Can't Reach Remote Desktop Web Page Where I Change My Password

Question

It used to be that if anyone's password expired on the cloud server that my clients RDP into daily, I'd have them visit https://servername/RDWeb/Pages and go through the steps there to change their password so they can log back in. No one can reach that page now, per Chrome and Edge browser error messages that say the page "can't be reached". I realized prior to this that I had a Serv-U FTP service that was getting in the way with its own HTTPS listener; it kept interrupting attempts to visit the URL above and instead displaying unexpected Serv-U pages. I've since turned that off. But I still can't get to the RDWeb page to change my password. I've tried restarting the web server via IIS but the RDWeb/Pages password change screens still "can't be reached". Any ideas? I'm running Windows Server 2019 on that server.

Answer 1

Alright, I've determined that I needed to restore a site binding for HTTPS. I had this set up just fine before, and either I removed it or the Serv-U software removed it when I was trying to set Serv-U up to also run as a web SFTP service. In trying to prevent a conflict between Serv-U and IIS, that site binding removal disabled my RDWeb password change page. To correct it I did the following on the server (adapted from https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/rakkimk/2007/05/25/iis7-how-to-configure-a-website-for-https/):

Configuring the SSL port for a website

1. Open the IIS 7 manager.

2. Select the website under Connections (in the left hand side).

3. Click on Bindings under the Actions pane (in the right hand side).

4. Now, click on Add.

5. Select the type as https and enter the Port – default will be 443.

6. You cannot click on the OK button till you select the SSL certificate for the site.

7. If you haven’t installed any server certificate, you won’t see any certificate listed in the drop down box. To get a server certificate, please follow the ...steps [below for] “Getting a Web Server certificate” (This was already done months ago in my case).

8. Select the certificate and click on OK.

Getting a Web Server Certificate

1. Open the IIS 7 manager.

2. Select the computer name under Connections (in the left hand side).

3. Select the Features View and double click on the “Server Certificates” feature.

4. You will find options to create a Certificate request, Complete Certificate Request, Create Domain Certificate and Create Self-Signed Certificate under the Actions pane (in the right hand side).

5. For this example, lets create a self signed certificate – Click on “Create Self-Signed Certificate…”.

6. Specify a friendly name for the certificate and click on OK.

7. Our self-signed certificate will be created and ready to use.