Can't load basic site under IIS 7.5

Question

I'm trying to learn a little about IIS 7.5. I've set up a virtual machine (using the VMware Player) running Windows 2008 R2.

I'm now stepping through an online course (Pluralsight IIS 7.5 for Developers). I've installed IIS, and created my first site, but when I try to open it in a browser, it fails to load.

The site lives in C:\\inetpub\\site1.com\\default.htm. Default.htm just contains a single line of HTML. If I click on the file it opens fine, but if I just type 'site1.com' in the browser it fails.

If I go to the site in IIS and test the connection, I get a warning:

Cannot verify access to path (C:\inetpub\site1.com)

I'm guessing it's some permissions issue. The app pool, which is also called site1.com, is running as ApplicationPoolIdentity. I've tried setting the DefaultAppPool user on the site1.com folder and on inetpub, but no joy.

Answer 1

To get a browser to display your page using the url 'http://Site1.com' you would need to add it in your Hosts file otherwise your DNS server wont resolve it. You would add something like

127.0.0.1 Site1.com

If your running more than one site using the same port you may also need to add a host header to your site in IIS

Your other error Cannot verify access to path (C:\\inetpub\\site1.com) is a permissions issue but it may not stop your site from working though as it is simply a warning. This link may help http://msmvps.com/blogs/bernard/archive/2009/11/04/warning-authorization-cannot-verify-access-to-path-c-inetpub-wwwroot.aspx

Try adding the user again. The account the app pool is running under must have access to the folder.