Setup the Anonymous writer service

Applies to: Content Studio ver. 3.2 +

When Content Studio is installed the Anonymous Writer service is installed as a helper service. This service is used when you want to be able to let anonymous Internet users do things with documents that they normally are not allowed to do. By default, users from the Internet can only browse your site at those locations where you allow them to do so. However if you like Internet users to create documents in Content Studio (ex. in a discussion forum) you must make a workaround. Anonymous Writer service is a component that is installed as a separate application, Content Studio Anonymous Writer, under Windows Component Service COM+-applications on the web server. By default this application is configured to run as the interactive user and will not work when there is no user logged on to the web server. The first thing to do is to configure the application to run under a certain account and then make Content Studio aware of this account.

In Content Studio 4.0 and later

• Create a new local user on the web server, name it CS_Anonymous. Set a strong password on the account and ensure that the password does not expire.
• In Component Services on the web server configure the Content Studio Anonymous Writer COM+ application to run as this new user.
• In Content Studio give the CS_Anonymous account the permissions you would like ex. Read/Write/Create in the site location where you like the Internet user to be able to write.
• Now you can use the Anonymous Writer Active scripting component to enable Internet users to write content directly.

In older versions of Content Studio

• Create a new local group on the web server, name it CS_Anonymous writers.
• Create a new local user on the web server, name it CS_Anonymous. Set a strong password on the account and ensure that the password does not expire.
• Make this user a member of the CS_Anonymous writers group.
• Register the group in Content Studio and give it the right to use Content Studio.
• In Component Services on the web server configure the Content Studio Anonymous Writer COM+ application to run as this new user.
• In Content Studio give the new group the permissions you would like ex. Read/Write/Create in the site location where you like the Internet user to be able to write.
• Now you can use the Anonymous Writer Active scripting component to enable Internet users to write content directly.

The Anonymous Writer service will make calls to the Content Studio server as a regular authenticated user. You can control the access permission for the Internet user by setting permissions to the group where the CS_Anonymous is a member. Remember that all users are members in the Everyone group so never set any permissions except for Browse to this group.