computer.

  6. Optionally, you can enter a value in the Realm box, which configures the value of the Realm Metabase Property. If the Realm property is set, its value appears on the client's logon dialog box, when Basic authentication is used. The value of Realm is sent to the client for informational purposes only, and is not used to authenticate clients using Basic authentication.

  7. Click OK twice.

  • For information about setting the default logon domain, see Setting the Default Logon Domain.

  • For more information about permissions, see "Access control" in Help and Support Center for Windows Server 2003.