How to enable Failed Request Tracing and logging for UNC hosting

Applies to:   Internet Information Services

Placing application content and code on a UNC share for hosting scenarios is increasingly important on Web application servers. In hosting scenarios, it's important to be able to keep the logs alongside the Web application content and code. Logs include the Failed Request Tracing log files, as well as the hit logs that IIS logs for the website. This article walks you through the creation of the appropriate directories, setting the right permissions on them, and then configuring IIS on how to use the directories for the various log files by:

• UI - Using the IIS Manager or Explorer
• CMD - Using command line (PowerShell, AppCmd, etc.)
• XML - Manually editing configuration.

Failed Request Tracing is a powerful diagnostics feature that helps developers and administrators determine where problems occur in their applications and why they're happening. Failed Request Tracing after installation is difficult to use by developers who are non-administrators on the machine. This section helps setup Failed Request Tracing to be accessible by developers by:

• Unlocking the sections necessary to allow developers to define their own failed request tracing rules for their applications.
• Setting up Failed Request Tracing to log to a UNC share for the application owner.

There are two different sections of configuration for Failed Request Tracing:

• <traceFailedRequestsLogging>: This section is always restricted to IIS administrators. This section allows administrators to enable or disable the Failed Request Tracing feature for a site, configure the maximum # of log files, size of the log files, and the directory where the log files are to live. For these reasons (i.e. controlling the ability to fill the disk with log files), administrators must maintain control over this section.
• <traceFailedRequests>: This section is where you create your failure definitions - what URLs to capture traces for and under what conditions to save those traces to disk as XML. This is the section that you'll allow to be unlocked.

After installation of the Failed Request Tracing Module (see the Troubleshooting Failed Requests Using Tracing for information regarding the installation and basic usage of Failed Request Tracing), the <traceFailedRequests> section is already set for Read/Write permissions. This allows application owners to define their own Failed Request Tracing rules, without the administrator defining these rules for them.

To verify that <traceFailedRequests> has been set up for delegation from the IIS Manager UI, do the following:

1. Select Start and enter InetMgr to open IIS Manager. Enter administrator credentials if you aren't already administrator.
2. Select <Your machine name>, then Feature Delegation.
3. Verify that Failed Request Tracing Rules is set to Read/Write.

This allows developers who don't have access to ApplicationHost.config to create their own failure definitions in their application web.config files. Only when the administrator turns on Failure Request Tracing, the rules take effect.

To verify that <traceFailedRequests> has been set up for delegation via ApplicationHost.config, follow these steps:

1. Start an administrator elevated command prompt.
2. Change directories to %windir%\system32\inetsrv\config, and run notepad applicationHost.config.
3. In applicationHost.config, search for the string <section name="traceFailedRequests" - this section is delegated if it's set overrideModeDefault="Allow".

<configSections>
...other config sectionGroups...
  <sectionGroup name="system.webServer">
  ...other sections...
    <sectionGroup name="tracing">
      <section name="traceFailedRequests" overrideModeDefault="Allow" />
      ...
    </sectionGroup>
   ...
  </sectionGroup>
</configSections>

In order for IIS to be able to write its Failed Request Log Files to a UNC share, the worker process identity must be given full control on the network share and the filesystem path on the UNC server. This is because it must be able to list directory contents, create new log files and directories, and delete old log files.

If you use one of the built-in accounts (like IUSR or Network Service) as the application pool ID, these accounts appear as ANONYMOUS on the UNC server. It's highly recommended that you either:

• DOMAIN USAGE: Create a domain user account for the application pool, then use that application pool ID to ACL down the share and filesystem directory where the Failure Request Log Files live. Both the Web server and the UNC server must be members of the domain.
• NON-DOMAIN USAGE: If the UNC and Web Servers aren't joined to the domain, the same account with the same account password must be created on each machine. This is the example used in this walkthrough.

In the following sections, you'll create a new user with a sample name PoolId1 and with a sample password !p4ssw0rd, and a new application pool with a sample name Pool_Site1.

These directions should be repeated on both the UNC server as well as the Web server. Create a user called PoolId1, whose password is !p4ssw0rd.

1. From an administrator elevated command prompt, run start lusrmgr.msc.

2. Right-click on Users and select New User....

3. Fill in the New User dialog entries as follows:

   • User name: PoolId1

   • Password (and Confirm Password): !p4ssw0rd

   • Clear User must change password at next logon

   • Select user cannot change password

   • Select Create -> Close.

     

Make sure to create the PoolId1 user on both the front-end IIS Web Server and the back end UNC server. You also need to add the PoolId1 to the IIS_IUSRS group on the front end Web server. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Select the Groups folder on the lusrmgr MMC snap-in.
2. Right-click on IIS_IUSRS and select Add to Group.
3. Select Add..., then enter <servername>\PoolId1 as the identity to add.

To add the new PoolId1 identity from the command line, follow these steps:

1. Run an administrator elevated command prompt.

2. In the command prompt window, run the following commands:

   net user PoolId1 !p4ssw0rd /ADD /passwordchg:no
   
   net localgroup IIS_IUSRS PoolId1 /ADD
   

Part of the shared hosting guidance is a new application pool; set its identity to the PoolId1 that is just created.

1. On the IIS front end server, run Start-> InetMgr.
2. Select Application Pools, then select under Actions -> Add Application Pool....
3. Make the name Pool_Site1, leave all other settings alone, and then select OK.
4. Right-click Pool_Site1 and select Advanced Settings....
5. Under Process Model, select the Identity row and then select the ... button.
6. Select Set and configure the Custom Identity to match the user identity you just created - PoolId1. Select OK and OK again to change the identity of the application pool.

Drop a site into this application pool. Use the default website for this sample. You can also create a new site (for example, SITE1) with IIS Manager. Do the following:

1. Select Sites -> Default Web Site.
2. In the right Actions pane, select Basic Settings....
3. To the right of Application Pool:, select Select....
4. Select the new Pool_Site1 application pool, select OK, and then OK again.

1. Start an administrator elevated command prompt.

2. To add the new application pool, run the following command:

   %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd add AppPool -name:Pool_Site1 -processModel.username:ERICDE-DELL-W\PoolId1 -processModel.password:!p4ssw0rd -processModel.identityType:SpecificUser
   

3. To set the root application of the Default Web Site to run in Pool_Site1, run the following command:

   %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd set app -app.name:"Default Web Site/" -applicationPool:Pool_Site1
   

Now create and lock down the UNC share and its file system directories.

On the UNC server, do the following steps:

1. Create a filesystem path content where you will dump the content.

2. Under that, create a new directory Site1, and under that another directory Logs, and the final directory failedReqLogFiles. You see:

   • g:\content
     • Site1
       • Logs
         • failedReqLogFIles

3. On g:\content\Site1\Logs\failedReqLogFiles, set the permissions on the filesystem path to give the PoolId1 account full control over the Logs directory. This is required, as the worker process identity must be able to list contents, write new files, create new directories, and delete old files. To do this from an administrator elevated command prompt, run the following command:

   • Windows Server® 2003 File Server:

     icacls g:\content\Site1\Logs\failedReqLogFiles /g PoolId1:F
     

   • Windows Server 2003 File Server:

     cacls g:\content\Site1\Logs\failedReqLogFiles /g PoolId1:F /e
     

4. Share the directory out. From the command line, run the following command:

   net share content$=g:\content /GRANT:Users,CHANGE
   

Now that Share is shared out and the right permissions established, configure Failed Request Tracing to log to the UNC Path.

To configure Failed Request Tracing to log to our UNC path, follow these directions on the Web server:

1. Open IIS Manager by running Start -> Inetmgr.

2. Select Default Web Site, and then under Configure select Failed Request Tracing...

3. Select the Enabled checkbox.

4. Under Directory, enter the path to the UNC share:

   \\<UncServerName>\UNCContent\Site1\Logs\FailedReqLogFiles
   

   

Configure a rule to catch all HTTP 200 requests for all URLs for All Content to run a test.

1. In the IIS Manager UI again, expand the Sites and select Default Web Site.
2. Double-click on Failed Request Tracing Rules.
3. Under Actions on the right, select Add...
   
4. Select Next, and set the status code to 200:
   
5. Select Next, leave the default to collect everything, and then Select Finish.

The actual XML looks like the following in the web.config file for the default website:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
  <system.webServer>
    <tracing>
      <traceFailedRequests>
        <add path="*">
          <traceAreas>
            <add provider="ASP" verbosity="Verbose" />
            <add provider="ASPNET" areas="Infrastructure,Module,Page,AppServices" verbosity="Verbose" />
            <add provider="ISAPI Extension" verbosity="Verbose" />
            <add provider="WWW Server" areas="Authentication,Security,Filter,StaticFile,CGI,Compression,Cache,RequestNotifications" verbosity="Verbose" />
           </traceAreas>
          <failureDefinitions statusCodes="200" />
        </add>
      </traceFailedRequests>
    </tracing>
  </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Browse to the website that you set up in order to log Failed Request Tracing rules to the UNC path (similar to http://<uncsite>/default.aspx). Check the UNC back end server directory where you're logging. Notice that a new directory called W3SVC1 has been created within the configured Failed Request log file directory. Browse into that directory, and see the log file and the FREB.xsl file.