I have a web site that hits a fileshare on our network and uses the computer (webserver$), not a user account, to authenticate as the website runs as Network Service. I thought I could create a local account on the web server and runas to test hitting the file share, but that didn't work (access denied hitting \Server). The website is hitting the share, but it seems like subfolders are not consistently granted permission; this is what I'm testing.
This is related as it covers setting up access.
How to grant network access to LocalSystem account?
I'd thought this was my solution, but I've tried as System, NetworkService, and LocalService and none of them can access the share.
How can I test this authentication from the web server?
UPDATE 20180613
A sub-folder didn't have the web server's access/permission applied and this is resolved, but for my own knowledge, I would still like to know how to test a file share+subfolder access with the permission granted by computername$. It's easy if it is a user account because I can specify a username/password, but I can't seem to find the right way to manually test if the access is granted to a computer instead of a user.
Best Answer
Essentially, you have to become
NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM. There are a variety of ways to do that, but the easiest is probably PsExec. From an elevated cmd prompt, use the following to open a new cmd prompt as the system account.From there, verify who you are with
whoamiand proceed to test however you want.