[mapserver-users] Network / UNC access problems

[Emerson, Gabe]

Hello everyone,

Once again I have an issue that's apparently been solved before, but
doesn't work for me. Hopefully this is an ability that Mapserver still
retains. 

I'm trying to access network resources (in an IIS environment) from
mapserver. The IT people have set up the web server with a domain
account, and given it access to the relevant network drives (it's
Intranet only, inside our firewall). They've also set up some virtual
folders pointing to the network locations, and put those into the
mapserver directory.

The web server has no problem accessing the files, I can browse to the
data through it (as in "domain.com/aeimagery/minr2c2.ecw". However,
Mapserver's CGI isn't able to access the data. 
I've tried using the standard UNC path:
DATA "\\server\aeimagery\minr2c2.ecw"

I've also tried using the local shortcuts that IT set up, as in:
DATA "../AEImagery/MINr2c2.ecw"

And as the full web server path:
DATA "D:/inetpub/gis/AEImagery/MINr2c2"

I've tried /, \, all lowercase, etc. I've also confirmed that local
copies of the aerials and shapefiles work.

For aerials I simply get nothing to appear. For shapefiles I get the
usual:
msDrawMap(): Image handling error. Failed to draw layer named
'Metro_Area'. msSHPOpenFile(): Unable to access file.
(\\server\data\research\esri\county) msSHPOpenFile(): Unable to access
file. (\\server\data\research\esri\county)

Since I'm not in control of the server config, I can't guarantee that
everything in IIS is set up correctly. IT tells me that the webserver
process is a domain user, and they've seen the prior mailing list posts
on this topic. Since I can access the virtual folders that point at the
network resources, I assume the server and its processes have the proper
access. At this point I'm stumped as to what else is necessary, or what
else I can ask IT to test for. Any suggestions would be appreciated!

-Gabe Emerson