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Troubleshooting
Authentication Problems
With FREE Tools
I was scanning
through the FrontPage newsgroups this week, and I saw a pattern
that has been apparent to me for years; there are a ton of
people out there who are having problems publishing their Web
site or opening a remote Web site in FrontPage. Most of
these people are on the verge of insanity. Why?
Because they don't know how to troubleshoot the problem!
To them, all of this is a black box, and if there's a problem,
troubleshooting becomes trial and error. The number one
question? Is it me, or is it my hosting company?
This tutorial
will arm you with the tools and the skills necessary to answer
that question. Best of all, the tools I will use here are
FREE.
First, the Basics
Before I dive
into the use of the tools, let's look at the basics; how does
authentication work when you try and publish or open a remote
Web site?
Note:
This tutorial assumes a Windows server or an FTP server.
FrontPage Server
Extensions Site
If you are
opening or publishing to a site running the FrontPage Server
Extensions, there are two types of authentication that you're
likely to be using; Windows authentication and Basic
authentication. Chances are, you won't know which one is
being used, but there is a way to tell! More on that
later.
FrontPage uses
HTTP to open or publish a Web site via the FrontPage Server
Extensions. Windows uses Wininet for HTTP
communication. (Wininet is frequently referred to as the
"Microsoft HTTP stack.") The Web server decides knows
which authentication methods it accepts, but Wininet doesn't
know which to use until the Web server tells it which methods it
accepts. Here's how that works.
When you make a
request to open or publish a site in FrontPage, FrontPage
doesn't send any authentication information. The Web
server responds with an HTTP status code that tells Wininet that
the request has been rejected due to no authentication.
That HTTP status code is a 401 status code. However, along
with that 401, the Web server will send information that tells
Wininet which authentication methods the Web server accepts.
Wininet then determines what to send to the Web server on the
next request so that you can be properly authenticated.
If your Web site
is in the Internet Zone (more on that later), Wininet will not
automatically send your credentials. Instead, you will be
prompted for your username and password. If all goes well,
Wininet will send the username and password you specify and the
site will successfully publish or open.
FTP
If you're using
FTP, it's a whole other story. FTP in FrontPage is pretty
simple. You make a request to publish a Web site.
The remote Web server replies back with a message saying that a
password is required. You enter your password and it is
sent in plain text to the Web server. If all goes
as planned, the Web site then successfully publishes.
How to Troubleshoot
When Things Go Wrong
Now that you
understand the basics of how things are supposed to work, let's
look at what happens when things don't go as planned.
There are two
tools that I will go over that can help you determine where a
problem is. They are Ethereal, a freeware packet
capture tool and analyzer, and Fiddler, an HTTP debugging
proxy available free from Microsoft. (Even if you have no
experience in this stuff, don't be scared away from this
tutorial. I'll explain it all to you!)
An understanding
of these tools is not only helpful for troubleshooting FrontPage
issues. They are also invaluable in troubleshooting any
issue with your network.
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