BillS IIS Blog : Configuration

Now Online: Comprehensive IIS7 Technical Reference

bills — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:33:50 GMT

If you’ve ever tried to find information on how to install a particular IIS7 feature, or how to configure it using the IIS Manager tool, AppCmd.exe, the new Microsoft.Web.Administration interface or WMI provider, this post is for you.

Every IIS7 feature is now comprehensively documented on http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/

This IIS7 Technical Reference provides a list of all the built-in IIS7 features, alphabetized for quick access. If you know the configuration name you are interested in, just type it into the URL…for example if you’re looking for information on the system.webServer <caching> setting, type: http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/system.webServer/caching and whoila, you now have a complete set of reference material on the subject. Literally hundreds of pages of documentation are now freely available at http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/ and super easy to access.

Each topic has a quick summary of what the feature is, how to install the feature as well as a quick “how-to” article (with pictures) on locating and using the feature inside IIS Manager. Each feature is carefully documented with comprehensive information on the configuration section behind each feature including information on each attribute, it’s type and default value as well as sample configuration. And perhaps best of all, every topic also has sample code for how to use the feature from AppCmd.exe, C#, VB.NET, JavaScript and VBScript! No more scavenging the forums or live search for sample code!

This reference guide could not have happened without a lot of hard work by many, especially Robert McMurray and Pete Harris (the mysterious man behind the iis.net site). Many thanks to them, we hope you enjoy this new section on our community site!

Why IIS7? Top 12 cool features…

bills — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 04:13:45 GMT

Every time I talk with customers in meetings or at conferences I’m struck by how many cool amazing new capabilities IIS7 has. I can go on for literally hours talking about the new features and benefits, and showing demos. And with each new IIS7 Extension, the list of new features just gets bigger and bigger. A few months ago I realized we didn’t have the top list of features written up anywhere, and so we started the process of distilling down the list to the top 10. We almost made it! We ended up with the top 12 reasons you should get IIS7 today. Check them out here:

http://www.iis.net/getstarted

Over the next few weeks we’ll be adding a cool demo for each of the reasons to show the features in action. Be sure to check back soon!

Find New IIS7 Extensions at http://www.iis.net/extensions/

bills — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 22:55:00 GMT

I’m happy to announce that IIS7 Extensions have found their home at http://www.iis.net/extensions

Every since IIS7 shipped 9 months ago, the IIS team has been cranking away adding new features to the platform. Last time I blogged about how we do this, I realized we didn’t have a single place to learn about all of them, so I kicked off an effort within the team to create this. Now that the pages are up, it is amazing to see how many new capabilities are already available on top of IIS7…which all by itself had more new features than any other IIS release in the history of the product. It is a testament to not only the ingenuity and hard work of the IIS team, but a real validation that IIS7 is not just a Web server, it is a server platform. All of these new features are built on top of public extensibility points that any developer can use, and provide a seamless runtime, configuration and administration experience that looks and feels like they were built into the product to begin with! Here they are:

Landing page: http://www.iis.net/extensions

http://www.iis.net/AdministrationPack

http://www.iis.net/ApplicationRequestRouting

http://www.iis.net/BitRateThrottling

http://www.iis.net/DatabaseManager

http://www.iis.net/FTP

http://www.iis.net/IISManager

http://www.iis.net/PowerShell

http://www.iis.net/SmoothStreaming

http://www.iis.net/URLRewrite

http://www.iis.net/UrlScan

http://www.iis.net/WebDeploymentTool

http://www.iis.net/WebPlaylists

http://www.iis.net/WebDAV

Check out the more than a dozen new features available today! Over the next few weeks we’ll be adding video demos of each feature and more new content. Stay tuned for many cool new features to come!

How to Script / Automate IIS7 Configuration (without writing code)

bills — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:58:00 GMT

I hear this question a lot in the http://forums.iis.net/, and thanks to Carlos and team's rocking Configuration Editor, figuring this out on your own is a breeze. Here is how you can generate code for ANY IIS7 configuration change, without writing a line yourself.

1) download the IIS7 Administration Pack. What, you don't have it already? You're really missing out on some fantastic tools, including the Configuration Editor. Learn more about the admin pack here http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/401/using-the-administration-pack/ You can download x86 and x64 from http://www.iis.net/downloads.

2) open "IIS Manager" and click on the "Configuration Editor" feature under the "Management" category:

3) Find the configuration section(s) you want to edit using the drop-down combo box, in this case isapiFilters:

4) use the configuration editor to make your change. In this case, I'm editing a collection, which pops up a collection editor where I can add items to the isapiFilter list by clicking 'add' in the task pane.

5) once you're done making any configuration updates, click on the 'Generate Script' task in the main Config Editor window:

6) the script generator creates three ways of automating the configuration change you just made C#, JavaScript (again the AHAdmin COM interface) and AppCmd.exe

7) Copy and Paste these changes into your own script / code and whoila, you've got sample code for making any IIS7 configuration change.

You may also want to read up on the IIS7 Administration APIs. You can find a lot more information here:

Using Scripts to Automate Management

Managing IIS with the IIS 7.0 PowerShell Provider

How to add mime types with IIS7 Web.config

bills — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:27:48 GMT

Ever wanted to add a custom mime type to your Web server? I ran into this issue the other day when I tried to serve up .mp4 files from my Web server and duh, I got this error:

404.3 error - mime type missing!

Why does IIS block requests for unknown mime types? Well, unlike some web servers, we believe it is irresponsible to serve out random content. After all, did you really intend to serve up that .mdb (access database), .passwd (password), .inc (source include) or other random files that may have landed in your web content directory? We really don't know, so we error on the safe side and block all unknown extensions by default from being served. To make it easy to troubleshoot, we return this special error - coded 404.3.

Thankfully, adding mime types is easier than ever thanks to the all-new distributed configuration option, which allows for IIS7 configuration to be stored in web.config files, along with asp.net configuration, to be deployed with your content. This makes transferring IIS7 configuration from your Vista PC to your hosted server as easy as copying files! Read more about this in the Delegating Configuration section of http://learn.IIS.net

In this post, I'll show how easy it is to add mime types to your Web server. This method will work on any IIS7 web server, and it will be ignored on all non-IIS7 web servers, so it should be safe to do no matter the type of application or content. Since the <staticContent> section is delegated by default, the configuration snippets below should 'just work' on all IIS7 Web sites.

Scenario: Let's say I want serve up some h264 video and need to add the .mp4 and .m4v file types to IIS7? It's as easy as:

1) create (or edit) the web.config file in your site's home directory

2) edit it as follows:

<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <staticContent>
            <mimeMap fileExtension=".mp4" mimeType="video/mp4" />
            <mimeMap fileExtension=".m4v" mimeType="video/m4v" />
     </staticContent>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Scenario 2: Let's say I want to add Silverlight-related mime types to my site/application? See this article for all the gory details, but it is as easy as:

1) create (or edit) the web.config file in your site's home directory

2) edit it as follows:

<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <staticContent>
     <mimeMap fileExtension=".xaml" mimeType="application/xaml+xml" />
     <mimeMap fileExtension=".xap" mimeType="application/x-silverlight-app" />
     <mimeMap fileExtension=".xbap" mimeType="application/x-ms-xbap" />
     </staticContent>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Also, if you'd like a fancy UI to help you to manage mime types, IIS Manager provides a nice tool based approach. Just click on the 'mime types' feature:

and then click 'add' on the Actions pane:

Whoila!

How to backup/restore IIS7 configuration

bills — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 03:55:07 GMT

Won's recent post on possible configuration corruption caused by OneCare/Forefront reminded me of something that every IIS7 customer should know about: how to backup and restore IIS7 configuration!

No matter whether your configuration file gets corrupted, you make changes you decide to roll-back, you accidentally foo-bar your .config file or some act of terror occurs, some day you'll want to go back to a prior configuration file. Thankfully, IIS7 makes this super easy.

Backup/Restore via the command line

Backing up IIS7 configuration is as simple as copying the \windows\system32\inetsrv\config directory (and subdirectories) into a backup directory, so you don't need anything special to do it. Just include this directory in whatever your OS/content back-up plan is, or write a custom script to do it.

To help make managing backups easy, we've added a simple cmd-line option to AppCmd.exe that makes management of backup/restore sets easy. For example, to backup configuration, run the follow command:

> %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe add backup "My Backup Name"

to restore that backup, run this command:

> %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe restore backup "My Backup Name"

to delete a backup, run this command:

> %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe delete backup "My Backup Name"

Pretty easy, eh? Except for the dirty little secret everyone knows...remembering to do a backup! Thankfully, IIS7 comes to the rescue here. Thanks to a feature called IIS7 configuration history, IIS will automatically make history snapshots of ApplicationHost.config each time a change is detected, enabling you to easily restore to a prior version. By default, IIS checks for a new version every 2 mins, and will keep 10 prior versions of the file. IIS7 stores these snapshots in the %systemdrive%\inetpub\history folder by default. You can change any of these settings by editing the <system.applicationHost/configHistory> section in ApplicationHost.config. This article explains the feature in great detail.

IMPORTANT NOTE: This feature only appears in Windows Server 2008 and Vista SP1. It is not in original release version of Vista , as it was not yet finished when Vista first shipped. This is one of the thousands of changes that was made to IIS7 after Vista RTM, and is one of many reasons you should install SP1 as soon as possible!

How do you restore a prior snapshot? Well, you could just go to the \inetpub\history\cfgHistory_NNNNNNNNNN directory and copy the applicationHost.config file into it's proper place: \windows\sytem32\inetsrv\config. Or you can use the same command as above for restoring a backup to restore a configuration history file.

To enumerate a list of backups and configuration history files, use the following command:

> %windir%\system32\inetsrv\appcmd.exe list backup

See how the config history files show up just like backups? Use WinDiff or some other tool to figure out which configuration history you want to restore, then use AppCmd.exe restore backup command to restore it!

How to enable directory browsing with IIS7 web.config

bills — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:32:00 GMT

IIS7 includes an all-new distributed configuration option, which allows for IIS7 configuration to be stored in web.config files, along with asp.net configuration, to be deployed with your content. This makes transferring IIS7 configuration from your Vista PC to your hosted server as easy as copying files! Read more about this in the Delegating Configuration section of http://learn.IIS.net

In this post, I'll show how easy it is to enable directory browsing for your Web site or a directory on your site. This method will work on any IIS7 web server, and it will be ignored on all non-IIS7 web servers, so it should be safe to do no matter the type of application or content.

Scenario: Let's say I want to enable directory browsing for a special directory on my site, how do I enable that? It's as easy as:

1) create (or edit) the web.config file in your site's home directory

2) edit it as follows:

<configuration>
  <location path="special_directory_name_here">
   <system.webServer>
    <directoryBrowse enabled="true" />
   </system.webServer>
  </location>
</configuration>

Note you will need to change the location path to equal the directory name you want to enable directory browsing for. If you want to enable it for the entire site, just remove the entire <location> and </location> tags (which tell IIS7 to scope the configuration changes to just the path specified). Enjoy!

PS:

Hi Bill I read your blog about "How to enable directory browsing with IIS7 web.config" (http://blogs.iis.net/bills/archive/2008/03/24/how-to-enable-directory-browsing-with-iis7-web-config.aspx#comments) Chris added a comment that he likes to know if it's possible to hide files from being displayed in the directory list. It's correct that you can't configure this behavior through web.config, but it works if you just set the file as "hidden" on the filesystem. I'm writing you because i'm not registered, so maybe you could add this information on the blog entry or in the comments.Would be nice because i didn't find this information anywhere, I figured it out by myself. RegardsJens

How to (un)block directories with IIS7 web.config

bills — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 18:44:37 GMT

IIS7 also includes a new request filtering feature that protects your Web site by filtering requests. IIS7 looks out for well known attacks and automatically rejects them. You can tell IIS7 about special patterns you want to look out for, and you can block access to certain parts of your site, by simply adding new configuration to your Web.config file. For more information on the request filtering feature, visit the http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/143/how-to-use-request-filtering/ article.

In this post, I'll show how easy it is to block or unblock sections of your site from being accessed. This method will work on any IIS7 web server, and it will be ignored on all non-IIS7 web servers, so it should be safe to do no matter the type of application or content.

By default, IIS7 blocks access to a few well-known special directories, including "bin", "App_Code", "App_Data" and so forth. This is because these directories often contain special code or data that is normally never accessed directly from the Web. You may want to protect other directories on your site from being accessed, for example your "log" directory or "database" directory. Or you may be using an application, like Lightroom, which actually requires access to one of the previous blocked directories like "bin". You can easily block or unblock access to directories by adding a bit of configuration to your web.config file.

Scenario: Let's say I want to block the "log" directory from being accessed on my site? It's as easy as:

1) create (or edit) the web.config file in your site's home directory

2) edit it as follows:

<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <security>
            <requestFiltering>
                <hiddenSegments>
                    <add segment="log" />
                </hiddenSegments>
            </requestFiltering>
        </security>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Note: if you instead want to unblock a directory like "bin", to enable applications like Lightroom to work with IIS7, the configuration required is exactly the same as above, except for the <add segment="log"/> directive. Change it to be <remove segment="bin" /> and IIS7 will allow access to "bin" directories on your site (Careful: if you do this on an ASP.NET site you may be unintentionally allowing access to assemblies that are normally protected)

Also, if you'd like a fancy UI to help you in managing your request filtering rules, check out the new IIS7 Admin Pack which just shipped and includes a new UI feature which makes managing this feature easy!

How to add a default document with IIS7 web.config

bills — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:40:00 GMT

IIS7 includes an all-new distributed configuration option, which allows for IIS7 configuration to be stored in web.config files, along with asp.net configuration, to be deployed with your content. This makes transferring IIS7 configuration from your development box to your hosted server as easy as file copy! Read more about this in the Delegating Configuration section of http://learn.IIS.net

In this post, I'll show how easy it is to add or change a default document for your Web site. This method will work on any IIS7 web server, and it will be ignored on all non-IIS7 web servers, so it should be safe to do no matter the type of application or content.

Scenario: Let's say I want to add index.php as the default document for the new whiz-bang PHP application I just downloaded. IIS doesn't recognize index.php as a default document, so how do I enable that? It's as easy as:

1) create a web.config file in your application directory

2) edit it as follows:

<configuration>
   <system.webServer>
    <defaultDocument>
        <files>
            <add value="index.php" />
        </files>
    </defaultDocument>
   </system.webServer>
</configuration>

How does this work? IIS7 monitors web directories for the web.config file, and will notice any time a file with this name is created or changed. It reads the configuration in the file and merges it with any parent or global configuration set at higher levels (at a site or server level). In this case, we're telling IIS to add the "index.php" value to the list of default documents. You can also remove an individual entry in the defaultDocument list by doing this:

        
<files>             
    <remove value="index.php" />         
</files>

Or you can clear all of the inherited values in the defaultDocument list first by doing this:

IIS7 distributed configuration is very powerful! Read more on http://learn.iis.net.

IIS6 Metabase Property to IIS7 Configuration Mapping

bills — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 04:50:00 GMT

Here is some useful documentation I stumbled upon which may be of interest. If you're ever wondering "where did that IIS6 metabase property go?" as you stare at the applicationHost.config or web.config file, look no further than this MSDN documentation for a complete mapping: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa347565.aspx

Note: you may need to use this document in conjunction with the schema files in \windows\system32\inetsrv\config\schema in order to know where the configuration section lives, what type it is, defaults etc.