Creating Publishing Directories

  • Article

Applies To: Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2003 R2, Windows Server 2003 with SP1

Before setting up your WebDAV publishing directory, ensure that your publishing directory resides in an NTFS partition and be sure the WebDAV extension is enabled in IIS Manager.

WebDAV publishing and file management requires the following permissions on the NTFS directory:

  • Read: Enables users to read the contents of a file.

  • Read and Execute: Enables user to read a file and run scripts or Common Gateway Interfaces (CGIs).

  • List: Enables users to view the contents of the directory.

  • Write: Enables users to access and change the source of a script and to publish files.

  • Modify: Enables users to rename or delete a directory or file.

Note

Assigning Write access does not give clients the ability to modify Active Server Pages (ASP) or any other script-mapped files. To allow these files to be modified, you must assign Write permission and Script source access after creating the virtual directory. For information about setting these permissions, see Securing Sites with Web Site Permissions.

WebDAV publishing and file management requires the following permissions on the IIS virtual directory:

  • Read: Enables users to read the contents of a file.

  • Directory Browsing: Enables users to view the contents of the directory.

  • Write: Enables users to access and change the source of a script and to publish files.

  • Indexing (optional): Enables users to search a directory.

Important

You must be a member of the Administrators group on the local computer to perform the following procedure or procedures. As a security best practice, log on to your computer by using an account that is not in the Administrators group, and then use the runas command to run IIS Manager as an administrator. At a command prompt, type runas /User:Administrative_AccountName "mmc %systemroot%\system32\inetsrv\iis.msc".

Procedures

To set up a publishing directory

  1. Create a directory on your Web server and set the desired NTFS permissions. You can create this directory anywhere on your Web server.

  2. In IIS Manager, create a virtual directory and set the desired virtual directory permissions. For instructions, see Using Virtual Directories.

  3. Type WebDAV as the alias for this virtual directory, and link it to the physical directory you created in Step 1.

After you finish setting up a WebDAV virtual directory, you can allow clients to publish to it. For information about how users can connect to the directory through any of the Microsoft WebDAV clients, see About WebDAV.