ADSI / IIS management and ASP.NET impersonation

Question

I'm in the process of writing a small web app that would allow me to manage several IIS installations on different servers on our network. We have no domain controller.

I have written a small impersonation controller that uses the win32 api and its LogonUser method. I then use System.DirectoryServices and the IIS ADSI provider to create a new site.

I have the following routine (exchanged some values with clear-text strings for better readability):

            if (impersonationSvc.ImpersonateValidUser("Administrator@SRV6", String.Empty, "PASSWORD))
            {


            string metabasePath = "IIS://" + server.ComputerName + "/W3SVC";
            DirectoryEntry w3svc = new DirectoryEntry(metabasePath, "Administrator", "PASSWORD");

            string serverBindings = ":80:" + site.HostName;
            string homeDirectory = server.WWWRootNetworkPath + "\\" + site.FolderName;


            object[] newsite = new object[] { site.Name, new object[] { serverBindings }, homeDirectory };

            object websiteId = (object)w3svc.Invoke("CreateNewSite", newsite);
            int id = (int)websiteId;

            impersonationSvc.UndoImpersonation();
        }

This routine works when I use the server the web app is hosted on (SRV6). A new site is created.

If I use SRV5 for instance, another Server on our network (with no domain), ImpersonateValidUser works, the DirectoryEntry is created, but w3svc.Invoke fails with the following error:

[COMException (0x80070005): Access denied]

System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Bind(Boolean throwIfFail) +377678
System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Bind() +36
System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.get_NativeObject() +31
System.DirectoryServices.DirectoryEntry.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] args) +53

...

Anyone knows how I could solve this?

Answer 1

You cannot use impersonation in this situation. The account you are impersonating needs login priveleges on the local machine.

If your web servers are not part of a domain, I think Tant102's idea of web services is your only way to go.