Hi,

I'm attempting to configure DNN for my company to use as a portal, and I'm trying to use AD authentication.  I've followed the steps that KimberlyRox posted, and am able to get users to automatically login to DNN using windows authentication.  The problem I'm having is that this auto authentication only works if the user enters the Netbios name of the server when going to the portal.  That is, I have our DNN server (let's call it DNNBOX) in our DMZ, with an external IP address.  The address for that dnn server is "DNNBOX.myco.mycompany.com".  If the user who is authenticated against myco.mycompany.com types in "DNNBOX" in the address bar, they're automatically logged into our DNN instance.  If the same user tries to type in "DNNBOX.myco.mycompany.com" or "DNNBOX.mycompany.com", they're challenged to enter their Active Directory user credentials.  We want users to be challenged to enter their AD credentials when they log in from outside of our network, but when they're internal, we'd like for them to be able to type in "DNNBOX.mycompany.com" and be passed straight in to DNN.

I have tried adding DNNBOX.mycompany.com to Intranet Sites on the local IE client, and that works for users who are authenticated, but if the user is trying to hit our DNN site from the internet, they get a page cannot be found error.  Once I remove DNNBOX.mycompany.com from the list of Intranet sites, the user gets challenged and everything works fine.

We're trying to avoid any situation where users have to use two separate URLs to access the site (one for the office, one for home and travel).  We would also like to avoid adding "DNNBOX.mycompany.com" to the Intranet or Trusted sites list if possible.  If anyone has any ideas as to what I may be doing wrong, I'd greatly appreciate it. 

Thanks in advance!!

Thanks for the feedback Mike!

Yesterday, when I was playing around with putting dnnbox.mycompany.com in the trusted/intranet sites, whenever I tried to log in from outside of our network, it gave me a page cannot be displayed error.  It didn't give me any Windows challenge, or anything like that.  Is this because I have the authentication line uncommented in the web.config?

Thanks!

Hi Mike,

Thanks again for getting back to me.

I did set the permissions on windowssignin.aspx to use Windows authentication, and disabled Anonymous access there.  It's strange that it should fail externally, because I was using the same laptop externally that I was using internally, meaning that my credentials were the same (though of course, being external, I hadn't been authenticated against our DC).

Overall, my setup seems to be what you indicated: Authentication is uncommented in the web.config, windowssignin.aspx is using Windows authentication only, and the site isn't in my trusted/intranet sites anymore.  When I'm internal and use the FQDN, I get challenged.  External and using the FQDN or one of our DNS aliases, I get challenged.  Internal and just using the simple NETBIOS name, I get passed right through.  But, as soon as I add the site to my trusted/intranet, I get passed through perfectly fine internally, and then get the Page Cannot Be Displayed externally (with no AD challenge dialog box).

Thanks again!