No data is logged in the cs-username field when using the Advanced Logging feature of IIS

  • Article

This article helps you resolve the problem where no data is logged in the cs-username field in the logs file when you use the Advanced Logging feature of Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS).

Original product version:   Internet Information Services
Original KB number:   2529915

Symptoms

Consider the following scenario:

  • You're running an IIS 7.0 or 7.5 web server.
  • You've installed the Advanced Logging feature and have it configured to include cs-username data in the log files.

In this case, no cs-username entries are logged.

Cause

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Advanced Logging feature of IIS.

Resolution 1: Change applicationHost.config directly

Important

The following steps involve directly editing the applicationHost.config file. Always back up your configuration files before making any changes.

To work around this issue, edit the applicationHost.config file for the Advanced Logging feature using the following steps:

  1. Open the C:\Windows\System32\inetsrv\config\applicationHost.config file in a text editor.

  2. Locate the <advancedLogging> section.

  3. In advancedLogging, locate the <field id='UserName'...> entry. By default, the entry is as follows:

    <field id="UserName" sourceName="UserName" sourceType="
 RequestHeader " logHeaderName="cs-username" category="Default" loggingDataType="TypeLPCSTR" />

  4. Modify the sourceType field to be BuiltIn, as follows:

    <field id="UserName" sourceName="UserName" sourceType="
 BuiltIn " logHeaderName="cs-username" category="Default" loggingDataType="TypeLPCSTR" />

  5. Save the changes and close the text editor.

The cs-username column of the Advanced Logging logs should now be populated. You don't need to restart the IIS services to make this change take effect.

Resolution 2: Change applicationHost.config by Appcmd.exe

You can use the Appcmd.exe tool to make the configuration change, instead of editing the config file directly. To do so, run the following command from a command prompt inside the Inetsrv directory:

appcmd.exe set config -section:system.webServer/advancedLogging/server
/fields.[id='UserName'].sourceType:"BuiltIn" /commit:apphost