IIS 7 Error “A specified logon session does not ex

Question

I am trying to create Client Certificates Authentication for my asp.net Website.

In order to create client certificates, I need to create a Certificate Authority first:

makecert.exe -r -n “CN=My Personal CA” -pe -sv MyPersonalCA.pvk -a sha1 -len 2048 -b 01/01/2013 -e 01/01/2023 -cy authority MyPersonalCA.cer

Then, I have to import it to IIS 7, but since it accepts the .pfx format, i convert it first

pvk2pfx.exe -pvk MyPersonalCA.pvk -spc MyPersonalCA.cer -pfx MyPersonalCA.pfx

After importing MyPersonalCA.pfx, I try to add the https site binding to my Web Site and choose the above as SSL Certificate, but I get the following error:

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

In my case it was because the World Wide Publishing Service user didn't have permissions to the certificate. After installing the certificate, access the certificates module in MMC and right-click the certificate with the issue. Select "Manage Private Keys..." from the "All Tasks" menu and add the above user. This was SYSTEM user in my case.

Answer 2

In my case I imported a newer version of a certificate (PFX for IIS) from StartSSL just recently and forgot to remove the old one, which somehow caused this error (now two certs sort of the same). I removed both of them, imported the proper one, and now it works.

Answer 3

I managed to fix this problem by importing the SSL certificate PFX file using Windows Certificate Manager.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/view-or-manage-your-certificates

Answer 4

Security warning: what the checkbox really means is that the certificate can be read by users that shouldn't be able to read it. Such as the user running the IIS worker process. In production use the other answer instead.

Happened to me too, and was fixed by ensuring that "Allow this certificate to be exported" is checked when you import it:

                                           

(thanks to this post!)