Asp.net 1.1 and 2.0 applications on a Network Share, Permission Problems and BIOS Command Limit
Article ID: KB101836
Asp.net applications, for both versions 1.1 and 2.0, can and have been successfully
installed onto a Network Share, i.e. where the asp.net application files are not stored
on the actual web server, rather all or most site files are stored on a network share.
There are quite a few permission issues that arise when you decide to do this, most of
which are well documented and not mentioned here. This article is in response to a specific
error that can crop up on an apparently successful asp.net application installation on a
network share, meaning once you have your site apparently working, your site will
begin not working after a while, and will only work again after you restart your web service.
Once you get most major permission issues out of the way, you may find that your site begins
to work great as expected, but after some time you site(s) may begin throwing odd “Server Error”
messages. In 1.1 the error messages can be very ambiguous, and may give you almost no idea
as to what may be going on. In 2.0 though, the error message would look more like the message below:
Server Error in '/' Application.
Configuration Error
Description: An error occurred during the processing of a configuration file required to service
this request. Please review the specific error details below and modify your configuration file appropriately.
Parser Error Message: An error occurred loading a configuration file: Failed to start monitoring
changes to '\\networkshare\websitedirectory' because the network BIOS command limit has been reached.
For more information on this error, please refer to Microsoft knowledge base article 810886. Hosting on a
UNC share is not supported for the Windows XP Platform.
Source Error:
[No relevant source lines]
The only way to stop these error messages is to restart the web service on the web server. This normally
fixes the problem for a while, but then errors start showing up again.
This message is much more helpful than the messages that 1.1 will throw, but we have
found that often times the source of these error messages, in both 1.1 and 2.0, are the
same. Basically the problem is that on a default installation of Windows 2000 Server,
Windows 2003 Server, and their different variants, the Lan Manager, both server and
workstation, have a command limit that is set rather low for network share based IIS
requests. You will need to set a command limit for both the server and workstation to a
much higher limit. The article at Microsoft,
found here, explains
the problem in much greater detail, and offers a very detailed solution.
We have found that although the error messages differ between asp.net 1.1 and asp 2.0,
the permission problems are caused by the source.
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