以编程方式生成IIS应用程序密钥

Question

Using the IIS manager GUI, it is easy to use the 'Connections' tree view to navigate to an application, under ASP.Net open 'Machine Key', and then click 'Generate Keys' in order to generate a key for your application for the purpose of setting up a shared ASP.Net session across machines.

However, when I read the documentation for Generate a Machine Key , the only thing I get is the cryptic

Use the following WMI classes, methods, or properties to perform this procedure:

MachineKeySection class. Keys are generated by setting properties, so no method is needed.)

The incorrect punctuation does not boost my confidence and I'm not sure how to implement this advice regardless. How do I generate validation and decryption keys for my IIS application via the command line? I'm also willing to generate them via C#.

Answer 1

You can use ManagementClass class from System.Management to connect to WMI. Using this class you can manipulate WMI instances. Please follow below mentioned steps:

1. Create new console application.

2. Add reference to System.Management assembly.

3. Add using statement as follows

    using System.Management 

4. Use below code to connect to MachineKeySection class.

    string NamespacePath = "\\\\\\\\.\\\\ROOT\\\\WebAdministration"; string ClassName = "MachineKeySection"; ManagementClass oClass = new ManagementClass(NamespacePath + ":" + ClassName); foreach (ManagementObject oObject in oClass.GetInstances()) { Console.WriteLine("ApplicationName : {0}", oObject["ApplicationName"]); } 

5. You can use following screenshot to check available properties and methods. WMI Explorer

Answer 2

I guess you could use the RNGCryptoServiceProvider class to generate the required keys using PowerShell. It is the same class IIS manager itself uses to generate those keys.

I have learned from this blog about the way IIS manager is using that class.

With IIS 7 you no longer have to do this manually. The IIS 7.0 manager has a built in feature that you can use to generate these keys. It uses RNGCryptoServiceProvider internally to create a random key.

The post author is a Microsoft employee - I do not know him personally though.

Here is one example of using it with the PowerShell script approach.