Nant : change file permission

Question

I have an ASP.NET application. Basically the delivery process is this one :

• Nant builds the application and creates a zip file on the developer's computer with the application files without SVN folders and useless files. This file is delivered with a Nant script.
• The zip and nant files are copied to the client's computer
• the Nant script replaces the current website files with the file contained in the zip file.

My problem is that with this process I have an Unauthorized access error when I try to open the website. It seems that the files need to have a permission set for the user "IIS_WPG".

I don't have the power to change IIS configuration so I have to manually change the permissions of each file. And each time I replace the files the permissions are removed and I need to set them again.

So I have two questions :

• Can I change files permissions with Nant ? How to do it ?
• Is it possible to avoid this problem ? (developers don't have this user on their computers)

Answer 1

@Jeff Fritz Ouch... Your suggestion is the right solution but the parameters are... dangerous :).

On dev computers I'm logged as administrator and I tried your suggestion with cmd.

• It replaces all the permissions set in order to set only the ones defined in the command (so, after the command, accessing files resulted in a "Access denied" even with my admin user)
• It applied on the C:\WINDOWS\ directory, while I called the command from the wwwroot folder. :)

So, after some tests, the right command is :

cacls [full folder path] /T /E /G IIS_WPG:F

• /T : applies on specified folder and subfolders
• /E : edits the ACL instead of replacing it :)

Answer 2

You need to run the CACLS program in windows to grant permissions to files and folders. From Nant, you can do this with the EXEC task.

Try a tag block like:

<exec program="cacls">
    <arg value="*" />
    <arg value="/G IIS_WPG:F" />
</exec>