I was trying to access http://localhost/Reports/Page.aspx, in other words an ASP.Net page in the Reports path of the local site. Instead, I was getting a Windows authentication prompt that had no business being there. At first I thought to debug the page, but it wouldn't even get there before I got the authentication prompt. I googled for it, but I didn't get far because I was looking for weird Windows authentication prompts, not for the specific location of my page: the Reports folder. It was stranger yet, as I stopped IIS and the authentication dialog was still appearing!

In the end, a colleague told me the solution: SQL Reporting Services is answering on the local Reports path! I stopped the service and voila! no more authentication prompt. Instead, a Service unavailable 503 error. This article explained things quite clearly. Even if you stop the service, you have to delete the access control list entry for /Reports with the command netsh http delete urlacl url=http://+:80/Reports or, I guess, restart the system after you set the Reporting Services service to Manual or Disabled.

Update: It is even easier to go to Sql Server Configuration Tools (in the Start Menu), run the Reporting Service Configuration Manager, then change the URL for the Report Manager URL to something other than Reports.

But what is this strange Access Control List? You can get a clue by reading about Http.sys API in Windows Vista and above and about Namespace Reservation. Apparently, one can do similar things on Windows Server 2003 and maybe even XP with the Httpcfg utility.

Comments

Anonymous

I wish I could send you a carton of beer for this! Talk about a frustrating error when everything works on your site apart from one directory! Cheers))

Anonymous

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