Unable to start debugging on a web server.

[Meena]

Hi ,

I have an ASP.NET web service running on a Windows 2000
Server (WHICH IS NOT A DOMAIN CONTROLLER). Since I wanted
to access a remote database on my intranet , I set up my
ASp.NET worker process(aspnet_wp.exe) to run under a
domain account(<domainname>\meenaaspnet). Everything is
workimg fine. I can access my remote database also.
However when I try to debug my program (using F11) it
gives me this error.

"Error while trying to run project:Unable to start
debugging on a web server. Catastrophic failure"

I can however run my application if I choose the option to
Start without debugging.
What do I do?

 

[Chris Jackson]

Are you running as an admin? Debugger user? The problem could be with
debugging into a process owned by another user. What I do is this (which you
actually have to do in order to debug as a non-admin user):

- Set up my user name and password encrypted in the registry using
aspnet_setreg
- Change my machine.config to use my user name and password for aspnet_wp
- Configure IIS to use a separate, low privileged domain account for
anonymous access
- Configure my web site to use impersonation

Since I use anonymous on IIS and forms on ASP.NET, this allows me to debug
as a non-admin (it's my process, so I can do that) while still passing
credentials that only allow the process to do what it needs to do, and no
more.

 

[Meena]

Thanks a lot Chris! Here is my situation in detail.
I have already created a domain account and I have
configured mymachine.config (<processmodel>section) so
that ASP.NET process runs with that account. On my local
system where I have my web server and my asp.net web
service application , I have logged in as a local
administrator. Additionally , I have configured my domain
account to be part of Debugger Users group on my local
system( I could not do it on the domain controller as I
cannot see that group there. Is it because .NET is not
installed on my domain controller ?)

Next my IIS is configured for Integrated Windows
Authentication and No anonymous login. Since I am using
Windows mode of authentication in my machine.config , I
see that enabling anonymous access does not make my
ASP.NET process to work. I had a hard time to figure this
out.

So with this in place I am happliy runnning my ASP.nET
process fine , hotsing my asp.net webservice , reading
from a remote database and whenever I want to debug I
manually attach to the process aspnet_wp.exe.

Chris , can i retain all my settings this way ( in IIS and
machine.config ) and still make my debugging work ? I do
not understand why I am not able to debug when I am a
local adminisrtor and also the account running ASP.NET is
assigned to Debugger Users .

Thanks in advance ,

Meena