Drew's IIS Blog

SQL Logging Module Demo

drobbins — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:21:55 GMT

Today I presented a session at TechEd Developer in Orlando title “What’s New in IIS7 for Developers”. As part of the presentation, I built an HttpModule for logging requests to a database. This demo is based on one from CarlosAg and is described here.

This HttpModule demonstrates that you can use ASP.NET modules inside the IIS7 pipeline to work against content of any type. The SQL Logging Module not only works for ASP.NET requests, but also works for static content, PHP applications and other application frameworks.

Thanks for all attended!

New Web Deployment Tool for IIS7

drobbins — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 21:25:15 GMT

The IIS team today released the technical preview of a new web deployment tool that addresses many of the requests I've heard from developers for making the deployment of web applications easier on the Windows platform. The new tool allows for synchronization of applications between IIS6 and IIS7 web servers, migration of applications from IIS6 to IIS7 and analysis and troubleshooting of applications during deployment/migration.

The best place to start is to download and read the walkthroughs for the new deployment tool. This will give you a really good overview of all the tasks you can accomplish with the tool. Then, you can start testing the tool with your own applications to see how it will ease deployment and migration for our scenario. The technical preview should only be used in a test lab, not in a production environment.

Of course, the point of a technical preview is both to let you see the technology and to get your feedback. For that purpose, there is both a blog and a forum setup for you to talk back to the product team.

Have fun!

How to Get Started

Download and read the walkthroughs: http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=8100895

Download the x86 version: http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1602

Download the x64 version: http://www.iis.net/downloads/default.aspx?tabid=34&g=6&i=1603

Web Deployment Tool forum: http://forums.iis.net/1144.aspx

Web Deployment Team blog: http://blogs.iis.net/msdeploy/

January-February MSDN Events on IIS7

drobbins — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 01:20:30 GMT

If you are in the U.S. and interested in hearing more about what's new for developers in IIS7, the MSDN Presenters will be traveling the states and presenting in a theater near you. That's right a movie theater. The thing I always love about attending the MSDN events is the free popcorn from the movie theater. :)

You can find an event near you and register at http://msdnevents.com/register.aspx

From the website:

In days past, a Web server was simply a place to throw your static and dynamic pages for delivery. That’s all changed with recent releases of IIS – and IIS 7 is no exception. This session will highlight several key features of IIS that make it our most extensible, manageable and secure Web platform ever. You’ll learn about the modular design of IIS and the integrated pipeline, providing for new scenarios that involve sharing authentication across IIS, ASP.NET and other dynamic web server runtimes. We’ll explore how the new IIS protocol listeners enable IIS to host WCF services on a variety of protocols (not just HTTP), providing a scalable and manageable host for your distributed applications. You’ll see how easy it is to write modules and handlers in managed code. Plus you’ll learn about the new security aspects of IIS 7, from initial deployment to feature delegation to administrator lists. After this lively session, you’ll be raring to do much more with your Web server than simply copying over ASP.NET pages.

Elizabeth Smith on FastCGI

drobbins — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 04:58:35 GMT

Elizabeth Smith wrote up a great explanation of FastCGI and the reasons it makes Windows a better host for PHP applications. In the opening, she writes:

What is FastCGI? I could go on for pages about the technical background, and Microsoft already has some great documentation on the subject, however I’ll put it in layman’s terms for those who aren’t Computer Science majors.

Read the article here.

Official Release of FastCGI Extension for IIS6

drobbins — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:17:32 GMT

Today at TechEd IT Forum in Barcelona, Bob Kelly announced the official release of the FastCGI Extension for IIS 6.0. This means customers now have reliable, high-performance hosting for PHP and other CGI-based applications on production Windows servers with full support from Microsoft.

The FastCGI extension allows IIS to reuse CGI processes for multiple requests which greatly improves the performance of PHP applications on Windows. This is exciting as many people at Microsoft have been working hard to make sure popular PHP applications work great on Windows.

Another great part of this news is that Zend has validated their Zend Core offering, a certified and supported version of PHP, on this release of FastCGI.

There are lots of resources on IIS.net to help get you started with FastCGI.

And don't forget to look forward to the great support for PHP on IIS 7.0.

Making PHP Applications Great on IIS7

drobbins — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 20:52:02 GMT

You may have heard about the new interoperability improvements for PHP and Microsoft technologies that Bill Staples blogged about. A few weeks ago, I spoke at PHP|Works in Atlanta and showed off a project I've been working on to demonstrate how PHP applications can take advantage of the new features of Internet Information Services 7.0 (IIS7).

The goal of my project was to enhance a PHP application hosted on IIS7 without changing the PHP code. In other words, the enhancements I would make could be packaged as an additional set of features or configuration steps when the PHP application is deployed to IIS7. However, the PHP application could continue to be deployed to currently targeted platforms, minus the enhancements for IIS7.

I chose the Qdig script (qdig-devel-20070210) as the target application for my project. The reason is that I like the simplicity of a self-contained script and the fact that it can be added to an existing application by simply dropping it into a directory containing images. It also makes it easier to explain the enhancements I made without the need to understand the architecture of a larger application. The same types of enhancements can be made to any PHP application whether large or small.

There are several out-of-box IIS features that Qdig can take advantage of by making simple configuration changes with IIS:

Take advantage of the new FastCGI module in IIS7 to improve the reliability and performance of your PHP code on Windows. See Using FastCGI to host PHP applications on IIS7
Use kernel-mode caching in IIS7 to significantly improve performance of your PHP application. See PHP on IIS7 w/ FastCGI via BillS's blog.
Use Forms Authentication to secure Qdig and the static image files. Using the built-in membership database or a custom membership provider. See How to Take Advantage of the IIS7 Integrated Pipeline

Getting Qdig up and running on IIS7 was easy using the instructions documented here. My next step was to enhance the script using some of the new extensibility features of IIS7.

So far I've added several enhancements that make Qdig a great application when running on IIS7.

1. Enabled Forms Authentication and Role Manager

One of the easiest things to take advantage of is the new integrated pipeline to secure your Qdig site with ASP.NET Membership. I used the built-in SQL Express database provider which gives me a membership store for user registration. I also used the same database with Role Manager to add a role for users authorized to update captions in Qdig. Both the membership and role systems use a provider model, which means the data store can be replaced with whatever you want to use.

Now when I click the Admin link for caption editing, I'm prompted with a login page.

I can use the new .NET Users and Roles features in IIS Manager to manage the users who have access to my Qdig gallery:

Remember, to use these managed modules with PHP, you need to locate them in the Modules feature and uncheck the option to Invoke only for requests to ASP.NET applications or managed handlers.

Because Qdig doesn't know about the Roles assigned by RoleManager, I created a quick IHttpModule that executes for every request. If the URL being requested includes the Qdig command for Admin, then the module checks for authorization.

2. Extended the Configuration Schema

I added three elements to IIS7's configuration schema to help manage Qdig. The first two I'll use later to help automate deployment of the Qdig script to a new virtual directory. I added the target name of the Qdig script (by default index.php) and a source location to copy a fresh Qdig file from.

The third element allows me to configure the role used to authorize users for caption editing. I can set this system wide or for each website or application.

Here's a shot of the schema file:

And the configuration element in applicationHost.config (or a local web.config)

3. Extended IIS Manager

Finally, I added several features to IIS Manager to allow website or application owners to deploy Qdig and configure it from the IIS Manager. One benefit of extending IIS manager is that the new deployment and configuration capability will work from a remote computer using the new remote IIS manager over an HTTP connection.

What's Next?

With a just a little work, I've been able to enhance the Qdig application when its running on IIS7. I'll be adding on more features such as integration with the new FTP server to allow image uploads. I'd also like to get all of the Qdig settings, which are currently embedded in the Qdig script, integrated into the IIS7 configuration system. This would allow me to distribute and delegate Qdig settings and deploy the settings across a web farm using IIS7 shared configuration.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting more examples of integrating Qdig with IIS7 and the actual code for my example. For now, it's off to Barcelona, Spain for TechEd Europe.

Great Screencast on IIS7 and PHP with FastCGI

drobbins — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:03:00 GMT

Scott Hanselman produced an awesome screencast on configuring IIS7 and PHP with FastCGI. He also does some live performance testing of the Qdig application using CGI, FastCGI and the new kernel-mode caching in IIS7.

From Scott's blog:

You can watch the video/screencast on the new Hanselman Silverlight Player (thanks Tim!) or download the WMV directly. If you guys want more IIS7 videos in detail, give me feedback in the comments and I'll see what we can do about putting together a series over on http://www.iis.net.

Scott Hanselman's Computer Zen - Screencast HowTo: IIS7 and PHP with FastCGI

If you are interested in configuring PHP and FastCGI on IIS7, there's a walkthrough in IIS.net: Using FastCGI to host PHP applications on IIS7

Interview by PodcastStudio on IIS7

drobbins — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 18:32:00 GMT

While at the Heartland Developers Conference, Jeff Julian and John Alexander interviewed me about the new features in IIS 7.0. In fact, they interviewed quiet a few people on a variety of topics while at the conference - lots of great content. You can follow along on Jeff's blog.

Here's a link to the audio for my interview where we discuss the new modular architecture of IIS, .NET extensibility and shared configuration.

Windows Server 2008 for ASP.NET Developers

drobbins — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 04:38:35 GMT

Today I spoke at the Heartland Developers Conference on why ASP.NET developers should care about Windows Server 2008. If you were at the session or just want to know more about what's in store for you as an ASP.NET developer, check out the following resources.

Windows Server 2008 Developer Training Kit - this set of Hands-on-Labs and PPT files demonstrate several of the features you can take advantage of on the Windows 2008 platform. There are labs for Transactional NTFS, Windows Eventing 6.0, Powershell, IIS and the .NET 3.0 framework technologies. The IIS lab will help you build a managed-code module to extend the IIS pipeline as well as an UI extension for the new IIS Manager. There are additional examples on IIS.net for developer extensions for IIS and manager.

If you are interested in the self-hosting capabilities of IIS7, there is an article in the MSDN library called Creating a Hosted Web Core Application. In addition, there is an API reference. One example of why you want to do this is to create isolated testing configurations for your web applications including all of the managed and native pipeline modules.

IIS Technical Evangelist

drobbins — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 18:57:00 GMT

Hello, my name is Drew Robbins. I just started as the IIS Technical Evangelist focused on developers who build web applications that use and extend our platform.

On this blog, I'll be covering topics like the following:

Taking Advantage of IIS7 as an ASP.NET Developer
Using technologies like PHP, ColdFusion, Rails, Python with IIS7 and Windows 2008
Creating Managed Extensions to IIS7
Hosting Web Services in IIS7
Programming Windows Media Services
Highlighting People/Companies Creating Great Apps for IIS7

To give you a little background, I've been developing web applications since sometime in college. I started out writing applications in PERL before I was introduced to some of the popular frameworks at the time. I had a lot of fun coding in various environments such as Cold Fusion, PHP and ASP. I've spent the last 5-6 years focused primarily on ASP.NET, while still keeping an active interest in other frameworks.

I value using the best tool for the job, while not reinventing the wheel every time new technology arrives. That's how I arrived at this role. IIS is an exciting technology, because it is not only a great web server, but it enables you to combine the technologies that make sense for your organization or project. With IIS7, I can use both .NET and PHP together. I can even pull in tools like BlueDragon and integrate CFML.

I'm not a big proponent of mixing a lot technologies into a single project, but I do get excited when you can download a great PHP blog application like Wordpress and integrate it into your existing ASP.NET site using the built-in membership providers (Mike recently did just that). That saves a lot of time so you can concentrate on creating new functionality.

Feel free to contact me via this blog or email. My alias is drobbins at Microsoft.