Problem:

After installing and configuring RSS Server on Windows Server 2003, the Connection Viewer application doesn’t properly display the currently active sessions. Is this due to insufficient permissions granted to the account under which the Connection Viewer is running? If so, how can this be resolved?

Resolution:

To remedy the problem, find the account that is configured in IIS:

1. On the IIS server where RSS is installed, open the IIS Services Manager
2. Navigate to the Web server instance they are using.  Right click and select “Properties”.
3. In the Web Site Properties dialog, select the “Directory Security” tab.
4. Under the “Authentication and access control” section, click the “Edit…” button.
5. If the “Enable anonymous access” checkbox is selected, make a note of the account in the “User Name” field.
6. Check to see if “Integrated Windows Authentication” is checked in the “Authenticated access” section.
7. Launch the Distributed COM configuration utility by Start > Run > dcomdnfg.exe.
8. In the left pane, expand the “Component Services” node, and then the “Computers” node beneath it.
9. In the right pane, there should be a “My Computer” icon (representing the IIS server).  Right click it and select “Properties”.
10. Select the “COM Security” tab.
11. In the “Launch and Activation Permissions” section, select the “Edit Default…” button.
12. Locate the user name in the top box that was obtained in step 5 above (The anonymous user account).  Make sure that this account has “Local Activation” permissions (you may need to add this account if it doesn’t already exist in the top list – see figure 1).
13. If Integrated Windows Authentication is enabled (determined in step 6), add any other accounts that will be using the Connection Viewer and give them the “Local Activation” permission as well.
14. Launch and test the Connection Viewer.  It should now function as expected.