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Subject Author Date
SCW question. Dan Kyle 11-07-2006
---> Re: SCW question. Roger Abell [MV...11-07-2006
Posted by Dan Kyle on November 7, 2006, 11:17 am
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Hello,

I am noticing some interesting results when using the SCW and Group Policies
combined. I am wondering if someone can enlighten me on the GPO processing.
I am following the Microsoft Windows 2003 security guide and have a Member
server GPO (using Security templates) and below that I have an OU for an SMS
Server (but the question here is more for the IIS services of the Management
point.) I have created a GPO for the SMS and had issues with the Management
point requiring IUSR_COMPUTERNAME and IWAM_COMPUTERNAME requiring logon
locally, Access this computer from the Network, Log on as a Batch job and
such. In the GPO's I created I cannot add these local computer user accounts
to the User Rights assignments portion. I ended up creating a new SMS GPO
which overrode the Member server settings for those User Rights and set them
to not defined. This worked and the MP work fine. I revisited and created a
local group for the IUSR and IWAM user accoutns and referenced it in the
GPO...this worked and everything was working fine. Then I decided to play
with SCW and see if it had any gains for me.

Here is where I am confused...I ran the SCW wizard and used the XML file to
create a GPO. Prior to applying the GPO I ran the SCW and applied the Policy
to the local computer. Upon reboot I noticed that the local IUSR and IWAM
users were in the appropriate user rights for IIS to function. I rebooted
again and lo and behold there they were again. Now I ran RSOP and they do
not show up in there (obviously..since they are not referenced in the GPO
that is being applied to the Computer).

SO my question is...where are these settings coming from? If they reside in
the local policy...why aren't they overwritten by the OU GPO which has
different settings? I understood that the Local policy will be overwritten
by an AD policy. It seems that the AD Policy is used bu the IUSR and IWAM
users are added to the specific rights. I am just trying to find out why and
where this setting and functionality resides on the local Computer.

I hope I have explained with enough detail..if not..I will check back and
provide any information required. It is great that the SCW provided me what
I needed...but I need to understand why so I can document it.

Dan



Posted by Roger Abell [MVP] on November 7, 2006, 11:51 pm
Please log in for more thread options
I think that what you are seeing can be explained by the fact that a GPO
is applied when it has been seen to have changed based on its version
number. Once applied, if defaults for policy application are still in
effect,
then it will not be reapplied until/unless it is seen as changed.
So, when the accounts were added directly in the local policy into the
user rights due to your application of the SCW results, and you are then
concerned that the GPO is not redefining these, this may be the reason.
You could for example make a minor, insignificant change to some
setting in the GPO, and then later reverse this, in order to increase the
version number of the GPO, and you should see the machine later noticing
this and reapplying the GPO.

On another note, your approach of defining a group to use in the GPO
for the user rights is one way that I handle this issue. Basically, where
you have a GPO applying something like these user rights that very often
need to be quite unique per machine, if one lists the actual machine local
accounts (you can do this, you just need to type them in rather than
expecting
to pick them via the user interface) then one ends up with a GPO per unique
machine. That is not so convenient. Instead, I use such as LclLogin,
LclBatch,
etc. and then set the user right in the GPO to Administrators+LclLogin, or
to
LclBatch, etc. and the one GPO can apply to a number of machines where
each machine defines its own LclLogin, LclBatch etc membership (again, one
needs to type in the group names).


> Hello,
>
> I am noticing some interesting results when using the SCW and Group
> Policies combined. I am wondering if someone can enlighten me on the GPO
> processing. I am following the Microsoft Windows 2003 security guide and
> have a Member server GPO (using Security templates) and below that I have
> an OU for an SMS Server (but the question here is more for the IIS
> services of the Management point.) I have created a GPO for the SMS and
> had issues with the Management point requiring IUSR_COMPUTERNAME and
> IWAM_COMPUTERNAME requiring logon locally, Access this computer from the
> Network, Log on as a Batch job and such. In the GPO's I created I cannot
> add these local computer user accounts to the User Rights assignments
> portion. I ended up creating a new SMS GPO which overrode the Member
> server settings for those User Rights and set them to not defined. This
> worked and the MP work fine. I revisited and created a local group for the
> IUSR and IWAM user accoutns and referenced it in the GPO...this worked and
> everything was working fine. Then I decided to play with SCW and see if it
> had any gains for me.
>
> Here is where I am confused...I ran the SCW wizard and used the XML file
> to create a GPO. Prior to applying the GPO I ran the SCW and applied the
> Policy to the local computer. Upon reboot I noticed that the local IUSR
> and IWAM users were in the appropriate user rights for IIS to function. I
> rebooted again and lo and behold there they were again. Now I ran RSOP and
> they do not show up in there (obviously..since they are not referenced in
> the GPO that is being applied to the Computer).
>
> SO my question is...where are these settings coming from? If they reside
> in the local policy...why aren't they overwritten by the OU GPO which has
> different settings? I understood that the Local policy will be overwritten
> by an AD policy. It seems that the AD Policy is used bu the IUSR and IWAM
> users are added to the specific rights. I am just trying to find out why
> and where this setting and functionality resides on the local Computer.
>
> I hope I have explained with enough detail..if not..I will check back and
> provide any information required. It is great that the SCW provided me
> what I needed...but I need to understand why so I can document it.
>
> Dan
>



Posted by Dan Kyle on November 8, 2006, 8:41 am
Please log in for more thread options
Thank you for the response.

The interesting thing is..I have made a small change to the GPO (and deleted
the winlogon.log) and rebooted...the new GPO gets applied..but I still see
the IUSR and IWAM users in the local security policy. THe Winlogon.log shows
the SID for the accounts and shows it as "remove SeNetworkLogonRight, Remove
SeInteractiveLogonRight and Remove SeBatchLogonRight". No where else inthe
Winlogon.log file do I see where it gets added. I must be missing something
obvious here (and apologize if I am) but do not see where these rights are
getting applied.

I am interested in you Administrator+LCLLogin and LCLbatch....but do not
quite understand..can you elaborate? What I have done is created a group on
each of the servers with the same role and named the group the same. That
way when I use the name of the group in the GPO it applies to all the
servers.

Dan


>I think that what you are seeing can be explained by the fact that a GPO
> is applied when it has been seen to have changed based on its version
> number. Once applied, if defaults for policy application are still in
> effect,
> then it will not be reapplied until/unless it is seen as changed.
> So, when the accounts were added directly in the local policy into the
> user rights due to your application of the SCW results, and you are then
> concerned that the GPO is not redefining these, this may be the reason.
> You could for example make a minor, insignificant change to some
> setting in the GPO, and then later reverse this, in order to increase the
> version number of the GPO, and you should see the machine later noticing
> this and reapplying the GPO.
>
> On another note, your approach of defining a group to use in the GPO
> for the user rights is one way that I handle this issue. Basically, where
> you have a GPO applying something like these user rights that very often
> need to be quite unique per machine, if one lists the actual machine local
> accounts (you can do this, you just need to type them in rather than
> expecting
> to pick them via the user interface) then one ends up with a GPO per
> unique
> machine. That is not so convenient. Instead, I use such as LclLogin,
> LclBatch,
> etc. and then set the user right in the GPO to Administrators+LclLogin, or
> to
> LclBatch, etc. and the one GPO can apply to a number of machines where
> each machine defines its own LclLogin, LclBatch etc membership (again, one
> needs to type in the group names).
>
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am noticing some interesting results when using the SCW and Group
>> Policies combined. I am wondering if someone can enlighten me on the GPO
>> processing. I am following the Microsoft Windows 2003 security guide and
>> have a Member server GPO (using Security templates) and below that I have
>> an OU for an SMS Server (but the question here is more for the IIS
>> services of the Management point.) I have created a GPO for the SMS and
>> had issues with the Management point requiring IUSR_COMPUTERNAME and
>> IWAM_COMPUTERNAME requiring logon locally, Access this computer from the
>> Network, Log on as a Batch job and such. In the GPO's I created I cannot
>> add these local computer user accounts to the User Rights assignments
>> portion. I ended up creating a new SMS GPO which overrode the Member
>> server settings for those User Rights and set them to not defined. This
>> worked and the MP work fine. I revisited and created a local group for
>> the IUSR and IWAM user accoutns and referenced it in the GPO...this
>> worked and everything was working fine. Then I decided to play with SCW
>> and see if it had any gains for me.
>>
>> Here is where I am confused...I ran the SCW wizard and used the XML file
>> to create a GPO. Prior to applying the GPO I ran the SCW and applied the
>> Policy to the local computer. Upon reboot I noticed that the local IUSR
>> and IWAM users were in the appropriate user rights for IIS to function. I
>> rebooted again and lo and behold there they were again. Now I ran RSOP
>> and they do not show up in there (obviously..since they are not
>> referenced in the GPO that is being applied to the Computer).
>>
>> SO my question is...where are these settings coming from? If they reside
>> in the local policy...why aren't they overwritten by the OU GPO which has
>> different settings? I understood that the Local policy will be
>> overwritten by an AD policy. It seems that the AD Policy is used bu the
>> IUSR and IWAM users are added to the specific rights. I am just trying to
>> find out why and where this setting and functionality resides on the
>> local Computer.
>>
>> I hope I have explained with enough detail..if not..I will check back and
>> provide any information required. It is great that the SCW provided me
>> what I needed...but I need to understand why so I can document it.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>
>



Posted by Roger Abell [MVP] on November 9, 2006, 12:07 am
Please log in for more thread options
What you describe that you have done with a uniformly named local group
on each machine, which same group is named in the GPO, is precisely what
I was also outlining. That gives a "middle ground" stance, where GPO does
(somewhat) control the user right, but where per-machine uniqueness is also
possible via the per-machine membership in the uniformly named local group.

As to the Iusr_ and Iwam_ I would need to check for your version W2k3/IIS6,
but I know that W2k/IIS5 had the following behavior, and I think W2k3/IIS6
does also (I do not use Iusr_/Iwam_ but always define custom accounts).
The behavior that I know was so in IIS 5 is that on startup the IIS binaries
verifies that the accounts have the needed user rights if and only if the
accounts
are the default Iusr_machine and Iwam_machine; but if custom accounts are
used for the anonymous browse or the IIS com isolation components these are
not populated into the minimum required user rights upon startup if needed.
Again, I would have to check if the behavior remains, but it would explain
what you see.


> Thank you for the response.
>
> The interesting thing is..I have made a small change to the GPO (and
> deleted the winlogon.log) and rebooted...the new GPO gets applied..but I
> still see the IUSR and IWAM users in the local security policy. THe
> Winlogon.log shows the SID for the accounts and shows it as "remove
> SeNetworkLogonRight, Remove SeInteractiveLogonRight and Remove
> SeBatchLogonRight". No where else inthe Winlogon.log file do I see where
> it gets added. I must be missing something obvious here (and apologize if
> I am) but do not see where these rights are getting applied.
>
> I am interested in you Administrator+LCLLogin and LCLbatch....but do not
> quite understand..can you elaborate? What I have done is created a group
> on each of the servers with the same role and named the group the same.
> That way when I use the name of the group in the GPO it applies to all the
> servers.
>
> Dan
>
>
>>I think that what you are seeing can be explained by the fact that a GPO
>> is applied when it has been seen to have changed based on its version
>> number. Once applied, if defaults for policy application are still in
>> effect,
>> then it will not be reapplied until/unless it is seen as changed.
>> So, when the accounts were added directly in the local policy into the
>> user rights due to your application of the SCW results, and you are then
>> concerned that the GPO is not redefining these, this may be the reason.
>> You could for example make a minor, insignificant change to some
>> setting in the GPO, and then later reverse this, in order to increase the
>> version number of the GPO, and you should see the machine later noticing
>> this and reapplying the GPO.
>>
>> On another note, your approach of defining a group to use in the GPO
>> for the user rights is one way that I handle this issue. Basically,
>> where
>> you have a GPO applying something like these user rights that very often
>> need to be quite unique per machine, if one lists the actual machine
>> local
>> accounts (you can do this, you just need to type them in rather than
>> expecting
>> to pick them via the user interface) then one ends up with a GPO per
>> unique
>> machine. That is not so convenient. Instead, I use such as LclLogin,
>> LclBatch,
>> etc. and then set the user right in the GPO to Administrators+LclLogin,
>> or to
>> LclBatch, etc. and the one GPO can apply to a number of machines where
>> each machine defines its own LclLogin, LclBatch etc membership (again,
>> one
>> needs to type in the group names).
>>
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> I am noticing some interesting results when using the SCW and Group
>>> Policies combined. I am wondering if someone can enlighten me on the GPO
>>> processing. I am following the Microsoft Windows 2003 security guide and
>>> have a Member server GPO (using Security templates) and below that I
>>> have an OU for an SMS Server (but the question here is more for the IIS
>>> services of the Management point.) I have created a GPO for the SMS and
>>> had issues with the Management point requiring IUSR_COMPUTERNAME and
>>> IWAM_COMPUTERNAME requiring logon locally, Access this computer from the
>>> Network, Log on as a Batch job and such. In the GPO's I created I cannot
>>> add these local computer user accounts to the User Rights assignments
>>> portion. I ended up creating a new SMS GPO which overrode the Member
>>> server settings for those User Rights and set them to not defined. This
>>> worked and the MP work fine. I revisited and created a local group for
>>> the IUSR and IWAM user accoutns and referenced it in the GPO...this
>>> worked and everything was working fine. Then I decided to play with SCW
>>> and see if it had any gains for me.
>>>
>>> Here is where I am confused...I ran the SCW wizard and used the XML file
>>> to create a GPO. Prior to applying the GPO I ran the SCW and applied the
>>> Policy to the local computer. Upon reboot I noticed that the local IUSR
>>> and IWAM users were in the appropriate user rights for IIS to function.
>>> I rebooted again and lo and behold there they were again. Now I ran RSOP
>>> and they do not show up in there (obviously..since they are not
>>> referenced in the GPO that is being applied to the Computer).
>>>
>>> SO my question is...where are these settings coming from? If they reside
>>> in the local policy...why aren't they overwritten by the OU GPO which
>>> has different settings? I understood that the Local policy will be
>>> overwritten by an AD policy. It seems that the AD Policy is used bu the
>>> IUSR and IWAM users are added to the specific rights. I am just trying
>>> to find out why and where this setting and functionality resides on the
>>> local Computer.
>>>
>>> I hope I have explained with enough detail..if not..I will check back
>>> and provide any information required. It is great that the SCW provided
>>> me what I needed...but I need to understand why so I can document it.
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>
>>
>
>



Posted by Dan Kyle on November 9, 2006, 8:53 am
Please log in for more thread options
Thanks for the info Roger,

Here is some further testing I have done.

Created a new Server and installed IIS. Looked at the Local security policy
and saw that the default rights for IUSR and IWAM users are there. Added the
Server to the domain without and GPO's applied...Local Security policy
remains the same (obviously). I then moved the Server to the required OU
which has the Member server GPO applied and rebooted. Looked at the Local
security policy and the IUSR and IWAM users are no longer in any of the User
rights (which coincides with my Member server GPO settings). I then ran the
SCW on the server utilizing only the IIS settings, created and applied the
policy. Rebooted and found that the Default user rights for IUSR and IWAM
REAPPEARED in the Local Security policy!!

TO test I renamed the winlogon.log file made a small change to the Member
server GPO and rebooted. Same behaviour. I was not able to make any changes
to the Local security policy either. Checking the winlogon.log file it shows
that the IUSR, IWAM and IIS_WPG users are REMOVED from user rights, does not
show then as being added and yet they remain in the local security policy.

This is highly unusual. Thing is..it is more or less what I want but I need
to understand why this behaviour is happening to document it.

As an aside....I am confused by some conflicting microsoft documentation
concerning IUSR user rights. the "IIS and Built-in Accounts(IIS)" Microsoft
document states that the IUSR user requires explicit membership in the
"allow logon locally", "access this computer from the network" and "logon as
a batch job". The conflict lies in the IIS Help file which states "In IIS
6.0, NETWORK_CLEARTEXT is the default logon type for Anonymous
Authentication (and for Basic authentication). One result is that Anonymous
authentication no longer requires the Allow log on locally user right".
SO...what is the real answer?? Funny thing is...on the new server with only
the Member server GPO applied with no rights given to IUSR user...I am able
to browse the static web site on the server with only anonymous
authentication enabled...very strange. Again..I must be missing something
obvious..

Look forward to your response.

Is ANYONE else using SCW and noticing this behaviour?

Dan


> What you describe that you have done with a uniformly named local group
> on each machine, which same group is named in the GPO, is precisely what
> I was also outlining. That gives a "middle ground" stance, where GPO does
> (somewhat) control the user right, but where per-machine uniqueness is
> also
> possible via the per-machine membership in the uniformly named local
> group.
>
> As to the Iusr_ and Iwam_ I would need to check for your version
> W2k3/IIS6,
> but I know that W2k/IIS5 had the following behavior, and I think W2k3/IIS6
> does also (I do not use Iusr_/Iwam_ but always define custom accounts).
> The behavior that I know was so in IIS 5 is that on startup the IIS
> binaries
> verifies that the accounts have the needed user rights if and only if the
> accounts
> are the default Iusr_machine and Iwam_machine; but if custom accounts are
> used for the anonymous browse or the IIS com isolation components these
> are
> not populated into the minimum required user rights upon startup if
> needed.
> Again, I would have to check if the behavior remains, but it would explain
> what you see.
>
>
>> Thank you for the response.
>>
>> The interesting thing is..I have made a small change to the GPO (and
>> deleted the winlogon.log) and rebooted...the new GPO gets applied..but I
>> still see the IUSR and IWAM users in the local security policy. THe
>> Winlogon.log shows the SID for the accounts and shows it as "remove
>> SeNetworkLogonRight, Remove SeInteractiveLogonRight and Remove
>> SeBatchLogonRight". No where else inthe Winlogon.log file do I see where
>> it gets added. I must be missing something obvious here (and apologize if
>> I am) but do not see where these rights are getting applied.
>>
>> I am interested in you Administrator+LCLLogin and LCLbatch....but do not
>> quite understand..can you elaborate? What I have done is created a group
>> on each of the servers with the same role and named the group the same.
>> That way when I use the name of the group in the GPO it applies to all
>> the servers.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>>
>>>I think that what you are seeing can be explained by the fact that a GPO
>>> is applied when it has been seen to have changed based on its version
>>> number. Once applied, if defaults for policy application are still in
>>> effect,
>>> then it will not be reapplied until/unless it is seen as changed.
>>> So, when the accounts were added directly in the local policy into the
>>> user rights due to your application of the SCW results, and you are then
>>> concerned that the GPO is not redefining these, this may be the reason.
>>> You could for example make a minor, insignificant change to some
>>> setting in the GPO, and then later reverse this, in order to increase
>>> the
>>> version number of the GPO, and you should see the machine later noticing
>>> this and reapplying the GPO.
>>>
>>> On another note, your approach of defining a group to use in the GPO
>>> for the user rights is one way that I handle this issue. Basically,
>>> where
>>> you have a GPO applying something like these user rights that very often
>>> need to be quite unique per machine, if one lists the actual machine
>>> local
>>> accounts (you can do this, you just need to type them in rather than
>>> expecting
>>> to pick them via the user interface) then one ends up with a GPO per
>>> unique
>>> machine. That is not so convenient. Instead, I use such as LclLogin,
>>> LclBatch,
>>> etc. and then set the user right in the GPO to Administrators+LclLogin,
>>> or to
>>> LclBatch, etc. and the one GPO can apply to a number of machines where
>>> each machine defines its own LclLogin, LclBatch etc membership (again,
>>> one
>>> needs to type in the group names).
>>>
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> I am noticing some interesting results when using the SCW and Group
>>>> Policies combined. I am wondering if someone can enlighten me on the
>>>> GPO processing. I am following the Microsoft Windows 2003 security
>>>> guide and have a Member server GPO (using Security templates) and below
>>>> that I have an OU for an SMS Server (but the question here is more for
>>>> the IIS services of the Management point.) I have created a GPO for the
>>>> SMS and had issues with the Management point requiring
>>>> IUSR_COMPUTERNAME and IWAM_COMPUTERNAME requiring logon locally, Access
>>>> this computer from the Network, Log on as a Batch job and such. In the
>>>> GPO's I created I cannot add these local computer user accounts to the
>>>> User Rights assignments portion. I ended up creating a new SMS GPO
>>>> which overrode the Member server settings for those User Rights and set
>>>> them to not defined. This worked and the MP work fine. I revisited and
>>>> created a local group for the IUSR and IWAM user accoutns and
>>>> referenced it in the GPO...this worked and everything was working fine.
>>>> Then I decided to play with SCW and see if it had any gains for me.
>>>>
>>>> Here is where I am confused...I ran the SCW wizard and used the XML
>>>> file to create a GPO. Prior to applying the GPO I ran the SCW and
>>>> applied the Policy to the local computer. Upon reboot I noticed that
>>>> the local IUSR and IWAM users were in the appropriate user rights for
>>>> IIS to function. I rebooted again and lo and behold there they were
>>>> again. Now I ran RSOP and they do not show up in there
>>>> (obviously..since they are not referenced in the GPO that is being
>>>> applied to the Computer).
>>>>
>>>> SO my question is...where are these settings coming from? If they
>>>> reside in the local policy...why aren't they overwritten by the OU GPO
>>>> which has different settings? I understood that the Local policy will
>>>> be overwritten by an AD policy. It seems that the AD Policy is used bu
>>>> the IUSR and IWAM users are added to the specific rights. I am just
>>>> trying to find out why and where this setting and functionality resides
>>>> on the local Computer.
>>>>
>>>> I hope I have explained with enough detail..if not..I will check back
>>>> and provide any information required. It is great that the SCW provided
>>>> me what I needed...but I need to understand why so I can document it.
>>>>
>>>> Dan
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>



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