IIS: Problems Using SSL with AuthentiX ISAPI Filter (304637)

We strongly recommend that all users upgrade to Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS) version 6.0 running on Microsoft Windows Server 2003. IIS 6.0 significantly increases Web infrastructure security. For more information about IIS security-related topics, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/prodtech/IIS.mspx

SYMPTOMS

If you are browsing with Microsoft Internet Explorer version 5.0 or later and you have Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) enabled while you are using a Flicks Software AuthentiX Internet Server API (ISAPI) filter, you may receive the following error message:

Page Cannot Be Displayed

CAUSE

Normally AuthentiX sends a Pragma: no-cache header with each file that is served in a cookie-protected folder; if you have cookie timeouts set, this ensures that a page is not cached in the browser and is not available for viewing after the timeout has expired. When you attempt to download a file with SSL and Internet Explorer, the Pragma: no-cache header causes an error.

NOTE: With SSL, the default setting for all browsers is not to cache pages from SSL encrypted sites, so the Pragma: no-cache header is unnecessary.

WORKAROUND

To turn off Pragma: no-cache headers, follow these steps:

In the registry, add the following REG_DWORD value with the name CookieStopNoCache. Set its value to 1 to stop the Pragma: no-cache headers.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/Software/Flicks Software/AuthentiX/1.0/AuthentiXConfig
NOTE: If you want to stop the Cache-Control: private header, use CookieStopPrivate. If you want to stop Expires: 0, use CookieStopExpires.
Use Control Panel to stop and restart the IIS Admin Service (if you are running IIS versions 4.0 or 5.0) or the World Wide Web Publishing Service (if you are running IIS 3.0).

REFERENCES

For more information, see the following Web site:

http://www.flicks.com/prod.htm#authnx