MsDeploy is returning 403 forbidden

Question

We had a Web Application working on an intranet and I'm trying to publish it to the internet using Visual Studio 2010. The destination server is running iis7 and the Web Management Service is running.

On Visual Studio 2010 my service URL is:

https://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8172/MsDeploy.axd

And site/application is:

Default Web Site/WebApp

Marking as IIS App on destination and Allow untrusted certificate is checked and i'm using an administration account.

Visual Studio return the following error:

Start Web Deploy Publish the Application/package to https://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8172/MsDeploy.axd?site=Default%20Web%20Site ... C:\Program Files\MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\v10.0\Web\Microsoft.Web.Publishing.targets(3588,5): Error : Web deployment task failed.(Remote agent (URL https://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8172/MsDeploy.axd?site=Default Web Site) could not be contacted. Make sure the remote agent service is installed and started on the target computer.)

Remote agent (URL https://xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:8172/MsDeploy.axd?site=Default Web Site) could not be contacted. Make sure the remote agent service is installed and started on the target computer. An unsupported response was received. The response header 'MSDeploy.Response' was '' but 'v1' was expected. The remote server returned an error: (403) Forbidden.

Any ideas how to publish it without a valid SSL certificate?

Answer 1

If you go into IIS,
Click on the server node in the "Connections" list,
Double click "Management Service" then you are taken to a screen which has an "Enable remote connections" check box.
This checkbox (and the rest of the sreen) maybe greyed out because the service is running. Just click the "Stop" link in the Actions pane, then check the "Enable remote connections" box and any other settings you want to change here, then click 'Apply' and 'Start' on the Actions pane again.

That should hopefully let you connect, with proper credentials, to the service from a remote machine. (If the correct ports and stuff are opened and all that jazz.)

I think this helps your situation. At least you won't get 403's but you may have some other MsDeploy error.

Answer 2

Web Deploy can give you a whole bunch of errors if not setup correctly. Do yourself a favour and use the Web Platform Installer (https://www.microsoft.com/web/downloads/platform.aspx). You should uninstall WebDeploy first if you've already tried to install it. From the WebPI select: "Web Deploy 3.6 for Hosting Servers".