How to Configure FrontPage Authoring with Site Server Membership

This article describes how to use FrontPage Authoring with Site Server Membership.

In order for FrontPage to authenticate to a Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) Web site that uses Microsoft Site Server Membership, you must create membership groups and assign these groups permissions to the FrontPage webs.

The steps listed below explain how to configure Site Server Membership to work with FrontPage. This procedure assumes that you have already created a membership instance and have mapped the membership instance to the virtual site where the FrontPage Server Extensions are configured. For more information on how to create a membership instance and map it to the FrontPage Extended Server, please see the documentation that is installed with Microsoft Commercial Internet Service (MCIS) 2.5 and Site Server 3.0.

1. Open the Site Server Microsoft Management Console (MMC) Membership Directory Manager.
2. Expand the IIS Snap-in.
3. Expand the web site your membership instance is mapped to.
4. Right click the _vti_bin directory and select Properties from the pop up menu.
5. Click the Membership Authentication tab and select Clear Text/Basic Authentication for this directory, and click OK to close the Property sheet.
6. Create two new groups to contain the accounts that need to administer and author the FrontPage webs. Name the groups fpadmin and fpauthor. The fpadmin group will contain those users who can create new subwebs or modify security of the FrontPage webs. The fpauthor group will contain users who need only the ability to edit the contents of the Web site in FrontPage.
   
   To create these two new groups, follow these steps:
   1. Click Start and point to Programs, point to Microsoft Site Server, point to Administration, and click Site Server Admin (MMC).
   2. Click the plus sign (+) next to Membership Directory Manager to expand it.
   3. Right-click ou=groups, point to New and click Group.
      
      When you choose the settings in the wizard, add the appropriate user accounts to the group. You can later modify the group account list by doing the following:
   
   
   1. Right-click the group under the Membership Directory Manager.
   2. Click Properties.
   3. Click the Members tab and click Add.
      
      Visual InterDev/FrontPage will be able to connect to the site. When prompted for a username and password from Interdev/FrontPage, be sure to enter an account in your Membership directory that is a member of one of the groups, as outlined in the preceding steps.
      
      Note: The group names listed in Step 6 are not themselves important. You can create a single group called WebAdmins, rather than the two groups listed here. What is important is that you add the newly created NT group(s) to FrontPage Administrators through the FPAdmin tool.
7. After you create the groups, stop and restart the Site Server Authentication Service to make the groups appear in User Manager. (By default, the groups will not appear in User Manager until 300 seconds have elapsed. Stopping and restarting the Site Server Authentication Service causes the groups to be created immediately.)
   
   -or-
   
   Rather than stopping and restarting the Authentication Service, you can create the groups manually using the User Manager.
8. Verify the new groups in User Manager. The group names will appear as Site_organization_fpadmin and Site_organization_fpauthor, where organization is the root node in the Membership Directory Manager. You will need these group names for the next step.
9. At this point, if the FrontPage Extended Virtual Server is still mapped to a membership service, you will not be able to authenticate to the FrontPage web using the FrontPage client with a Site Server Membership account. You must grant the new fpauthor and fpadmin groups permissions to the web.

Steps to Grant Permissions for FrontPage 98 Server Extensions

1. Using Windows Explorer, locate C:\Program Files\Microsoft FrontPage\Version3.0\Bin and double-click Fpsrvwin.exe. This launches the FrontPage Server Administrator.
2. In the FrontPage Server Administrator, locate the Select Server or Port box and make sure that the site you are mapping to the Membership service is selected.
3. Click Security.
4. The Web name will default to the root web for the site, and you do have to edit this. For Name:, enter the group Site_Organization_fpadmin and click OK. Site_Organization_fpadmin will be added to the web with Administrator rights, and a dialog box will appear verifying this.
   
   Click OK in the confirmation dialog box.
5. Click Security again and use Step d above to add the Site_Organization_fpauthor group with permissions to the web.
6. After adding these two groups to the FrontPage web, you must stop and restart the World Wide Publishing Service. To do so, use Services in Control Panel. Stopping the World Wide Publishing Service will also stop the Site Server Message Builder Service. After both services have stopped, restart them.

Steps to Grant Permissions for FrontPage 2000 Server Extensions

1. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Windows NT 4.0 Option Pack, point to Microsoft Internet Information Server, and click Internet Service Manager.
2. Under the computer name in the Internet Service Manager, locate the virtual site that is mapped to the Membership service and has the FrontPage 2000 Server Extensions installed.
3. Right-click the virtual site and point to New, and then click Server Extensions Administrator.
4. In the New Administrator dialog box, for Username: enter Site_Organization_fpadmin and click OK.
5. Right-click the virtual site and point to New, and then click Server Extensions Administrator.
6. In the New Administrator dialog box, enter Site_Organization_fpauthor for Username: and click OK.
7. After adding the groups with permissions to the FrontPage web, you must stop and restart the World Wide Publishing Service. Stop this service using Services in Control Panel. Stopping the World Wide Publishing Service will also stop the Site Server Message Builder Service. After both services have stopped, restart them.

Both methods above add the groups with administrator permission. You should now open the web in FrontPage and click Tools, Security, and Permissions. On the Groups tab, click the group Site_Organization_fpauthor and click Edit. Change the level of access of Allow Users to to Author and Browse this web.

You may want to have different group names with different permissions on other FrontPage webs. To do so, create new Membership groups, add Membership accounts to the groups, and use the procedures above to add the groups to the FrontPage webs.
For additional information, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: