IIS_IUSRS and IUSR permissions in IIS8

Question

I've just moved away from IIS6 on Win2003 to IIS8 on Win2012 for hosting ASP.NET applications.

Within one particular folder in my application I need to Create & Delete files. After copying the files to the new server, I kept seeing the following errors when I tried to delete files:

Access to the path 'D:\WebSites\myapp.co.uk\companydata\filename.pdf' is denied.

When I check IIS I see that the application is running under the DefaultAppPool account, however, I never set up Windows permissions on this folder to include IIS AppPool\DefaultAppPool

Instead, to stop screaming customers I granted the following permissions on the folder:

IUSR

• Read & Execute
• List Folder Contents
• Read
• Write

IIS_IUSRS

• Modify
• Read & Execute
• List Folder Contents
• Read
• Write

This seems to have worked, but I am concerned that too many privileges have been set. I've read conflicting information online about whether IUSR is actually needed at all here. Can anyone clarify which users/permissions would suffice to Create and Delete documents on this folder please? Also, is IUSR part of the IIS_IUSRS group?

Update & Solution

Please see my answer below. I've had to do this sadly as some recent suggestions were not well thought out, or even safe (IMO).

Answer 1

I hate to post my own answer, but some answers recently have ignored the solution I posted in my own question, suggesting approaches that are nothing short of foolhardy.

In short - you do not need to edit any Windows user account privileges at all. Doing so only introduces risk. The process is entirely managed in IIS using inherited privileges.

Applying Modify/Write Permissions to the Correct User Account

1. Right-click the domain when it appears under the Sites list, and choose Edit Permissions

   

   Under the Security tab, you will see MACHINE_NAME\IIS_IUSRS is listed. This means that IIS automatically has read-only permission on the directory (e.g. to run ASP.Net in the site). You do not need to edit this entry.

   

2. Click the Edit button, then Add...

3. In the text box, type IIS AppPool\MyApplicationPoolName, substituting MyApplicationPoolName with your domain name or whatever application pool is accessing your site, e.g. IIS AppPool\mydomain.com

   

4. Press the Check Names button. The text you typed will transform (notice the underline):

   

5. Press OK to add the user

6. With the new user (your domain) selected, now you can safely provide any Modify or Write permissions