Clean MOSS Farm Install Error – 403 – Forbidden: Access is denied.

After finishing the MOSS 2007 64bit SP2 on Windows Server 2008 base OS, I went ahead to create a web application and then a site collection as per document’s instructions: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262714.aspx

The problem I experienced was that when I hit the new site, everything loads except for the graphics. I went ahead to figure out the directory for the image and I can go to the directory to see the picture. Since the pictures weren’t showing up, I also tried to directly access the image through the URL: http://99.99.5.91/_layouts/images/navshape.jpg and this is where I get a:

· 403 – Forbidden: Access is denied.

You do not have permission to view this directory or page using the credentials that you supplied.

I have no issues with all the images in the Sharepoint Administration page and when I browse the image via http://server1:32873/_layouts/images/recycbin.gif I can see the recycling bin.

I went ahead to try to review the permissions to see if they were set appropriately and they were (Users and WSS_admin_wpg were listed). As a troubleshooting step, I also added “everyone” and the “IUSER” account to read access but even by doing so, I was still getting the 403 error.

After spending some more time to troubleshoot the issue, I noticed that both:

1. Allow unspecified CGI modules

2. Allow unspecified ISAPI modules

…were both unchecked. This was when I finally found a workaround here: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/942065

This fixed the problem but it was only for this site. As soon as I deployed another site, it would have the same issues.

With a bit more troubleshooting, I realized that there was a missing component required for IIS and that was the “ASP.NET” in the Web server role services.

This was not included in this document: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc731760.aspx

I asked a Microsoft engineer as to why this was not included in the document and he pointed me to this link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc263408.aspx I wasn’t able to find a list of components required either so I ended up documenting the information in the following table so I have a reference list of what is required to be installed in case I need it in the future.

Description

Front-end Server

Roles

Web Server (IIS)

· Common HTTP Features

· Static Content

· Default Document

· Directory Browsing

· HTTP Errors

· Application Development

· ASP.NET

· .NET Extensibility

· ISAPI Extensions

· ISAPI Filters

· Health and Diagnostics

· HTTP Logging

· Logging Tools

· Request Monitor

· Security

· Basic Authentication

· Windows Authentication

· Request Filtering

· Performance

· Static Content Compressions

· Management Tools

· IIS Management Console

· IIS 6 Management Compatibility

· IIS 6 Metabase Compatibility

Features

Microsoft .Net Framework 3.0 Features

· .NET Framework 3.0

· XPS Viewer

Remote Server Administration Tools

· Role Administration Tools

· Web Server (IIS) Tools

Windows Process Activation Service

· Process Model

· .NET Environment

· Configuration