Microsoft KB Archive/326902

= ACLs and using MetaACL for metabase ACL permission changes =

Article ID: 326902

Article Last Modified on 12/3/2007

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Internet Information Services 6.0
 * Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.0
 * Microsoft Windows NT version 4.0 Option Pack

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This article was previously published under Q326902



Important This article contains information about editing the metabase. Before you edit the metabase, verify that you have a backup copy that you can restore if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, see the &quot;Configuration Backup/Restore&quot; Help topic in Microsoft Management Console (MMC).



SUMMARY
This article describes how Access Control Lists (ACLs) work in the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) 4.0 or Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 metabase. The metabase is not only protected by the operating system ACLs on the particular file (Metabase.bin), but the file also has ACL protection in the directory itself.

Note The Metabase.bin file is a fully compliant X.500 Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) directory and is governed by permissions in a Parent\Child relationship. Therefore, ACLs are applied recursively up the directory until the root is reached.

This article also describes the role of ACLs in the IIS metabase, how to edit ACLs, and the default ACLs for IIS 4.0 and IIS 5.0.



Introduction
In the metabase, ACLs limit the access of certain user accounts to certain keys in the Metabase.bin directory. Two types of permissions are granted with ACLs:
 * ACCESS_ALLOWED_ACE
 * ACCESS_DENIED_ACE

Microsoft recommends that you only use ACCESS_ALLOWED_ACE because Microsoft does not extensively test ACCESS_DENIED_ACE.

Because all ACL information is stored in the metabase itself in the MD_ADMIN_ACL property, you can view the information with typical metabase viewing tools such as Adsutil and Mdutil.

Available rights
When you modify metabase ACLs, the following rights are available:
 * MD_ACR_UNSECURE_PROPS_READ: Gives a user read-only access to any nonsecure property.
 * MD_ACR_READ: Gives a user read rights to any secure or nonsecure property.
 * MD_ACR_ENUM_KEYS: Gives a user the right to enumerate all names of any child nodes.
 * MD_ACR_WRITE_DAC: Gives a user the right to write or create an AdminACL property at the corresponding node.
 * MD_ACR_WRITE: Gives a user the right to modify (including add or set) properties except restricted properties. For more information, see the section about restricted properties by platform.
 * MD_ACR_RESTRICTED_WRITE: Gives a user the right to modify any property that is currently set to Administrator only. This permission gives full control to that key to a user.

Editing ACLs
Warning If you edit the metabase incorrectly, you can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall any product that uses the metabase. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems that result if you incorrectly edit the metabase can be solved. Edit the metabase at your own risk.

Note Always back up the metabase before you edit it.

To edit the ACLs, you use a utility that is named Metaacl.vbs. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

267904 Metaacl.exe modifying metabase permissions for the IIS Admin Objects

This example modifies the w3svc key to deny access for the administrators.

Warning Doing this on a production system can be extremely dangerous and cause IIS to fail to function as designed. This example only steps through the editing process for demonstration purposes.  Copy the Metaacl.vbs file to the %systemdrive%\Inetpub\Adminscripts directory. Click Start, click Run, type CMD, and then click Run to open a command prompt.  At the prompt, run the following command to change to the Adminscripts directory: c:\cd Inetpub\Adminscripts   To modify the parameters located at IIS://LOCALHOST/W3SVC, run the following command: c:\Inetpub\Adminscripts>cscript metaacl.vbs IIS://LOCALHOST/W3SVC mydomain\mydomainaccount RW

You receive the following response:

ACE for mydomain\mydomainaccount added.



You can use Metaacl.vbs to add the following rights for any user:
 * R - Read
 * W - Write
 * S - Restricted Write
 * U - Unsecure Properties Read
 * E - Enumerate Keys
 * D - Write DACL (permissions)

IIS 4.0
  Default ACLs The following list describes the default ACLs that are put in the Metabase.bin directory when IIS 4.0 is installed: LM - W3SVC BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED Everyone Access:    E   MSFTPSVC BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED Everyone Access:    E   SMTPSVC BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED Everyone Access:    E   NNTPSVC BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED Everyone Access:    E                    </li>  Restricted ACLs The following list describes the metabase key properties that are marked as restricted on default installations of IIS 4.0: MD_ADMIN_ACL MD_APP_ISOLATED MD_VR_PATH MD_ACCESS_PERM MD_ANONYMOUS_USER_NAME MD_ANONYMOUS_PWD MD_MAX_BANDWIDTH MD_MAX_BANDWIDTH_BLOCKED MD_ISM_ACCESS_CHECK MD_FILTER_LOAD_ORDER MD_FILTER_STATE MD_FILTER_ENABLED MD_FILTER_DESCRIPTION MD_FILTER_FLAGS MD_FILTER_IMAGE_PATH MD_SECURE_BINDINGS MD_SERVER_BINDINGS </li></ul>

IIS 5.0
<ul>  Default ACLs The following list describes the default ACLs that are put in the Metabase.bin directory when IIS 5.0 is installed: LM - W3SVC BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED Everyone Access:    E       {IISMachineName}\VS Developers Access: RWSUE MSFTPSVC BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED Everyone Access:    E   SMTPSVC BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED Everyone Access:    E    NNTPSVC BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED Everyone Access:    E                     </li>  Restricted ACLs The following list describes the metabase key properties that are marked as restricted on default installations of IIS 5.0: MD_ADMIN_ACL MD_APP_ISOLATED MD_VR_PATH MD_ACCESS_PERM MD_ANONYMOUS_USER_NAME MD_ANONYMOUS_PWD MD_MAX_BANDWIDTH MD_MAX_BANDWIDTH_BLOCKED MD_ISM_ACCESS_CHECK MD_FILTER_LOAD_ORDER MD_FILTER_STATE MD_FILTER_ENABLED MD_FILTER_DESCRIPTION MD_FILTER_FLAGS MD_FILTER_IMAGE_PATH MD_SECURE_BINDINGS MD_SERVER_BINDINGS </li></ul>

IIS 6.0
<ul>  Default ACLs The following list describes the default ACLs that are put in the Metabase.xml directory when IIS 6.0 is installed: LM – W3SVC NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE Access: R UE    NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Access: R UE    {computername}\IIS_WPG Access: R UE        BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED {computername}\ASPNET Access: R  E      W3SVC/Filters NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE Access: RW UE       NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVIC Access: RW UE       {computername}\IIS_WPG Access: RW UE       BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED W3SVC/1/Filters NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE Access: RW UE       NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVIC Access: RW UE       {computername}\IIS_WPG Access: RW UE       BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED W3SVC/AppPools NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE Access:   U        NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Access:   U       {computername}\IIS_WPG Access:   U        BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED W3SVC/INFO BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED MSFTPSVC BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED SMTPSVC BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE Access:   UE        NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Access:   UE     NNTPSVC BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED NT AUTHORITY\LOCAL SERVICE Access:   UE        NT AUTHORITY\NETWORK SERVICE Access:   UE     Logging BUILTIN\Administrators Access: RWSUED </li>  Restricted ACLs The following list describes the metabase key properties that are marked as restricted on default installations of IIS 6.0: MD_ADMIN_ACL MD_VPROP_ADMIN_ACL_RAW_BINARY MD_APPPOOL_ORPHAN_ACTION_EXE MD_APPPOOL_ORPHAN_ACTION_PARAMS MD_APPPOOL_AUTO_SHUTDOWN_EXE MD_APPPOOL_AUTO_SHUTDOWN_PARAMS MD_APPPOOL_IDENTITY_TYPE MD_APP_APPPOOL_ID MD_APP_ISOLATED MD_VR_PATH MD_ACCESS_PERM MD_VR_USERNAME MD_VR_PASSWORD MD_ANONYMOUS_USER_NAME MD_ANONYMOUS_PWD MD_LOGSQL_USER_NAME MD_LOGSQL_PASSWORD MD_WAM_USER_NAME MD_WAM_PWD MD_AD_CONNECTIONS_USERNAME MD_AD_CONNECTIONS_PASSWORD MD_MAX_BANDWIDTH MD_MAX_BANDWIDTH_BLOCKED MD_ISM_ACCESS_CHECK MD_FILTER_LOAD_ORDER MD_FILTER_ENABLED MD_FILTER_IMAGE_PATH MD_SECURE_BINDINGS MD_SERVER_BINDINGS MD_ASP_ENABLECLIENTDEBUG MD_ASP_ENABLESERVERDEBUG MD_ASP_ENABLEPARENTPATHS MD_ASP_ERRORSTONTLOG MD_ASP_KEEPSESSIONIDSECURE MD_ASP_LOGERRORREQUESTS MD_ASP_DISKTEMPLATECACHEDIRECTORY 36948 RouteUserName 36949 RoutePassword 36958 SmtpDsPassword 41191 Pop3DsPassword 45461 FeedAccountName 45462 FeedPassword 49384 ImapDsPassword </li></ul>

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