Server install removes MachineKeys permissions for users

[safzal]

We had installed version 7.0 Standard on Windows 2012 server. After the install, we noticed that the machine key permission had been modified and only the IIS_IUSR had permissions on the folder. We tried to modify the permissions but when the server was rebooted, the permissions were again reset to IIS_IUSR.

The Vault is functioning correctly and we don't have any issues using it but due to these permissions, we're not able to do things like remote desktop. We need to have the machine key permissions restored.

[Beth]

Vault doesn't remove permissions, only adds. In addition, it only has the ability to do that during the install. There isn't a function in the Vault server that can change permissions on the MachineKeys folder.

Can you check your Event Viewer logs for right after the reboot to see if anything informative is there about the change?

As a "just in case" ran two additional tests where I added permissions that Vault doesn't need on the MachineKeys folder and installed. I can't show anything changing.

[safzal]

Thanks for the feedback, Beth. We couldn't find any helpful info in the event log. Our OS support team is looking further into it. Initial thought pointed to sourcegear as it happened after we installed sourcegear on the server and I had seen another similar blog. I'll let you know in case there's anything related to sourcegear.

[Beth]

Sure. If you still have issues, then send an email to support at sourcegear.com.

[Beth]

One other thing you could check is if you have your Windows Updates set to automatically update, and then look to see if you ever lost the ability to remote desktop to the machine after one of the updates. We ran into a situation where after an update, we lost remote desktop and had to make some firewall changes to get it working again.