Enabling Basic Authentication in IIS 7.0

Question

Will enabling Basic Authentication in IIS 7.0 prevent normal users to browse the website? Right now authentication mode is anonymous so everyone can browse the website. I need to host a WCF service with a basic username/password sort of security.

So I need that root website can be accessed anonymously but one of the folders can only be accessed via basic authentication.

I am thinking setting security settings in web.config might do the trick. Not sure though.

Answer 1

Enabling Basic Authentication will not prevent anonymous users from accessing a site. You can enable multiple forms of authentication at the same time. However, it sounds like what you want is to enable authentication on one folder or file and disable anonymous authentication on that same folder/file. See the element that can be used in your web.config, or you can provide another web.config in your WCF service folder that overrides your root web.config.

Answer 2

I would suggest you read:

• An Introductory Guide to Building and Deploying More Secure Sites with ASP.NET and IIS

• An Introductory Guide to Building and Deploying More Secure Sites with ASP.NET and IIS, Part 2

• ASP.NET Security Tutorials