Question

I tried this on serverfault first, thinking it was a configuration error, but a test (next to last paragraph) leads me to believe it’s some sort of programming error on my part

I have two websites ASP Classic – http://www.company.com and http://www.companytesting.com.

At this time of year, company.com is pointed to a folder called website2012 and companytesting.com is pointing to a folder called website2013. The contents of those two folders are almost identical, just minor changes for our season change (which I was supposed to do today – lol).

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I was running Windows Server 2003. To update the “live” website, I’d make a copy of the test site folder, and rename it website2013R1, and point the test site there, then point the live site at website2012.

We now have Windows Server 2008 R2 64. (I had someone migrate the websites to the new server for me.)

The companytesting.com site, when I pointed it to website2013R1, worked fine.

The company.com site, when I pointed it to website2013 (which worked just before, for the companytesting.com site) gives an empty page. (i.e. view source = nothing there.) There is nothing in the failed request log when this happens.

I can use the Explore button/link (upper right) in IIS7.5 and see all of the files there. If I use the browse button (either in general or on the index.asp page) I get the blank page again.

One weirdness about how these are set up is that companytesting.com uses a login (which I think is windows authentication – it’s simply a single username and password for staff, and to keep the GoogleBots out of it). Obviously, company.com does not. But redirecting the to website2013r1 kept the login in place. (So I’m not absolutely clear whether that’s attached to the folder or to the site. Hitting the company.com site after changing the path did not yield a password request.)

The permissions on the folders all seem to be the same, but obviously, I’m missing something.

Why isn’t changing the physical path working?

Added to this to the text I posted on ServerFault – I was trying to do a quick fix, so I copied all of the files from Website2013 to Website2012…and got a blank page again. Copying the old 2012 files back into the Website 2012 folder fixed the problem. This makes NO sense to me since A) the website2012 folder is almost identical to the website2012 folder, and B) The website2013 folder ran just swell running under a different domain name. It’s obviously something I did programming-wise, but WHAT? Most changes were very minor (e.g. changing the text “2012” to “2013”).

As is probably obvious, I’m not knowledgeable about servers. I did OK in 2003, but since it’s not my main task and I’m buried right now, I have barely looked at 2008. So I may have really stupid questions when you ask me to check something.

Answer 1

The issue lies in the different ways Win Server 2003 and Win Server 2008 handled the password protected testing site, or at least the way the consultant I hired set it up.

The problem was that the web.config file varied between the website2012 and website2013 folders. Access to the development site was restricted in the web.config file, and contained the line:

            <remove users="*" roles="" verbs="" />

Since the live website didn’t have a username/password attached to it, it didn’t bring up the username password box and simply gave me a blank page.

I dropped the web.config from the “old” website into the website2013 file, and the problem was solved.

(Odd to be answering my own question, but I hate running across unanswered posts when I’m searching for a solution to a problem.)