Changed server name, now get 500 error (CF2016, Win Server 2016)

Report · May 15, 2020

Hello,

We have a server that was running fine...the CF service running as Local System. We renamed the server. Now, with the service running as Local System, we get 500 errors. There is nothing in the CF Error Log. The IIS log looks like this (ip addresses obfuscated):
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, -, 5/15/2020, 9:52:37, W3SVC1, IPTest, xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, 400, 122, 86238, 500, 0, GET, /, -,

When I run the service under my network account (which is an admin on the machine), everything works great.

I added another network account to the machine as an admin, started the service logged on as that user, and get the 500 errors again.

Any thoughts? Thank you!

Judi

Report · May 15, 2020

My first recommendation would be not to use Local System! This is more privileged than you need, by a long shot. My second recommendation would be that you might have to reset permissions on the relevant parts of the system: the CF directory and all subdirectories, and the web root.

Dave Watts, Eidolon LLC

Report · May 15, 2020

Thank you Dave. I understand your first recommendation - thanks for the reminder. In addition to running the service as various users, I have had no success. I've checked permissions on all the relevant directories. If anyone has additional idea, I'd love to hear them!

Report · May 15, 2020

Just a minor quibble - I didn't recommend checking permissions, just resetting them no matter what they were showing. Weird things happen when you rename machines. Permissions might look right in the Windows GUI, but not actually be right. There are tools that can help you fix this sort of thing, like SIDChanger, and I should have suggested running that in the first place now that I think about it. But basically, each machine and user account has a unique identifier, and changing these things can break internal stuff that you'd expect to "just work".

Dave Watts, Eidolon LLC

Report · May 15, 2020

Ah, that's not a quibble at all, but great information. I'll share that with my infrastructure guy. Thank you!