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Q188903: Event Viewer Does Not Show IUSR_machinename Account Logon

Article: Q188903
Product(s): Internet Information Server
Version(s): winnt:4.0
Operating System(s): 
Keyword(s): 
Last Modified: 15-JUL-1999

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The information in this article applies to:

- Microsoft Internet Information Server 4.0 
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SYMPTOMS
========

When troubleshooting Internet Information Server (IIS) permission problems, it
is often useful to turn on Windows NT auditing for successful and failed
logon/logoff events, as suggested by the following article in the Microsoft
Knowledge Base:

  Q185874 : How to Troubleshoot Permissions in IIS 4.0

However, sometimes you may not see the IUSR_machinename account being logged on
to the system when using anonymous access.

CAUSE
=====

This is a result of the account used for anonymous access being cached by IIS
for a short period. If the account is re-used before this period has elapsed,
the account is not logged on again, but instead the cached token is used and no
event is shown in the event viewer.

WORKAROUND
==========

To record each time the IUSR_machinename account is logged on and off, you can
disable the IIS caching of the anonymous user account by setting the
PasswordCacheTTL ASO property to zero.

The following sample code can be called from Visual Basic, ASP, and Windows
Script Host with minimal changes in each environment and will affect all Web
server instances:

     Dim oServer
     Set oServer = GetObject("IIS://LocalHost/W3SVC")
     oServer.PasswordCacheTTL = 0
     oServer.SetInfo
     Set oServer = Nothing

Please note: There is a performance tradeoff while doing this. The procedure
should be restricted to development and debugging only.

Additional query words:

======================================================================
Keywords          :  
Technology        : kbiisSearch kbiis400
Version           : winnt:4.0
Issue type        : kbprb

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