403 - Forbidden: Access is denied

Question

Hi, I have an IIS web site was working fine for years. All of a sudden, 1 week back, I tried to browse it and started to get

What is strange is that when I open a session on the server itself, it works fine. IIS_USR and IUSR have Read&Execute privileges on the inetpub and subdirectories, even I enabled "browsing Directorie" to check but it did not help.

In the log I see

2022-10-24 14:52:24 192.168.1.30 GET /favicon.ico - 443 - 82.65.38.149 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows+NT+10.0;+Win64;+x64)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/106.0.0.0+Safari/537.36+Edg/106.0.1370.47 https://mysite.hd.free.fr/sierac 403 16 2148204809 53
2022-10-24 14:58:01 192.168.1.30 GET /sierac - 443 - 82.65.38.149 Mozilla/5.0+(Windows+NT+10.0;+Win64;+x64)+AppleWebKit/537.36+(KHTML,+like+Gecko)+Chrome/106.0.0.0+Safari/537.36+Edg/106.0.1370.47 - 403 16 2148204809 34

Here are some text from older los where it was working fine

2022-06-29 19:04:57 192.168.1.30 GET /sierac - 443 - 194.38.20.161 ALittle+Client - 301 0 0 1766
2022-06-29 19:05:29 192.168.1.30 GET /sierac/ - 443 - 194.38.20.161 ALittle+Client - 200 0 0 752

Here is the config of the machine

Answer 1

Deepak, I dont have a file as this certificate was created with letsencrypt tool "win-acme" . I reexecuted the steps at, the end I got

Source generated using plugin IIS: salam.hd.free.fr

Existing renewal: [IIS] Default Web Site, (any host) - renewed 6 times, due
after 2022/12/25 11:23:28

Overwrite settings? (y*/n) - yes

Overwriting previously created renewal

Using cache for [IIS] Default Web Site, (any host). To get a new certificate within 1 days, run with --force.
Store with CertificateStore...
Certificate with thumbprint 2AC7E...........41................6 is already in the store
Installing with IIS...
No bindings have been changed
Scheduled task looks healthy
Next renewal scheduled at 2022/12/25 11:23:28
Certificate [IIS] Default Web Site, (any host) created

N: Create certificate (default settings)
M: Create certificate (full options)
R: Run renewals (0 currently due)
A: Manage renewals (1 total)
O: More options...
Q: Quit

Please choose from the menu: q

Fllowing this, I restarted WWW service, then I was able to browse to

https://www.sierac.fr which forwards to https://salam.hd.free.fr/sierac as well as https://salam.hd.free.fr/blogengine directly. However, I got a dialogbox to choose a certificate on the laptop with edge and chose "Cancel", and hop page was displayed correctly. I tried same thing om another machine with Firefox, I got presented with a dialogbox but with some ids, I chose one and hop again I was able to access the pages. Can you please test from you side

https://www.sierac.fr
https://salam.hd.free.fr/blogengine

Here is snapshot from Edge

and here is from Firefox

Answer 2

Deepak, any idea why those dialogboxes, did you have the time to access my sites?

Answer 3

It is anonymous and nothing has changed since 10 years

and one appli with Forms authentication inside the default website (https://salam.hd.free.fr/blogengine)

Answer 4

Hi Deepak, they are all False, server level, site level as well as virtual applications level